History & local legend
Niagara Hall opened at Penn State Behrend in 1968, taking its name from Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s Lake Erie ship. Its student ghost story concerns a resident called Henry, said to have lived on the third floor of the west wing in the 1970s.
According to the legend, Henry became trapped in his room on a bitter winter night when the heater failed and the door jammed. His roommate found him the following morning with his arms around the heater. Later occupants supposedly heard the same desperate movements at night: the heater rattling, followed by someone trying the door.
