Issue date: 11/12/08 Section: Housing Guide

Pemberton Hall residents concentrate on a torn piece of paper found in the time capsule and work together to piece it back again on Oct. 14 outside of Pemberton Hall. The digging up of what was believed to be a 1962 time capsule turned out to be one from Hallows Eve of 1979, when the residents of Pemberton dug up the 1962 capsule and replaced it with their own. (File photo/The Daily Eastern News)

Pemberton Hall residents gather around the central stairway in a 1955 photo, reprinted with permission from the University Archives, next to some of the current Pemberton Hall Residents. Pemberton Hall become the first residence hall for women in Illinois in 1909. (Courtesy of University Archives/The Daily Eastern News)

At first glance, Pemberton Hall looks like a bulwark of stone - gray and somber like most buildings.

The building was the first women's residence hall in Illinois, earning it a spot on the state's Historic Register. Charles H. Coleman, a former Eastern history professor, recorded Pemberton's history in his book, "Eastern Illinois State College, 50 years of Public Service," published in 1950.

"Eastern's first president, Livingston Lord, believed that a women's residence hall was 'absolutely necessary' if the school was to 'cultivate in its students the spirit that its graduates should take into their own schools, and into communities in which they teach,'" Coleman wrote.

This semester is Pemberton's 100th anniversary.

Lord worked from 1900 until 1907 to obtain the state funding needed to build Pemberton. Having a residence hall on campus was not a popular idea. But one state senator, Stanton C. Pemberton of Oakland, was convinced. While the inside boasts the expected period furniture, the musty smell older buildings acquire, a creepy fourth floor and a possible ghostly presence - facts or not that tour guides spotlight for visitors - it's the building's 180 residents with their iPods, makeup and laptops that define the building as a center for modern activity.

Quite possibly the biggest drawback to living in Pemberton is its lack of air conditioning, but even this becomes a minor annoyance as residents learn the building's history.

"Once they move in, they discover the charm of the building," said Mark Hudson, director of Housing and Dining.

To ward off August and September heat and humidity, the hum of electric fans permeates the building.

Residents also prop open room doors and keep their windows up. This creates an unexpected benefit.

Tucked between a screen of trees at the corner of campus, most students are only vaguely aware of Pemberton as the place where they wait in long lines to get their textbooks.

Upon leaving Pemberton's front door, a resident would have to pass the corner of Pemberton, where Textbook Rental resides, the Physical Sciences Building and McAfee Gymnasium on the right and then the Student Services Building, the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union and the Library Quad on the left to reach Gregg Triad, the next closest residence halls. None of these buildings existed before Pemberton. Besides Old Main, it is the oldest building on campus.

Lord and Pemberton did not achieve funding for the state's first residence hall until 1907. The state legislature passed the funding twice, only to have the governor veto it. The funds finally appropriated were $100,000 and included money to build a gymnasium, where Textbook Rental is now located. As the building neared completion, an additional $3,000 was allocated to finish 10 rooms in the basement and attic.

On the far end of the Pit - residents' affectionate term for Pemberton's basement - in a back room, five washing machines and six dryers spin. The air smells soft and is reminiscent of a time when clean towels seemed bigger and fluffier.

A Precious Moments blond-haired boy, his Dalmatian puppy and a girl are captured in a mural on the far wall. To reach the room, the women who live in the Pit must walk through the "Creepy Hallway." The hall is narrow and painted grayish green. At one intersection the outline of a dead body can be seen on the cement floor.

One Halloween many years ago, when Pemberton residents transformed the building into a haunted house, the clean up crew removed the tape marking where the imaginary crime scene victim lay, but the adhesive stuck to the cold concrete, forever leaving the spooky outline.

Some believe Pemberton is haunted.

The ghost is that of Mary Hawkins, who, rumor has it, stays around to look after the girls.

Hawkins did exist. She was the building's head of house. Hawkins supervised Pemberton from 1910 until her death in 1917. She did go crazy, but not because, as rumor says, she opened her door one night to find a resident attempting to reach safety before she died after being attacked by a crazed janitor. Hawkins really died of syphilis, Hudson said.

The other spooky rumor about Pemberton is about a girl who was murdered on the fourth floor. The fourth floor is now boarded up.

"No one has ever died in that building," Hudson said.

"We've gone through and looked through the archives and not found anything," he said.

Pemberton officially opened Jan. 4, 1909. It housed 100 women for $4 a week. Coleman wrote that the hall exceeded Lord's hopes.

"It forms the social center of the school," Lord wrote to the president of the Normal School in Cape Girardeau, Mo., about the women's residence hall in 1911. "The girls learn certain things necessary for them to know that they cannot learn in the classroom."

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