The Thurber House was the home of author, humorist and New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber and his family while he was a student at The Ohio State University from 1913-1917. The Italianate house was built in 1873 and was renovated in 1984. Thurber House, which opened after its renovation in 1984 as a non-profit literacy center and museum of Thurber materials, is furnished in style of the period that Thurber lived in the home with his parents, two brothers and dogs. The first two floors are open daily for tours. The site also features The Thurber Center next door which serves as a contemporary classroom and conference facility and the Centennial Reading Garden complete with five Thurber dogs, a foundation and three Central Park benches between the buildings. In addition to its literary legend, many visitors – and even Thurber himself – reported legends of a different kind – ghostly encounters. According to his story “The Night the Ghost Got In,” Thurber was in the upstairs bathroom when he heard a man’s heavy footsteps pacing around the dining room table downstairs. Thinking a burglar had broken in, he woke his brother William and, as they approached the top of the stairs, the steps stopped. Suddenly, they heard the footsteps quickly coming at them two at a time, but when they looked there was nobody there. Frightened, William ran to his room and Thurber ran into the bathroom and shut the door, just as the footsteps reached him. Since then, others have had books thrown at them and have seen shadowy figures moving across lighted windows. It’s been speculated that the ghosts are the spirits of 7 people who died when the Ohio Lunatic Asylum burned down on November 17, 1968. The Asylum covered several blocks of downtown Columbus, including the site where the Thurber House now stands.