The first recorded Halloween prank occurred in 1904, when a freshman’s furniture was moved from his room to the top of a lumber pile on the crown of the Hill and perfectly rearranged, complete with a dummy to represent him and bottles on the table. The same year, a small stick of dynamite was ignited in the doorknob of a dormitory room.
The apex of pranks occurred in 1905. All available classroom chairs were taken to the top of Jefferson Hall (pavilion) and arranged for a meeting; the Mess Hall’s tables were transported to the crown of the Hill and arranged as a beer garden; the court house Spanish-American War cannons were painted in alternate stripes of red, white, and blue and the cannon balls stuffed into them; the contents of the chapel were moved to the top of Jefferson Hall; Dr. Charles Perkins’s buggy was taken into his classroom on the fourth floor of Science Hall; a cow was pastured in the commandant of cadet’s office, another in the law library, and a third in Dr. Hoskins’ lecture room; the chairs from the German room were transported to the English room, and the room nailed up; the civil engineering room was nailed up; the rifles were hidden; breakfast at Barbara Blount Hall was stolen; all the movable signs in the downtown area were moved to treetops on campus; a number of large piles of fodder were placed in front of Barbara Blount Hall; a dummy pony was placed on Jefferson Hall’s roof; and a carload of coal was dumped across the street railway tracks at the foot of the Hill. All the mischief was done after 2:00 a.m., with the students organizing themselves into squads to affect the pranks. Students were assessed to correct the damage.
In 1906 a cow was fenced in front of Barbara Blount Hall and a few chairs were moved. In 1907 a brick wall was built to prevent entry into the chapel by the front door; also in 1907 the students held a funeral for Georgia Tech, which they had defeated in football for the first time that afternoon; some movable steps from the top of the Hill were placed to block the front entrance to Barbara Blount Hall; and a few rooms were stacked.
In 1908 students pulled a freight car across the streetcar track at the foot of the Hill, and capped off the evening’s activity by rolling barrels of rocks down the steps of the women’s dormitory, Barbara Blount Hall.
The last real set of Halloween pranks occurred in 1908. Perhaps the most memorable, and certainly the most photographed, prank involved students putting a delivery van on the roof of Jefferson Hall and attaching it to the skeleton of a horse they “borrowed” from a laboratory. Dean Thomas Jordan, who occupied bachelor quarters on the top floor of South College, spotted the mischief-makers and climbed up the ladder to the roof in his flowing dressing gown. The pranksters removed the ladder, trapping the dean until the night watchman made one of his infrequent rounds.