Collegiate Times

Every town has ghosts. Whether they are simply stories of the past kept alive by long-term residents or strange unexplained phenomena, every town, including Blacksburg, has a story to tell.

The Lyric

A workman died during construction of the theatre in the 1930s. Some say that explains some of the strange after-hours happenings in the theatre. Perhaps the creepiest story is of ?the screamer.? People closing up the theatre have said that they hear a scream ?like a banshee? coming from the direction of the ticket booth. This voice doesn?t always scream; however, occasionally it also yells ?Let me out! Let me out!? Lyric employees also say that they hear a man and woman conversing on the balcony after the theatre has closed. When employees go up to the balcony to shoo away the unwelcome guests, no one is there.

Yellow Sulphur Road

?Story as I heard it when I was 15 goes, the land the buildings are on used to be some kind of slave quarters during the Civil War,? said an unnamed source who has lived in Blacksburg his entire life. The land later became the site of a hotel ? but not one that many locals visited.

?We start hearing that there is a group of Satanists living out at the hotel and that they kill dogs and other animals, they chase people away from the land,? they said.

During high school, the source visited the spot he had heard about. He got out of the car and saw people inside, and then a chase ensued.

?I run back to the car, we start taking off down this old country road, and sure enough, another car is following us, some guy hanging out the window carrying a 2x4. We lost the car, end of story,? he/she said.

Today, sources say that the hotel is now closed and traveling to that spot a few miles down Yellow Sulphur Road will fill you with a sickeningly eerie feeling.

The Black Sisters

Mention the names Mary Snead, Caroline Martin or Virginia Wardlaw to any Christiansburg resident, and you?re bound to hear a good story. These three sisters lived in Montgomery County in the mid 1800s and were always seen wearing all black clothing ? giving them the nickname ?The Black Sisters.? The sisters spent their time in Christiansburg running the Montgomery Female Academy. The sisters had a knack for stealing other women?s husbands who would then mysteriously die. One man, John Snead, Mary?s son, was brought to the Christiansburg area and was later found dead after being burned in a bed soaked in kerosene. John had a room in the school where he stayed, and he was found there after he burned. Foul play was suspected, but no charges were ever made. They acquired enormous debts and eventually left the area in 1908. They moved to New Jersey where the sisters were convicted of manslaughter after the strange drowning death of their relative, Ocey. While the sisters remained in Christiansburg, people were afraid to go outside at night or answer their doors for fear that the sisters would be there, according to an article written by the Southwest Virginia Ghost Hunters Society. The sisters were also reported to have a fondness for cemeteries, and one taxi driver who drove them there claimed to see them enacting some strange ritual around a gravesite. Virginia Wardlaw is buried in the Sunset Cemetery in Christiansburg. Today, the Montgomery Female Academy no longer stands, but in its place is the Christiansburg Middle School. There are reports of lights going on and off at the school and of people seeing shadowy, dark figures walking the hallways. To some, it appears that the black sisters have returned to take care of their school.