Overview
The George Stickney House stands in rural Bull Valley, Illinois, built in stages from the 1840s by George and Sylvia Stickney, practising spiritualists who — architectural legend insists — had the corners of the house rounded so no spirit could be trapped, and who held seances in a purpose-kept upstairs room; the couple's documented family losses, several children dying young, gave their spiritualism its sorrowful purpose and the house its lasting aura. Passing through later owners — including a countercultural era that fed wilder tales — it was eventually acquired by the village, and today, improbably and famously, it serves as Bull Valley's village hall and police station, whose officers have contributed their own accounts: footsteps upstairs, voices, doors, moved objects and a woman's figure, reported matter-of-factly over the years to local press. The building is a working municipal office, not an attraction: exterior viewing or business visits only. The record should present the rounded-corner story as cherished legend, the family's real grief respectfully, and the reports as workplace telling.