A city that was founded in 1833 that went through a Great Chicago Fire that then hosted the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition Fair to the Prohibition Era with Al Capone, there is no denying that Chicago has a rich history. This rich history often means how many ghosts and spirits are found in Chicago. These spirits that haunt the local places in Chicago have all resulted in people reporting these strange happenings and getting chills on what they experienced. What are those places that are known to be haunted where people constantly report these strange occurrences? What is the history on why it is haunted? This will be explored with 8 places in Chicago you did not know were haunted:
Magnificent Mile: The Water Tower
This downtown landmark has a tragic history. This striking Gothic Revival building is home to a large water pump intended to draw water from Lake Michigan. When the Great Chicago Fire destroyed much of the city in 1871, this iconic limestone building was one of the few to survive. History holds that as the flames raged, one brave worker stayed behind to tirelessly man the pumps. As the fire inched ever closer, and with no salvation in sight, he retreated to the upper floors of the tower where he hung himself. Multiple reports have claimed that a shadowy figure can be seen in the tower's top floor windows.
Lincoln Park: Couch Mausoleum and Lincoln Park
The southern edge of the picturesque Lincoln Park at first was a massive city cemetery throughout the mid-1800s for the city of Chicago. During the Great Chicago Fire, all the wooden grave markers were destroyed — except the limestone Couch Memorial crypt, that still stands at the south end of Lincoln Park. In 1998, workers digging on the site discovered the remains of more than 80 people, including one perfectly preserved body sealed in a 19th-century iron coffin. Experts estimate that more than 12,000 bodies may remain buried throughout the park to this day.
Near West Side/ UIC: Hull House
If you ever taken a history in Chicago class you know that the Hull House was a settlement house co-founded in 1889 by Jane Adams and Ellen Gates Starr. Before Jane Adams co-founded this establishment it belonged to Charles Hull and his wife who opened Hull House in 1856. It remained a poor house until the 1870s when Mrs. Hull passed away on the campus in 1860 and she's thought to haunt the kitchen. During the 1870s, Hull House became a home for the aged, and hundreds of people died of natural causes, adding more to the haunted history. In 1913 another ghostly story passed around when after a man claimed that he would rather have the Devil in his house than a picture of The Virgin Mary, his child was born with pointed ears, horns, scale-covered skin, and a tail. The mother was said to have taken the baby to Hull House, where Addams was said to have attempted to have it baptized and wound up locking it in the attic. The second floor also has its own ghost, a woman in white. She haunts the main bedroom in the northeast corner.
Englewood: H.H Holmes's "Murder Castle"
The Englewood torture palace of the notorious serial killer H.H. Holmes, who preyed upon women drawn to Chicago by the 1893 Columbian Exposition, was demolished in 1938. Bielski contends that the site, now an empty lot, remains charged with evil energy. Next door is a post office that may share part of the castle's foundation. "In the basement of the post office, they've had a lot of poltergeist experiences: things that move around, items of furniture found stacked on top of each other, female voices singing and talking. So there seems to be a lot of residual haunting.
Lincoln Park: St. Valentines Day Massacre
If you don't pick up on any supernatural energy at this grassy Clark Street lot (formerly a garage and bootlegging operation where seven of Bugs Moran's men were famously shot in 1929), your dog just might. According to Taylor, Highball, a dog belonging to Moran's mechanic, was there during the massacre who said it wasn't the machine guns that alerted neighbors to a problem at the garage but rather Highball's howling. Afterwards, reports of how some dogs become distressed when passing the site were found.
The Loop: Iroquis Theatre
More than 600 lives were lost in a fire at the Iroquois Theatre on December 30, 1903. The building was razed in 1926 (today the Oriental stands in its place), but the rear alleyway (where more than 100 people, many children, died after throwing themselves from upper floors) remains abuzz with supernatural activity: It has been said how many theatergoers and cast members talk about encountering ghostly children—laughter, footsteps, cries—and a person reported how a woman told him how he was once passing through and felt a small hand take hold of hers.
The Loop: Congress Plaza Hotel
Tales of strange happenings abound at this eerie atmospheric 1893 hotel. Particularly notorious is the 12th floor, alleged to be inhabited by the ghosts of two young children whose mother, a Czech immigrant driven from her homeland by Nazi persecution, pulled them along when she leapt from a window. The most haunted room is 441 where many report how a woman is standing at the foot of the bed and takes off the covers. With so many people coming and going in this hotel no wonder why so many reports of the paranormal happen.
River North: The House of Blues
The building that currently hosts the House of Blues was originally part of the Marina City complex and was home to the Marina Cinemas until it closed in 1977. The movie theater was the site of a blood-curdling crime in 1972 when its manager, Gloria Kirkpatrick, was stabbed multiple times by an unseen assailant. Kirkpatrick passed away en route to the hospital and the primary suspect for her murder, Theodore J. Jagiello, died before detective could build a case against him. Kirkpatrick was a resident of west tower, so it's possible that her spirit now resides somewhere in the Marina City complex where she spent her final days—perhaps inside her apartment on the 39th floor?
