Students at SMU don’t have to travel far to be scared this Halloween. There are great, creepy places all over Dallas — you just have to have the guts to find them.

For a trip really close to home, students just need to go over to the local library. One of the stories about Fondren Library tells the tale of a ghostly professor who haunts the eighth floor of the West stacks.

Colton Van Dusen, a junior computer engineering major, said he heard the story his freshman year from his resident assistant.

“I heard it was one of the old university presidents who died in his office, and now the stacks are haunted by him,” he said.

Brian Fox, a junior electrical engineering major, said he is not surprised there’s a legend about the stacks.

“It’s pretty spooky up there,” he said. “You can hear howling up there all the time.”

Marcella Stark, one of the librarians from Research Services, said she could not be sure if the story was more than an urban legend.

“I’ve talked to several colleagues, but no one can remember what actually happened. Most of us think the story was created by a local professor who just knew how to tell a good story,” she said.

Betty Friedrich, a librarian from DeGolyer Library, said she also assumes the story is an urban legend. “The actual story might be that back in the 50s, when President Umphrey Lee had an office in the West stacks. After he retired, he was in his office and had a heart attack. But he didn’t die in the library,” she said.

Stark said the wind was responsible for the howling noises heard by students. “It just whistles through the cracks in the walls around the windows. I would doubt there’s a ghost rattling around up there.”

SMU’s local howler isn’t the only legend from around Dallas, though. Snuffer’s Bar and Grill, a long-time favorite of many SMU students, is also said to be haunted.

According to the Southwest Ghost Hunters’ Association, guests and employees have seen a ghost. The phantom supposedly emerged after the remodeling of the restaurant and is said to be seen mostly in the hallway that connects the old building with the new addition.

Before the remodeling of the restaurant, some legends say the old section of the restaurant attracted a rougher crowd. Supposedly, some woman was stabbed in the hallway and managed to get outside through the door before bleeding to death. Several years later, the restaurant was bought and connected to another café. The woman’s ghost has lurked around ever since.

While none of the current waiters or waitresses admit to seeing any suspicious activity, in 1998 SGHA documented several strange phenomena. Supposedly, the green hanging lamps in the old dining room started to swing in unison, and no attempts to duplicate the event were successful. Strange cold spots allegedly occur in the hallway and near the old doorway. According to several of the current waitstaff, customers have often complained about the AC being on too high when seated close to the hallway, either in the old dining room or the old bar.

According to SGHA and Lone Star Spirits, another Texas-based paranormal research group, Snuffer’s has a high probability of being haunted.

A more scenic SMU hangout, White Rock Lake, is also allegedly haunted. According to The Dallas Morning News, several versions of the story have been developed over the years. A special report on the newspaper’s Web site states the general story is of a high school couple that drove to the lake on prom night. When the car’s emergency brake was accidentally released, the car rolled into the lake, and the girl drowned.

“Her ghost is said to appear dressed in the wet prom dress hitchhiking on streets near the lake. Good Samaritans mistake the ghost for a person and give her a ride only to find that the ghost disappears and leaves behind a pool of water,” the Web site states.

Other versions of the story place the initial tragedy in the early 1920s. This account describes a bootlegger and his lady enjoying an evening on his boat at the lake. The two had an argument during the evening, and when the boat docked, the lady ran from the deck, jumped into the man’s car and drove off. The roads around the lake were not well maintained at the time, and the woman was probably intoxicated. As she drove, she lost control of the car, it plunged into the lake, and the woman drowned.

According to SGHA, her spirit materializes as a young woman in a soaking wet evening dress. “She requests to be taken to a certain address, then disappears, leaving a wet seat. The lady has been known to leave her wrap in the car, bear[ing] a 1920s style Neiman Marcus label,” the organization’s Web site states.

According to Lone Star Spirits, the lake is reportedly haunted, though SGHA only admits that there appears to be sufficient evidence to warrant a more detailed search of the area.

Docia Schultz Williams, author of Best Tales of Texas Ghosts and Zinita Fowler, author of Ghost Stories of Old Texas, both tell the story of strange crying children in Carrollton. Sometime around the turn of the century, a new family moved into Carrollton.

Williams said, “They were a very serious family, and the children never laughed or played with the neighbor children. Then, one day the whole family just disappeared.”

Fowler writes that a concerned preacher initiated a search party for the family, but despite days of searching, the family was never found. Soon after the family’s disappearance, lightening struck the house, burning it to the ground.

According to Fowler, a peddler came into town months later. On his way, he passed the ruins of the house. Supposedly, he heard the “the unmistakable sobbing of a child ... By the light of the rising moon, he saw again the forms of three children, ghostly pale, standing by the ashes of the old house.”

Williams said people claim to this day, when they are walking in that area around dusk, “they can hear the children, who aren’t there, crying out in the fading twilight.”