Who doesn’t love a good ghost story? There is an incredible array of haunted sites around our historic city, and here we discuss a few that you can visit this October. Be warned that some of the stories behind the hauntings can be grim, but the lore and legends that have arisen as a result of them are equal parts spooky and fun.
Congress Hotel
How could we not start with the Congress Plaza Hotel? Standing on Michigan Avenue facing Grant Park, the hotel is famously claimed to be one of the most haunted buildings in the city. The hotel opened in 1893, coinciding with the World’s Fair. While it has undergone multiple significant expansions, supernatural sightings and experiences have been reported since its opening.
It is difficult to confidently identify the different reported ghosts or attribute strange encounters to a specific entity. However, enough tragedy has struck the hotel that local residents and previous guests have come up with theories and stories that have survived over a century.
Captain Louis Ostheim, a war veteran, stayed at the Congress in 1900 on the eve of his wedding. In the middle of the night, after complaining of anxieties and trouble sleeping, Captain Ostheim sat up, reached for his weapon on the nightstand and took his own life. Hotel guests and staff alike have reported his ghost as a shadowy figure, following people down halls and vanishing. The legend here is that he is roaming around still searching for the woman who had meant to be his wife.
Tragedy struck again in 1939, when a Jewish refugee named Adele Langer was staying at the Congress. She had fled Nazi occupation with her two small sons, and began to lose her mind when her husband who meant to follow never joined them. One day, unable to bear it anymore, Adele threw each of her children out of their hotel room window and jumped out after them. Her six-year-old son’s body was never recovered, and his spirit is occasionally spotted in the Congress halls. He can be seen in old, worn clothes, smiling at guests and staff before disappearing.
Many tragedies reminiscent of The Captain and Adele continued to strike the Congress from time to time. Legend has it that at least forty-seven of the Congress rooms are haunted, in addition to two ballrooms, an elevator shaft, hallways, guest workrooms, restrooms and corners. The twelfth floor of the north tower is said to be the most severely haunted area. One room is even sealed up and has long been wallpapered over so that guests cannot detect a trace of it ever being there. Legend has it that the sealed up room was the inspiration for Stephen King’s 1408.
Even if you do not believe in all the scary stories, the Congress Plaza Hotel remains a beautiful and historic spot to stay in. And, if you do - it might be fun to stay for a night and see what frights you may encounter.
Hull House
In its youth, Hull House was the home of Charles and Melicent A.C. Hull. After Melicent passed away in their home in 1860, Charles left. The building became several other things throughout time until Jane Addams moved in nearly twenty years later. Addams, along with Ellen Gates Starr, turned it into a social settlement for immigrants that provided resources to its community.
Upon moving in, Addams and Starr were forewarned by neighbors and prior tenants that there was supernatural activity in the home. Addams moved into the upstairs bedroom where Melicent Hull had died, and shortly after she began to encounter a Lady in White standing near her bed in the night. Addams did not stay in that room after the apparitions persisted, but believed the Lady in White to be the remaining spirit of Melicent Hull.
Word of the haunted home began to spread in 1913 when a rumor spread that a family abandoned a baby on the Hull House doorstep. This was not just any baby- the baby had been born with scaly skin, horns, cloven hooves, and a tail. He was also reportedly able to speak as an infant- though his speech mostly consisted of profanities. The legends surrounding the origin are many, but they overlap in the themes of a man cursing God, ripping a portrait of the Virgin Mary off his pregnant wife’s wall, and declaring that he would “rather have a devil” than a religious artifact in the home. (Some say he actually declared he would rather have a devil than another daughter).
No matter the conflicting story details, they agree that the baby ended up on the Hull House doorstep. Thus ensued several weeks of frenzy and droves of people approaching the Hull House door, demanding to see the baby. Lines turned into crowds, and Addams had to hire security to drive people away.
In Addams’s book titled The Long Road of Woman’s Memory, Addams confirmed the Lady in White encounters, expressing curiosity and fascination regarding them. However, she expressed that the devil baby claims were unfounded and she had no idea where the rumor started. Instead of entertaining the spookiness of the ghost stories, she created metaphors around them to explore the themes that commonly arose in the work of Hull House- immigrants struggling to settle into and build a life in America, the harsh reality of urban poverty, shifting gender roles in society, and fears surrounding religion.
Hull House still remains, and it sits on Halsted, right on the campus of University of Illinois Chicago. It is preserved as a historical city landmark and has been turned into the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. It is also home to regular ghost tours. Locals and ghost tour participants have reported ominous footsteps coming from the attic (where the legendary devil baby was said to have been kept), and unexplained flickering lights.
Museum of Science and Industry
The Museum of Science and Industry is the lone remaining building from the 1893 World’s Fair. Once called the Palace of Fine Arts building, the staggering limestone building sits adjacent to Lake Michigan and the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, where it towers over the Jackson Park Lagoon.
It is in that very lagoon that the well known attorney Clarence Darrow’s ashes were scattered after his death in 1938. Somewhere around the 1990s, sightings of an apparition of an older man in a brown coat began to surface. To this day, locals and staff report Darrow’s figure appearing both inside the museum as well as out on the terrace and back staircase.
Darrow is not the only chilling presence in the MSI. Countless guests (and some anonymous staff members and security guards) have witnessed or sensed chilling activity surrounding the U-505 German submarine from World War II. It is massive in size, which is disorienting enough when you enter the exhibit. Reports include hearing disembodied, intangible voices and conversations, hearing what sound like heavy boots stomping across the metal (mainly on the outer deck), and passing through frequent random cold spots as you move through the structure. Some attribute the strange activity to the spirit of Commander Peter Zschech, who was killed on the vessel during the war.
A widely favored section of the museum is the Yesterday’s Main Street exhibit, which consists of a reconstructed cobblestone road and businesses modeling a 1910 Chicago street. Local legend claims that a shadowy, old-timey dressed figure who is often spotted before vanishing is the ghost of H.H. Holmes. Holmes was America’s first documented serial killer, and notoriously sought out victims (mostly women) who were working at the World’s Fair- right there, in what is now the Museum of Science and Industry.
Red Lion Pub
What would a collection of haunted spots be without a tavern? Lincoln Park’s Red Lion Pub is notorious as one of the most haunted bars in the city. It is situated across the street from the Biograph Theater where infamous gangster John Dillinger was killed in 1934.
The pub has been regarded as haunted since its opening in 1984. A few common sightings are the appearance of a young woman in a vintage looking dress near the second floor bathrooms, accompanied by a strong, sudden scent of lavender perfume, as well as the apparition of a man in a tweed jacket who pops up near the fireplace or barstools. Both vanish when approached by patrons or staff. In addition to the ghostly figures, bartenders have reported glasses moving and shattering on their own, footsteps coming from the second floor, sudden icy drafts in the air, and doors slamming or jamming.
In 2014, the original building was completely demolished. It was reported that as soon as the new building was finished, the paranormal activity resumed right where it left off. Again, even if you do not believe in the supernatural, it still is a great place to stop by for a drink!
Liar’s Club
Liar’s Club, a legendary rock and punk dive bar located on Fullerton in Lincoln Park, is as famous for its chilling history as it is for its live music shows and quirky decor. Housed in a late 19th-century building, the venue carries a grim backstory marked by multiple tragedies. Local lore traces the bar's lingering spectral energy back to a tragic murder in the upper-level apartment during the 1980s, where a woman was reportedly killed with an axe by her husband, as well as at least two earlier, unsolved murders. The building also served as a homeless shelter and a funeral home, at separate times. It is said that the main bar area used to be the embalming room.
Patrons, musicians and staff have reported the ghost of Julia Hansen, the woman killed by her husband, haunting the second floor dance space and lounge. There have also been many descriptions of a separate pale woman dressed in a Victorian dress standing at the top of the stairs or sitting at the end of the bar, and often vanishing into a wall. One of the most common experiences noted from Liar’s Club is an inexplicable sudden feeling of dread, and of being watched. These occur on the upper level as well as in the basement, to the point where many staff members refuse to go in the basement alone. In addition, there are multiple reported experiences of unplugged jukeboxes beginning to blast music, glasses and bottles flying off shelves, crying sounds coming from the bathrooms, and doors slamming shut.
While these are some notable and easy-to-visit haunted establishments in Chicago, many claim that the entire city itself is haunted. Between the plethora of giant, older buildings converted into homes, hotels and businesses, and an abundance of sprawling cemeteries located throughout the city, there is no shortage of opportunity to go and look for some spectral activity. Even if you do not believe in hauntings and poltergeists, many of these “haunted” sites are also home to beautiful craftsmanship and rich history that is very well worth visiting.
← Previous: The daily grind - would you like pepper on that?