Thanks for the memories Pike House... Thanks for the memories.

The San Marcos Institution known as the Pike House is dead. Some cheesedick went in there with his 15 year old buddy and set the whole thing on fire. MAN!

The Pike House was a massive plantation style building that was four stories high and adorned with two beautiful porches. The truth is that the building served as a dormitory for a boys school, the local hospital and finally the house for the Pike fraternity until they up and left the place in '97. The legend, however, is the reason the Pike House will live on in infamy long after the dust has settled.

Rumor has it that this building was used as everything from a Civil War hospital to an insane asylum. I heard countless stories of terrible experiments gone awry, chambers where people were left to die, rooms filled with antiquated instruments that looked more like torture devices and of course, my personal favorite: the bloodletting... and the documents to prove it.

It was a San Marcos to tradition to sneak into the Pike House and have the crap scared out of you. You'd gather up a bunch of friends who were either drunk enough or brave enough and you'd walk around this busted up old building searching for something that would make all of the stories you heard true. It was stupid, it was dangerous and it was wicked fun. This place holds a bunch of memories for me. I'm sad to see it go. So for anyone who ever got up the nerve to go into the house, for anyone who ever drove by it late at night when it was all lit up with that massive flood light, for anyone who ever gave the legend life by telling the tales... this is for you.

Here she is in all her glory. When I still believed everything that I'd heard about the Pike House, I always imagined the people in the asylum being let out to play on that massive lawn. Creepy...


This is the mail box that was around the back of the house. I have no idea why but the first time I saw this, I was terrified. It's a mailbox...


See that second story window? On the opposite side of the building there's one just like it. That's where Q fell out and broke her ankle. Now that I think about it, it's a miracle that she didn't die that night. What were we thinking?!?!


The kitchen of the Pike House. I never really understood how that worked. There were no appliances except for a massive freezer. That's probable where they put the bodies. (Insert maniacal laughter here)


That giant hole in the ceiling? That was there when in my day. Seriously, I can't believe no one ever fell through that thing when we were wandering around upstairs.


Pretty porch.


The basement where all those experiments took place? The mortuary with all the drawers for the dead bodies? This is where it was supposed to be. There's nothing there except this stuff and some pipes and a buttload of wasps. However, there were a bunch of pledge books nailed to that support beam. Everyone says that some pledges died during pledge week and the actives made the rest of the pledges write down what happened in their pledge books, burn the books and nail them to the wall. Whatever.


I always wanted to go into the Pike House during the day and do something like this to freak other people out. It really melted my butter that someone else got there first and that they did it so lamely. Boo to that!


I wasn't with Huck when this happened but she says that she was in there one night with like one other person and suddenly all of doors in this hallway slammed shut!! ARGH!! Is that right, Huck? Am I telling this correctly?


Sad little fan... I remember being so creeped out at the sight of this droopy fan that I was holding on to Kid for dear life. We were both clinging to each other like there was no tomorrow. That night, my first night in the Pike House, was a lot of fun. Kristi wouldn't even go into the building so she stayed on the lawn by herself until she got creeped out and got back in her car. MM showed up that night with Amy Jo and led a group of, like, 11 of us around the place with a Bic lighter.

Going in that building was probably one of the stupidest things I've ever done but it was so completely worth it. They'll probably have to tear it down now because of all the damage from the fire. Maybe new legends will spring up about someone being possessed by the spirit of one of the asylum victims and burning the whole place down. Perhaps the story will go that the entire place burst into spontaneous combustion because it's a hotbed of paranormal activity. I hope so. I hope some clever soul won't let the legend die just because the building is gone. I mean, what else are the kids gonna do on a Friday night?