Does Mr. Cooper Still Dwell in His Home?
Photo by Darken Wolf
LARAMIE, Wy. — University of Wyoming’s Cooper House is rumored to be haunted, with doors closing on their own, erratic tapping across the building, the sounds of children and men walking upstairs, and the eerie, “demon-possessed” basement.
With the history of the home, including the death of Barbara Cooper, some people have speculated about who and what is haunting the building, with stories from both students and faculty across campus sharing their experiences with the haunting.
“People are always telling us there’s ghosts here,” said Professor Sophia Beck, who used to work in the house. “I had a couple of things that happened, and I always called the ghost Mr. Cooper.”
She recalled a time when “[she] came into the office, [she] was the only one there in the morning, and [she] could smell, like, a peppermint tobacco,” which Mr. Cooper was known to smoke.
Beck has had a long and detailed history with the house, often finding answers to the hauntings as well as collecting other students’ stories.
Her story with the house started when she started working with the university.
“[I’ve] worked at the university since 1985, and I moved to the American Studies program in 2000,” said Beck. “I realized at some point [before my first day] they had already given me a key and stuff. So, I went over on the weekend and [got] my office set up. I heard footsteps upstairs, back and forth, and then children’s footsteps. So, I assumed that one of the faculty was there with their children.” She said she “didn’t think anything of it” until she “heard it again.”
“So, I went upstairs to see if anybody was there,” she said.
One of her most frightening stories was a personal experience with a spirit she calls Mr. Cooper, and the alleged fact that he is still protecting the house long after his death.
“I was standing by my office door and I seen a long icicle,” said Beck. “It was really thick above our door because we had this carport. And I said…I need to call a physical plant to come and break this icicle, because if that fell, that would definitely hurt someone’s head. And as soon as I said that, the knob on the door to the front door opened and then shut real hard, and broke that icicle. I could not move for 5 minutes…I could not move. I mean, I could not move from there,” she said.
Beck says that these supernatural experiences have been happening to her for a long time, though she would never claim that the ghosts in the home are malicious at all.
“Oh no, it’s not malicious. It never has been,” she said. “I often feel like it protects the place and wants to make sure that it is taken care of and well respected by the people there.”
At one point, a friend of Beck’s performed an EVP, or an electronic voice phenomenon.
Beck explained how she took her friend “upstairs, and we had the recording on, and we could hear feet behind us as we were walking upstairs in the hallway,” yet “there was no harm to anybody. Basically, the spirits were good.”
However, there is also rumored to be a dark presence in the basement of the building, which has “demonic” drawings painted on the wall, and no light bulbs.
Beck talked about her experience with the basement, and the fright it brought her and her students.
“The downstairs,” she said, “really had a reputation of, my gosh, ‘don’t go down there,’ because there’s this mural and it looks like a Spanish mural of, like, a devil worshipping or something.”
“I went down there,” she said, “but I did not like going down there.”
She discussed how another paranormal investigator examined the basement and concluded that it was haunted by a spirit that had died there and not been recovered for multiple days.
Beck looked for medical records to try and confirm the supposed incident, but was unable to conclusively find anything.
However, later in the interview, Beck debunked the rumors that the basement was “demon-possessed” by explaining that Cooper’s offspring was really into Black Sabbath and Metal and the drawings in the basement just reflect that.
The haunting of the Cooper house also affected the staff on a deep level.
“We had a custodian that was working with us” that had just began cleaning, Beck said, when “the bathroom door upstairs in the corner shut. And she tried to open it and it shut again. And then she tried to open it again and it shut.” Eventually, the “door opened on her, and no one was in there, so she just ran down the stairs, and left, and she never came back.”
Beck encourages students to not be afraid of the Cooper house, proclaiming the good nature of the spirits in the home.
She also said that Mr. Cooper is still in the home, making his guess feel safe.
After finding out about a family member’s passing, she said that it “felt like the presence of Mr. Cooper [was] taking care of [her] and telling [her] it was going to be all right.”
“Don’t be afraid of the Cooper House,” said Beck. “It’s always been a safe place.”
