Pennsylvania Hall (Gettysburg College)
Built in 1837 as the first building of Pennsylvania College, the Greek Revival "Old Dorm" was the largest structure in town when the battle reached it in July 1863. As the campus passed from Union to Confederate hands, its classrooms became a field hospital where surgeons treated nearly 700 wounded men from both armies, many dying inside.
Its enduring legend dates to the 1980s, when two administrators working late are said to have taken the elevator down, only for it to bypass the first floor and open onto a blood-soaked operating ward in full swing, a surgeon glancing up to wave them in before the scene dissolved. Popularized in Mark Nesbitt's Ghosts of Gettysburg and broadcast on Unsolved Mysteries, it is often called a "time slip." The hall now holds the college president's offices.
📍 Gettysburg College campus, 300 N Washington St, Gettysburg, PA 17325, Gettysburg, PA · Get directions