The below images are of “Spook Hall” in Liberal, Missouri, which served the spiritualists of the community, thus its name.
Exterior showing gable end, from the Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
Detail of gable end showing entrance, from the Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
Nancy Benton provided the below image of Spook Hall in winter, noting, “The building still stands today. During WW II it was used as a canning center. People could go there and preserve their food in tin cans. When I was in high school, it was the Vocational Agriculture building.”
Spook Hall in winter
J. P. Moore instead writes in his book on Liberal that the building, which had been built in 1890 by the Spiritual Science Association, and stood at the northeast corner of Yale and Paine Streets, was torn down in the spring of 1962.
With the waning of spiritualism, the building was sold to the Belks on January 21, 1903, then on July 24, 1930 was purchased by the Liberal school district.
There were some who felt Spook Hall should be preserved as so much of the town’s history was associated with it, and the school board offered to give the building for purposes of preservation, as long as it was removed to another place, but in the end there were no takers, the building was sold and “the buyer tore it down for the material”.
