Western Student Brings Haunted Tradition Back from the Dead

For years, stories floated around Gunnison and Western Colorado University about the haunted houses that once stood silently watching over the community’s Halloween festivities. They were ghostly extravaganzas that brought families, students, and the Gunnison community together for a night of shrieks and screams. But lately, it’s been the Haunted House doing the ghosting.

That’s what inspired Western senior Adam Collins to bring Gunnison’s Haunted House back from the dead. “I kept hearing about the haunted house Western used to do, but that just kind of stopped,” Collins said. “So I decided to make it happen.”

With only a month to prepare, Collins found space in the old Masonic Lodge, which was recently donated to Western, and enlisted the help of Western Director of Unity and Belonging Sally Romero and the Multicultural Center she leads – which hosted haunted houses in the past – as well as the Student Government Association, several campus clubs, Western president Brad Baca, and his cabinet.

The result is a two-night haunted house set to open October 30 and 31. Now themed as a haunted hotel, the reimagined Lodge will feature rooms decorated by members of Western’s student clubs and student scare actors, creepy soundscapes, and a grand finale fit for a slasher film.

On both nights, the Haunted House, at 120 N. Iowa St., will offer a kid-friendly version with no spooky actors, costumes, or scares from 4 to 6 p.m. But from 7 to 10 p.m., the tone will shift toward the terrifying, with scare actors and special effects taking over. Admission is free for Western students, $5 for local K–12 students, and $10 for general admission. Children 5 and under are free.

Eight campus clubs are already involved, and each has selected a local nonprofit to receive a portion of the proceeds. And the timing of the Haunted House pairs perfectly with the evening’s other events, like trick-or-treating at IOOF Park and the Undead Ball at the Gunnison Arts Center on Halloween Night from 9 p.m. to midnight.

“There’s no playbook for this,” Collins said. “We’re just figuring it out, but people are stepping up. I think once students see how fun it is, it’ll become something they want to be part of.”