Haunted Illinois

197 haunted destinations cataloged across Illinois, spanning 61 counties. The collection features cemetery, other dark tourism site, and museum — every listing verified with family ratings, accessibility info, and practical visit logistics.

197 locations 61 counties 13 classifications 98 wheelchair accessible

Filter & search Illinois in Explore →

Featured in Illinois

Top 6

Asylum / Hospital

Peoria State Hospital (Bartonville Asylum)

Bartonville, IL

Peoria State Hospital, originally the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane, operated in Bartonville from 1902 to 1973 under Illinois state oversight. Its first superintendent, Dr. George A. Zeller, persuaded the legislature to drop 'Incurable' from the institution's name. Most of the original 63-building campus has been demolished or repurposed.

$$ All Ages for museum; ghost hunts may have age minimums Family: Low

Haunted House / Historic Home

George Stickney House

Bull Valley, IL

George and Sylvia Stickney built this Italianate mansion in 1865 outside Bull Valley, Illinois. The Stickneys practiced Spiritualism and held seances; the house was designed without right angles in its perimeter rooms — a Spiritualist accommodation for moving spirits. It is now occupied by the Village of Bull Valley government and police department.

$ All Ages Family: High

Congress Plaza Hotel facade on South Michigan Avenue Chicago

Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Congress Plaza Hotel

Chicago, IL

The Congress Plaza Hotel opened in 1893 as the Auditorium Annex, built to accommodate visitors to Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition. The hotel sits at 520 South Michigan Avenue facing Grant Park, and has hosted every U.S. president from Benjamin Harrison through Bill Clinton, earning it the nickname 'The Hotel of Presidents.'

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Original Springs Hotel

Okawville, IL

The Original Springs Hotel sits on the site where Okawville's mineral water trade began in 1868. After an 1891 fire destroyed the original bathhouse, the current hotel and bathhouse opened on May 1, 1893, and have operated continuously since — making the property the last natural mineral spa hotel in Illinois.

$$ All Ages — overnight ghost hunt programs adults only Family: Moderate

Theater / Performance Venue

Rialto Square Theatre

Joliet, IL

The Rialto Square Theatre opened May 24, 1926, designed by Chicago firm Rapp & Rapp for the six Rubens brothers. Its Neo-Baroque interior — modeled in part on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles — earned it a place on the American Institute of Architects's '150 Great Places in Illinois' and a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Restored Italianate Victorian house with cupola in Watseka, Illinois

Haunted House / Historic Home

Roff House (Watseka Manor)

Watseka, IL

The Roff House in Watseka, Illinois was built in 1868 by Asa B. and Anna Roff, prominent local Spiritualists. In 1878 it became the focus of the Watseka Wonder, an extensively documented case in which 13-year-old Lurancy Vennum is said to have been possessed by the spirit of the Roffs's deceased daughter Mary, lived as Mary in the Roff home for roughly 100 days, and then returned to her own family.

$$ All Ages for tours; overnight investigations 18+ Family: Moderate

More in Illinois

Chicago — 45

875 North Michigan Avenue (former John Hancock Center) photographed from street level in 2022 showing the full tower and X-bracing

True Crime Site

875 N. Michigan Ave (Former John Hancock Center)

Chicago, IL

Construction began in 1965 on what was then called the John Hancock Center; the 100-story tower was completed in 1969 at a cost of roughly $100 million. Designed by Bruce Graham and Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, it stands 1,128 feet tall with its distinctive X-bracing. Several deaths have occurred in the building over the decades. The building's naming rights ended in 2013 and it has been officially known as 875 North Michigan Avenue since 2018.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Theater / Performance Venue

Biograph Theater

Chicago, IL

The Biograph Theater opened in 1914 on North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, designed by architect Samuel N. Crowen in Classical Revival style. On July 22, 1934, FBI agents shot bank robber John Dillinger outside the building after Anna Sage, known as 'The Lady in Red,' informed on his location. Victory Gardens Theater purchased the building in 2004 and completed an $11 million renovation in 2006.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Battlefield / Military Site

Camp Douglas Site

Chicago, IL

Camp Douglas opened in late 1861 as a Union Army training camp on land associated with Senator Stephen A. Douglas's estate. In February 1862 it began receiving Confederate prisoners. At its peak it held 12,000 men simultaneously. Between 4,243 and 7,000 prisoners died there from disease, exposure, and overcrowding — a mortality rate that earned it the nickname 'the North's Andersonville.'

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Chicago Fire Academy / Great Chicago Fire Origin Site

Chicago, IL

The Great Chicago Fire began on the evening of October 8, 1871, in or near the barn of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary at what was then 137 DeKoven Street (renumbered 558 in 1909). Fanned by dry winds after an unusually dry summer, the fire burned for nearly 30 hours, destroyed approximately 17,000 structures, killed roughly 300 people, and left an estimated 100,000 Chicagoans homeless. The Robert J. Quinn Fire Academy was built on the site in 1961 and designated a Chicago Landmark in 1971.

$ All Ages Family: High

Biograph Theater marquee in Chicago where John Dillinger was killed in 1934

Other Dark Tourism Site

Chicago Gangsters & Ghosts Tour (US Ghost Adventures)

Chicago, IL

The US Ghost Adventures Chicago Gangsters & Ghosts Tour is a 1-mile walking tour covering the city's Prohibition-era mob history and associated paranormal accounts. The route includes the Biograph Theater, where John Dillinger was shot by federal agents in 1934.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Biograph Theater marquee in Chicago a featured stop on Prohibition gangster ghost tours

Other Dark Tourism Site

Chicago Gangsters and Ghosts Tour

Chicago, IL

The Chicago Gangsters and Ghosts Tour is a long-running walking tour of the Loop, departing four times daily from the corner of Wacker Drive and Wabash, adjacent to the Royal Sonesta Hotel. The two-hour route covers Prohibition-era crime sites alongside reported hauntings within the central business district.

$$ All Ages (parental discretion advised) Family: Moderate

Other Dark Tourism Site

Chicago Hauntings Ghost Tours

Chicago, IL

Chicago Hauntings Ghost Tours, now operated under the American Ghost Walks brand, runs evening walking and bus tours through Chicago's Loop, Lincoln Park, and southwest suburbs. The company's flagship Original Chicago Hauntings Tour departs Saturday evenings from the Congress Plaza Hotel.

$$ 10+ Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Chicago Water Tower

Chicago, IL

The Chicago Water Tower was completed in 1869 from Lemont limestone and housed a 138-foot standpipe as part of the city's early water infrastructure. It survived the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871, when the flames consumed nearly everything around it on the Near North Side. It is the second-oldest water tower in the United States and a Chicago Landmark.

$ All Ages Family: High

The Couch Mausoleum in Lincoln Park Chicago, a sealed 1858 granite vault that is the sole surviving structure from the original Chicago City Cemetery

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Couch Mausoleum (Lincoln Park)

Chicago, IL

Ira Couch, a Chicago hotelier, died in Cuba in 1857 and was interred in the city's original municipal cemetery, which at the time occupied the southern portion of what is now Lincoln Park. In 1858, his family commissioned architect John M. Van Osdel to build a granite mausoleum on the site. When the city converted the cemetery grounds to parkland in the 1860s and relocated approximately 35,000 graves, the Couch Mausoleum was left in place — the only above-ground remnant of the original City Cemetery that survives today.

$ All Ages Family: High

True Crime Site

Couch Place (Death Alley)

Chicago, IL

Couch Place is the Chicago Loop alley that runs immediately behind the James M. Nederlander Theatre at 24 W. Randolph. On December 30, 1903, it became the primary egress point for audience members fleeing the Iroquois Theatre fire, in which 602 people died. Many victims died in the alley itself — crushed at exits whose doors opened inward, or after falling from the upper fire escapes. Newspapers of the time called it Death Alley, a name that has persisted.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

True Crime Site

Former 2nd Regiment Armory / Former Harpo Studios (Eastland Morgue Site)

Chicago, IL

The Second Regiment Armory stood at 1058 W. Washington Boulevard in Chicago's West Loop. On July 24, 1915, the SS Eastland capsized in the Chicago River less than a mile away, killing 844 people — the deadliest single-incident loss of life in Chicago history. The armory served as the primary temporary morgue for the disaster, housing the bodies of approximately 600 victims for identification. The building was later converted to use as a television production facility and became Harpo Studios in 1990, where the Oprah Winfrey Show taped until 2011. Harpo Inc. sold the property in 2014; the building was demolished in 2016 to make way for McDonald's corporate headquarters, which opened in 2018.

$ All Ages Family: High

The Royal Sonesta Hotel at the corner of Wacker Drive and Wabash, meeting point for the Chicago Gangsters and Ghosts Walking Tour

Other Dark Tourism Site

Chicago Gangsters and Ghosts Tour

Chicago, IL

Chicago Gangsters and Ghosts Tour has operated since 2017, combining Prohibition-era organized-crime history with paranormal reports tied to former crime scenes. The walking tour departs from the Royal Sonesta Hotel; a minibus version runs from the Palmer House Hilton.

$$ All ages; under 6 free Family: Moderate

Chicago's downtown skyline along the South Loop — the route covered by Ghost City Tours' family-friendly Chicago ghost walk

Other Dark Tourism Site

Ghosts of Chicago by Ghost City Tours

Chicago, IL

Ghost City Tours is a national ghost-walk operator with year-round programming in Chicago and several other historic U.S. cities. The Chicago tours cover documented haunted sites across the downtown core in three distinct format variants: family-friendly, adults-only, and pub-crawl.

$$ All Ages for the family-friendly tour; 21+ for the pub crawl Family: Moderate

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Graceland Cemetery

Chicago, IL

Graceland Cemetery was established in 1860 on land north of what was then the Chicago city limit. The 121-acre grounds hold graves of architects Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, and Mies van der Rohe, alongside industrialists George Pullman and Marshall Field, and contain sculptural monuments by Lorado Taft and Karl Bitter.

$ All Ages Family: High

Historical photograph of H.H. Holmes's three-story building in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, circa 1895

True Crime Site

H.H. Holmes Murder Castle Site / Englewood Post Office

Chicago, IL

Herman Webster Mudgett, operating under the alias H.H. Holmes, constructed a three-story building at the corner of 63rd and Wallace Streets in the Englewood neighborhood between 1887 and 1892, during the buildup to Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Holmes used the building for insurance fraud, credit schemes, and, by his own confession, murder. The structure was demolished in 1938 and replaced by the current United States Post Office.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

True Crime Site

Holy Name Cathedral

Chicago, IL

Holy Name Cathedral, completed in 1875, became entangled in Chicago's 1920s gang wars through its State Street location. On November 10, 1924, North Side Gang boss Dion O'Banion was shot dead in his flower shop directly across the street. On October 11, 1926, O'Banion's successor Hymie Weiss was gunned down on the sidewalk outside the cathedral's adjacent building. Bullet holes from the 1926 shooting are still visible in the 1874 cornerstone.

$ All Ages Family: High

Couch Place (Death Alley) behind the James M. Nederlander Theatre in Chicago, the alley where hundreds died in the 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire

Theater / Performance Venue

James M. Nederlander Theatre (Iroquois Theatre Fire Site)

Chicago, IL

The Iroquois Theatre opened at 24-26 W. Randolph Street in Chicago on November 23, 1903 — five weeks later, on December 30, 1903, a broken arc lamp ignited muslin curtains during a matinee performance of Mr. Blue Beard. The theater was declared fireproof; its emergency exits were unfamiliar to staff, and many were locked or opened inward. Six hundred two people died, most from crushing and asphyxiation. The alley behind the theater, Couch Place, became known as Death Alley.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Exterior of the 1856 Italianate Hull House mansion on South Halsted Street at the University of Illinois Chicago campus

Museum / Historical Site

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

Chicago, IL

Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr established Hull House on September 18, 1889, in a mansion built by Charles Jerald Hull in 1856 on Chicago's Near West Side. The complex grew to 13 buildings by 1907 and became the model for approximately 500 American settlement houses. In the 1960s, the University of Illinois demolished most of the complex to build its Chicago campus; the original mansion and 1905 dining hall survive as a museum operated by UIC.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Liar's Club

Chicago, IL

The building at 1665 W. Fullerton operated as a funeral home before becoming a bar in the 1970s. In April 1986, Frank Hansen killed his pregnant wife Julia with an axe in the third-floor apartment; in 1968, a man died after being struck with a glass bottle at a homeless shelter on the second floor. Liar's Club has operated as a music venue and dive bar since 1995.

$ 21+ Family: Low

Lincoln Park Zoo entrance archway in Chicago, Illinois

Other Dark Tourism Site

Lincoln Park Zoo Haunted History Tours

Chicago, IL

Lincoln Park Zoo occupies part of the former Chicago City Cemetery, which was decommissioned and largely cleared in the 1860s and 1870s. Tens of thousands of nineteenth-century Chicagoans were buried in the area before the cemetery was converted to parkland. The zoo's October Haunted History Tours, hosted by author Adam Selzer, examine the cemetery's incomplete relocation and the area's reportedly active sites.

$$$ 16 and older only Family: Moderate

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Lincoln Park Zoo (Haunted History)

Chicago, IL

Lincoln Park Zoo occupies the southern portion of Lincoln Park, which served as Chicago's primary municipal cemetery from 1843 until 1866. After cholera outbreaks raised concern about contamination of the city's lakefront water supply, Chicago ordered the disinterment of tens of thousands of graves and conversion of the land to a public park.

$ All ages for daytime visits; haunted history tours 16+ Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Lincoln Park Zoo Haunted History Tour

Chicago, IL

Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago occupies land that served as the city's first official cemetery from 1843 to 1869. Roughly 35,600 bodies were buried in the City Cemetery and adjacent Catholic Cemetery; an estimated 15,000 may remain beneath today's park, zoo, and surrounding Gold Coast.

$ All Ages for daytime visit; haunted-history evening tours typically 16+ Family: Moderate

True Crime Site

Luetgert Sausage Factory (Now Condominiums)

Chicago, IL

Adolph Luetgert built his sausage works at Diversey and Hermitage in 1892. On May 1, 1897, he murdered his wife Louisa and dissolved her remains in a caustic-potash vat in the factory basement. Bone fragments and two rings bearing the initials 'LL' were recovered. He was convicted in a retrial in January 1898 and died in Joliet prison on July 7, 1899.

$ All Ages Family: High

Exterior view of the historic Pullman National Monument factory and worker housing district in Chicago, Illinois

Other Dark Tourism Site

Macabre Pullman Tour

Chicago, IL

The Macabre Pullman Tour is an evening walking tour of the Pullman Historic District, organized by the Historic Pullman Foundation and operating on select autumn evenings. The route covers the darker history of George Pullman's 1880 model industrial town — fatal train accidents, primitive surgeries, mysterious deaths, and crimes drawn from local press archives.

$$ Mature audiences (parental discretion advised) Family: Low

Pullman Palace Car Company clock tower and administration building in Chicago Pullman Historic District

Other Dark Tourism Site

Macabre Pullman Tour

Chicago, IL

The Macabre Pullman Tour is an evening dark-history walk operated by the Historic Pullman Foundation through the Pullman National Historical Park on Chicago's far South Side. Founded by George Pullman in 1880, Pullman was the model company town for the Pullman Palace Car Company.

$$ Mature audiences; parental discretion advised Family: Moderate

The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the former 1893 World's Columbian Exposition Palace of Fine Arts, viewed from the south lagoon

Museum / Historical Site

Museum of Science and Industry (U-505 Submarine)

Chicago, IL

The U-505 was a German Type IXC submarine commissioned in 1941. On June 4, 1944, a U.S. Navy task force led by USS Guadalcanal captured it intact in the Atlantic — the first enemy warship seized by the U.S. Navy since the War of 1812. The submarine was transferred to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry in 1954. It is now on permanent display in an underground chamber at the museum, officially renamed the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.

$$ All Ages Family: High

The Confederate Mound monument at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago, a granite column topped with a bronze soldier marking the mass grave of Civil War prisoners

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Oak Woods Cemetery / Confederate Mound

Chicago, IL

Oak Woods Cemetery was chartered in 1853 and opened for burials in 1860 across 183 acres in Chicago's Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. In 1866–1867, the remains of approximately 4,000 to 6,000 Confederate prisoners who died at Camp Douglas were reinterred in its southwest corner. The Confederate Mound monument, a 30-foot granite column topped with a bronze soldier, was dedicated on May 30, 1895.

$ All Ages Family: High

Other Dark Tourism Site

Read-Dunning Memorial Park

Chicago, IL

From 1854 to 1912, the Cook County Poor Farm and Insane Asylum operated on the northwest side of Chicago, housing the county's indigent, mentally ill, tuberculosis patients, orphans, and unclaimed dead. An estimated 38,000 people were buried in a potter's field on the grounds, which was subsequently sold, subdivided, and built over as the Dunning residential neighborhood developed in the early 20th century. Bodies discovered during construction in 1959 and again in 1989 prompted Chicago to establish a three-acre memorial park in 2001.

$ All Ages Family: High

A Seadog speedboat on the Chicago River at twilight with the Loop skyline visible above

Other Dark Tourism Site

Seadog Haunted River Tour

Chicago, IL

The Seadog Haunted River Tour is operated by City Experiences (formerly Chicago First Lady Cruises) from Navy Pier. The 45-minute speedboat cruise narrates Chicago's gangster era, river-disaster record, and reported paranormal accounts during the Halloween season.

$$$ All ages welcome; BYOB policy means alcohol is permitted onboard but only for adults 21+. Family: Moderate

Glessner House on Prairie Avenue Chicago, starting point for Shadows on the Street walking tour

Other Dark Tourism Site

Shadows on the Street: Haunted Tours of Historic Prairie Avenue

Chicago, IL

Glessner House Museum operates Shadows on the Street as a sixty-minute walking tour of the Prairie Avenue Historic District. Between 16th and 22nd Streets, late-nineteenth-century Prairie Avenue was Chicago's most exclusive residential boulevard — the so-called Sunny Street that held the sifted few — and was home to Marshall Field, Philip Armour, George Pullman, and more than seventy other millionaires.

$$ All ages welcome; content is family-appropriate but historically heavy Family: Moderate

Glessner House on Prairie Avenue Chicago, 1887 H.H. Richardson granite mansion exterior

Other Dark Tourism Site

Shadows on the Street

Chicago, IL

Prairie Avenue between 16th and 22nd Streets served as Chicago's most prestigious residential address in the late 19th century, nicknamed Millionaire's Row. The street housed Marshall Field, Philip Armour, George Pullman, and more than seventy other industrialists. The 1887 Glessner House by Henry Hobson Richardson anchors the surviving section and operates the seasonal Shadows on the Street walking-tour program.

$$ All ages; content suited to teens and adults Family: Moderate

The SS Eastland lying on its port side in the Chicago River after the 1915 capsizing disaster

True Crime Site

SS Eastland Disaster Site

Chicago, IL

On July 24, 1915, the passenger steamship SS Eastland capsized in the Chicago River while still tied to the dock between Clark and LaSalle Streets, killing 844 people—mostly Western Electric employees and their families bound for a company picnic. It remains the deadliest disaster in Chicago history and the worst loss of life from a single Great Lakes shipwreck.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

The current parking lot at 2122 N. Clark Street in Chicago's Lincoln Park, site of the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre garage

True Crime Site

St. Valentine's Day Massacre Site

Chicago, IL

On February 14, 1929, seven men affiliated with George 'Bugs' Moran's North Side Gang were lined up against the rear wall of the SMC Cartage Company garage at 2122 N. Clark and shot. The victims were Albert Kachellek, Adam Heyer, Albert Weinshank, Frank and Peter Gusenberg, Reinhardt Schwimmer, and John May. No one was ever prosecuted for the killings. The garage was demolished in 1938 and replaced. The current lot was built over in 1967 by the Chicago Housing Authority.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Exterior of St. Michael's Church in Old Town, Chicago, photographed in 2018, showing the 1869 brick facade

Other Dark Tourism Site

St. Michael's Church (Old Town)

Chicago, IL

St. Michael's was founded in 1852 to serve Chicago's German and Luxembourgish Catholic immigrants, with a permanent brick church completed in 1869. It became one of seven structures to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, though heavily damaged, and was rebuilt the following year. The Redemptorist order has administered the parish since 1860.

$ All Ages Family: High

The 1892 former Chicago Historical Society Building at 632 N. Dearborn St., now Tao Chicago, showing the Richardsonian Romanesque granite exterior

Haunted Dining / Bar

Tao Chicago (Former Chicago Historical Society Building)

Chicago, IL

Henry Ives Cobb designed this granite-clad Romanesque Revival building in 1892 for the Chicago Historical Society, which occupied it until 1931. The site has a documented connection to two of Chicago's darkest episodes: the remains of Jean Lalime—killed by John Kinzie in 1812 in the city's first documented murder—were briefly stored here, and the building was used as a temporary morgue following the 1915 Eastland disaster.

$$$ 21+ Family: Low

Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Drake Hotel

Chicago, IL

The Drake Hotel opened on New Year's Eve 1920 at 140 E. Walton Place on Chicago's Magnificent Mile. It was designed by the firm of Marshall and Fox and has operated continuously as a luxury hotel for over a century, now as part of the Hilton portfolio. In 1924, Jacob and Flora Franks — parents of Bobby Franks, the 14-year-old murdered by Leopold and Loeb — relocated to the Drake after selling the family's Kenwood home. Jacob Franks died at the hotel in 1928.

$$$$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Givins Beverly Castle

Chicago, IL

Robert C. Givins, a Chicago real estate developer, built the limestone Beverly Castle between 1886 and 1887 as his personal residence. It is Chicago's last standing castle and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Beverly Unitarian Church purchased the building in 1942 and continues to occupy it today.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge

Chicago, IL

The Green Mill has operated in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood since 1907, making it the city's longest continuously operating nightclub. During Prohibition, Jack 'Machine Gun' McGurn — Al Capone's enforcer — took an ownership stake and used the venue as a Capone operation. In 1927, McGurn's men attacked singer Joe E. Lewis after Lewis refused to renew his contract, slashing his throat. Lewis survived and later became the subject of the 1957 film The Joker Is Wild.

$ 21+ Family: Low

Theater / Performance Venue

House of Blues Chicago

Chicago, IL

The House of Blues Chicago opened in 1996 at 329 N Dearborn Street, part of the marina complex adjacent to the Chicago River. The venue was designed to evoke a Mississippi Delta roadhouse in miniature, with folk art-covered walls and a Foundation Room private club above the main stage. It operates as one of the premier concert and dining venues in Chicago's River North neighborhood with over 8,900 Google reviews.

$$ Varies by show; many shows 18+ after 10pm Family: Moderate

Haunted Dining / Bar

The Red Lion Pub

Chicago, IL

The building at 2446 N. Lincoln Avenue dates to 1882 and has operated as a grocery, a gambling parlor, and a Western-themed saloon called Dirty Dan's before RAF veteran John Cordwell opened the Red Lion Pub here on November 16, 1984. Three deaths are documented to have occurred in the building. The current pub is run by John's son Colin, who rebuilt the interior after a period of closure.

$$ 21+ Family: Low

Kayakers on the Chicago River at dusk during a Wateriders Ghosts & Gangsters evening tour

Other Dark Tourism Site

Wateriders Ghosts & Gangsters Kayak Tour

Chicago, IL

Wateriders has operated guided kayak tours of the Chicago River since the early 2000s, departing from 500 N Kingsbury Street at the East Bank Club River Walk. The Ghosts & Gangsters program is a 2.5-hour evening paddle covering nineteenth-century crime history through the Italian Outfit era of Capone and Torrio.

$$$ Kayaking ability required; minor age policy per operator Family: Low

Kayakers on the Chicago River near downtown bridges, the route used by the Wateriders Ghosts and Gangsters Tour

Other Dark Tourism Site

Wateriders Ghosts and Gangsters Kayak Tour

Chicago, IL

Wateriders has operated kayak tours on the Chicago River since 1997, with three locations including the downtown East Bank Club at 500 N. Kingsbury Street. The Ghosts and Gangsters Tour is a 2.5-hour evening paddle covering Prohibition-era crime sites and Chicago River disaster history.

$$$ Minimum age set by Wateriders; check booking page Family: Moderate

Tin Man statue at Oz Park, Chicago — meeting point for Windy City Ghosts tour

Other Dark Tourism Site

Windy City Ghosts (US Ghost Adventures)

Chicago, IL

Windy City Ghosts is the Chicago program of US Ghost Adventures, a national walking-tour operator. Tours run nightly year-round at 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM, depart from the Tin Man statue at Oz Park (2021 N. Burling Street), and cover a one-mile route through Lincoln Park with stops at sites tied to the neighborhood's Civil War, asylum, and Prohibition-era past. Group size is capped at fifteen.

$$ All ages welcome Family: Moderate

Other Dark Tourism Site

Windy City Ghosts

Chicago, IL

Windy City Ghosts is the Chicago tour brand operated by US Ghost Adventures, a national ghost-tour company that runs walking tours in cities across the United States. The Chicago program centers on Lincoln Park, the Gold Coast, and the city's central historic district, with tours meeting at the Tin Man Statue in Oz Park.

$$ All ages on standard tours; some pub-style tours 21+ Family: Moderate

Other Dark Tourism Site

Wrigley Field

Chicago, IL

Wrigley Field opened on April 23, 1914, as Weeghman Park, built in six weeks for the Chicago Whales of the short-lived Federal League. It became Cubs Park in 1920 when the Cubs moved in, and was renamed Wrigley Field in 1926 after chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. At over 110 years old, it is the second-oldest major-league ballpark in the United States, behind Fenway Park.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Alton — 13

Motorcoach loading at the American Oddities Museum on Piasa Street in Alton, Illinois, at dusk

Other Dark Tourism Site

Alton Haunted History Bus Tour

Alton, IL

The Alton Haunted History Bus Tour is operated by American Hauntings, the company founded by Illinois historian and author Troy Taylor. The tour departs from the American Oddities Museum at 301 Piasa Street in Alton, Illinois, a Mississippi River town with documented 19th-century history including the Lincoln–Douglas debate site and the Alton Penitentiary.

$$$ Children 10+ preferred; younger children at parental discretion. No toddlers, infants, or strollers. Family: Moderate

Other Dark Tourism Site

Alton Haunted History Tours

Alton, IL

Alton, Illinois, founded in 1818 on the Mississippi bluffs near St. Louis, served as a Civil War prison site and Underground Railroad stop. Its layered 19th-century history and dense surviving building stock support one of the country's most active small-town ghost-tour programs, operated by American Hauntings and based at the Mineral Springs Hotel.

$$ Most tours all ages; pub crawl 21+ Family: Moderate

Brick storefronts along East Broadway in downtown Alton, Illinois at dusk

Other Dark Tourism Site

Alton Hauntings Haunted History Walking Tour

Alton, IL

Alton Hauntings was founded by paranormal author Troy Taylor and runs guided walking, bus, and dinner tours through downtown Alton, Illinois. The walking tour is based on Taylor's book Haunted Alton and surveys the riverfront town's Civil War prison history, smallpox-burial folklore, and architectural archive of nineteenth-century commercial buildings.

$$ All ages welcome; pub-crawl variants are 21+ Family: Moderate

Downtown Alton Illinois historic riverfront streetscape on the Alton Hauntings tour route

Other Dark Tourism Site

Alton Hauntings Tours

Alton, IL

Alton Hauntings Tours is a paranormal-tourism operator founded by author Troy Taylor in Alton, Illinois. Taylor has published more than 100 books on American hauntings and operates the Alton tours April through November alongside year-round Dinner and Spirits events.

$$ All Ages for walking tour; pub crawl 21+ Family: Moderate

True Crime Site

Alton Military Prison Confederate Site

Alton, IL

Built in 1833 as Illinois's first state penitentiary, the Alton facility was decommissioned in 1860 and repurposed as a Union POW camp from February 1862 through July 1865, incarcerating roughly 11,000 Confederate soldiers. An 1863 smallpox outbreak contributed to 1,354 documented deaths among the prisoner population.

$ All Ages Family: High

Asylum / Hospital

Enos Sanitarium

Alton, IL

The building at the core of the Enos Sanitarium story was reportedly constructed in 1857 by abolitionist Nathaniel Hanson as a stop on the Underground Railroad, featuring basement tunnels and a rooftop cupola said to have been used to signal freedom seekers. In 1911, the structure was repurposed as a tuberculosis sanitarium under Dr. W.H. Enos, from whom it takes its name.

$ All Ages Family: High

Tour bus along the Great River Road in Illinois at dusk, with limestone bluffs of the Mississippi visible above

Other Dark Tourism Site

Ghosts of the River Road Tour (Dinner & Spirits)

Alton, IL

The Ghosts of the River Road Tour is an American Hauntings dinner-and-bus event that pairs a meal at Bluff City Grill in Alton with a narrated drive north along the Great River Road toward Grafton, Illinois. The route follows the Mississippi River bluffs and visits documented haunted locations through the corridor.

$$$$ Adult-oriented; check current event listing for restrictions Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Jacoby Arts Center

Alton, IL

Built in 1883 in downtown Alton, this State Street building was home to Jacoby Furniture, which operated a funeral chapel on an upper floor and a working morgue in the basement for decades. The building was later converted into the Jacoby Arts Center, an active gallery and arts programming space that retains the structure's original commercial bones.

$ All Ages Family: High

Picture of the Elijah P. Lovejoy Monument in Alton, Illinois, U.S.A.

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Lovejoy Monument Cemetery

Alton, IL

Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a Presbyterian minister and newspaper editor, was killed by a proslavery mob in Alton, Illinois on November 7, 1837, while defending his printing press. He was subsequently recognized as the first American journalist killed in the line of duty. The Illinois state memorial dedicated to Lovejoy in Alton City Cemetery was completed in 1897 and consists of a 93-foot central shaft topped by a 17-foot bronze Victory figure, flanked by two smaller shafts with bronze eagles.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

McPike Mansion

Alton, IL

Henry Guest McPike, Alton mayor and horticulturist, built this 16-room Italianate Victorian mansion in 1869, completing it in 1871 on a 15-acre site he named Mount Lookout. Architect Lucas Pfeiffenberger designed the home, which McPike occupied until his death in 1910. The property passed to Paul A. Laichinger around 1925, fell into severe disrepair after midcentury, and was purchased at auction in 1994 by Sharyn and George Luedke, who have undertaken restoration through tours and donations.

$$ 13+ for investigation tours Family: Low

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Mineral Springs Hotel

Alton, IL

The Mineral Springs Hotel was built in 1914 by the Luer Brothers, originally intended as an ice warehouse. When construction workers discovered a natural spring beneath the site, the project pivoted to a resort hotel capitalizing on the era's popular mineral water health culture. The building at 301 E Broadway later housed Troy Taylor's American Hauntings operation and the American Oddities Museum.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Aerial survey view of North Alton Confederate Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Battlefield / Military Site

North Alton Confederate Cemetery

Alton, IL

The North Alton Confederate Cemetery is the burial ground for 1,354 Confederate prisoners of war who died — most from a smallpox epidemic — while held at the Alton Military Prison during the Civil War. Only one individual grave is marked despite the hundreds interred here. A monument erected in 1909 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy stands at the site.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Piasa Masonic Lodge

Alton, IL

The Piasa Masonic Lodge in Alton traces its founding to 1844, making it one of the oldest Masonic organizations in Madison County, Illinois. Its location in Alton places it in the context of the city's Civil War history — the Alton Military Prison, which held Confederate POWs from 1862 to 1865, operated nearby.

$ All Ages Family: High

Springfield — 9

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Calvary Cemetery

Springfield, IL

Calvary Cemetery was established in 1857 when Bishop Henry Damian Juncker of Alton purchased land outside Springfield, Illinois to comply with an 1856 city ordinance prohibiting new burial grounds within the city. The 70-acre Catholic cemetery, owned by the Diocese of Springfield, adjoins Oak Ridge Cemetery and contains the burials of three diocesan bishops.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Dana-Thomas House

Springfield, IL

Susan Lawrence Dana commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design this Prairie School residence in 1902. Completed in 1904, it was one of Wright's most ambitious early commissions. Dana, a Springfield socialite and heiress, turned to Spiritualism following a cascade of family deaths and founded the 'Lawrence Metaphysical Center' within the home.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Illinois Governor's Mansion

Springfield, IL

Built in 1855, the Illinois Executive Mansion has served as the official governor's residence for over 170 years. Abraham Lincoln was an honored guest here on multiple occasions during the tenure of Governor William H. Bissell. The mansion was substantially renovated in the early 2000s under a major restoration initiative.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Inn at 835

Springfield, IL

The building at 835 South Second Street was completed in 1909 as a luxury apartment complex by Springfield businesswoman Bell Miller. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, it was later converted to a boutique bed-and-breakfast known as the Inn at 835.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Lincoln Depot (Great Western Depot)

Springfield, IL

The Great Western Depot at 930 East Monroe Street was built in 1851 as the Springfield terminal for the Great Western Railway. On February 11, 1861, Abraham Lincoln delivered his Farewell Address from this platform before departing for Washington, D.C. He never returned to Springfield alive.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Lincoln Home National Historic Site

Springfield, IL

The Lincoln Home at 413 South Eighth Street is the only home Abraham Lincoln ever owned. He purchased it in 1844 for $1,500 from the Reverend Charles Dresser, who had married Lincoln and Mary Todd in 1842. The Lincolns lived here until departing for Washington in February 1861, never to return. Mary Todd Lincoln returned to the house only once after the assassination.

$ All Ages Family: High

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Oak Ridge Cemetery

Springfield, IL

Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, was established in 1855 on a wooded ridge north of downtown. Mary Todd Lincoln selected the site for Abraham Lincoln's burial after his April 1865 assassination, and the 117-foot Lincoln Tomb was completed in 1874. The cemetery is one of the most-visited in the United States.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Old State Capitol State Historic Site

Springfield, IL

The Old State Capitol served as Illinois's seat of government from 1837 to 1876 and is where Abraham Lincoln served in the state legislature and delivered his famous 'House Divided' speech on June 16, 1858. The building was demolished and rebuilt stone by stone on its original footprint between 1966 and 1969.

$ All Ages Family: High

Theater / Performance Venue

Springfield Theatre Center (Hoogland Center for the Arts)

Springfield, IL

The Springfield Theatre Center is a community theater company with roots in Springfield going back to at least the mid-twentieth century. On May 13, 1955, an actor named Joe Neville left a dress rehearsal at the company's then-home at 101 East Lawrence Avenue and died at home that night — the eve of his first lead performance. The company later moved to the Hoogland Center for the Arts at 420 South Sixth Street.

$ All Ages Family: High

Decatur — 6

Theater / Performance Venue

Avon Theater

Decatur, IL

The Avon Theater opened November 28, 1916, as an Art Deco movie palace on Water Street in Decatur. For five decades it was operated by Greek immigrant Gust Constan, who built the theater into a community institution before his death in 1965.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Culver House

Decatur, IL

The Culver House was built in 1888 in the Queen Anne style with a distinctive turret, making it the last surviving example of that architectural form in Decatur. The John H. Culver family moved in around 1901–1902. During construction, workers reportedly uncovered skull fragments, suggesting the site may have served as a burial location prior to the home's construction.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Greenwood Cemetery

Decatur, IL

Established in 1857, Greenwood Cemetery is Decatur's oldest active burial ground, with interments dating to the 1820s from earlier private grounds. A section of the cemetery holds the remains of Confederate prisoners of war who died during transit from Andersonville — some accounts allege that Yellow Fever victims were buried hastily, with a few reportedly interred while still alive.

$ All Ages Family: High

Theater / Performance Venue

Lincoln Square Theatre

Decatur, IL

The Lincoln Square Theatre opened in 1916 on the footprint of the Priest Hotel, which burned catastrophically in 1915, killing at least two confirmed victims: engineer William E. Graham and traveling salesman C. S. Guild. The new Beaux Arts theater was built directly on the fire site.

$$$ 18+ Family: High

Exterior of Schilling Hall at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, a red brick Romanesque Revival building housing the Albert Taylor Theater

Theater / Performance Venue

Millikin University — Albert Taylor Theater

Decatur, IL

Millikin University was founded in Decatur, Illinois in 1901 through an endowment from industrialist James Millikin. Schilling Hall, one of the oldest campus structures, houses the Albert Taylor Theater — named for a university president who died in 1929 and whose funeral was held in the auditorium that would later bear his name. The theater has been the center of campus performing arts for over a century.

$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Wabash Railroad Station (Decatur Antique Mall)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Wabash Railroad Station (Decatur Antique Mall)

Decatur, IL

The Wabash Railroad Station at 2 North Water Street was designed by architect Theodore Link and built in 1901. At its peak it served as the Wabash Railway's division headquarters and processed 72 passenger trains per day. Passenger service ended in the 1970s; the building was repurposed as an antique mall.

$ All Ages Family: High

Galena — 6

Other Dark Tourism Site

Amelia's Galena Ghost Tours

Galena, IL

Amelia's Galena Ghost Tours has operated a shuttle-bus ghost tour of historic Galena, Illinois since 2012, departing nightly from a loading zone behind the DeSoto House Hotel. The route covers fourteen miles of the lead-mining and steamboat-era town, the wealthiest community in Illinois during Ulysses S. Grant's residency.

$$ All Ages (parental discretion advised) Family: Moderate

Other Dark Tourism Site

Amelia's Galena Ghost Tours

Galena, IL

Amelia's Galena Ghost Tours operates from a storefront on South Main Street in Galena, Illinois, a former lead-mining boomtown whose 19th-century building stock survives largely intact. The company runs shuttle, walking, dinner theater, and pub crawl programming year-round.

$$ All ages welcome on bus and walking tours; pub crawl 21+ Family: Moderate

Galena's preserved 19th-century Main Street commercial buildings climbing the bluff above the Galena River

Other Dark Tourism Site

Haunted Galena Ghost Walk

Galena, IL

Galena, Illinois was one of the wealthiest river towns of the antebellum Upper Mississippi, anchored by lead mining and Civil War-era political prominence — eight Galena residents served as Union generals, including Ulysses S. Grant. The Haunted Galena Tour Company has run guided ghost walks through this preserved 19th-century downtown for more than two decades.

$$ 13+ recommended Family: Moderate

The Dowling House on Diagonal Street in Galena, Illinois — the 1826 limestone residence where the Haunted Galena Tour begins

Other Dark Tourism Site

Haunted Galena Tour Company

Galena, IL

The Haunted Galena Tour Company is a family-operated walking-tour business based in Galena, Illinois — the 19th-century Mississippi River lead-mining town that boomed before the Civil War and produced more than a dozen U.S. generals, including Ulysses S. Grant. The tour begins at the Dowling House and ends at the DeSoto House Hotel.

$$ 7+ (children under 7 not permitted) Family: Moderate

The 1855 DeSoto House Hotel facade on Galena's Main Street, where the Murder & Mayhem indoor show is staged

Theater / Performance Venue

Murder & Mayhem Show (Haunted Galena)

Galena, IL

Murder & Mayhem is the indoor storytelling counterpart to the Haunted Galena Tour Company's outdoor walking tours. Performances run at the DeSoto House Hotel — a Greek Revival landmark built in 1855 that has hosted Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Stephen A. Douglas.

$$$ Mature themes — recommended for adults Family: Low

Museum / Historical Site

The Dowling House

Galena, IL

The Dowling House at 220 Diagonal Street in Galena, Illinois, is the oldest building in Galena, built in 1826 by John Dowling — the same year Galena itself was founded. The limestone single-pen house served as a trading post on the first floor with the Dowling family living quarters above.

$ All Ages Family: High

Peoria — 6

Theater / Performance Venue

Hartmann Center for the Performing Arts (Bradley University)

Peoria, IL

The Hartmann Center was built in 1909 as Hewitt Gymnasium at Bradley University, complete with an indoor swimming pool. In 1979 it was converted to serve the Department of Theater Arts, with the former swimming pool becoming the orchestra pit of what is now the Meyer Jacobs Theatre.

$ All Ages Family: High

Peoria Historical Society offices on SW Washington Street in downtown Peoria, Illinois

Other Dark Tourism Site

Haunted Peoria Bus Tour (Peoria Historical Society)

Peoria, IL

The Haunted Peoria Bus Tour is operated by the Peoria Historical Society from offices at 611 SW Washington Street in Peoria, Illinois. The two-hour seasonal tour visits documented sites of regional dark history and reported paranormal accounts across the Peoria metropolitan area.

$$ All Ages; mature themes Family: Moderate

Theater / Performance Venue

Madison Theatre

Peoria, IL

The Madison Theatre opened October 16, 1920, as a silent-picture palace in downtown Peoria. It operated commercially for over eight decades before closing in 2003 and entering the preservation process.

$ All Ages Family: High

Theater / Performance Venue

Peoria Players Theatre

Peoria, IL

Peoria Players Theatre is the oldest continuously running community theatre in Illinois and the fourth oldest in the United States, founded on October 6, 1919. The company has performed at three different Peoria locations and has occupied its current University Street building since 1957.

$$ All Ages Family: High

The Rock Island Depot (River Station), an 1891 train depot along the Illinois River in Peoria, Illinois

Museum / Historical Site

River Station (Rock Island Depot)

Peoria, IL

The Rock Island Depot at 212 SW Water Street in Peoria was built in 1891 by the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad. A freight house was added in 1899. The depot served as a major regional rail hub through the mid-20th century, with the 'Peoria Rocket' passenger train operating until 1978. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and has operated under the River Station name since 1981.

$ All Ages Family: High

Asylum / Hospital

Zeller Mental Health Center

Peoria, IL

Zeller Mental Health Center was a 200-bed Illinois Department of Human Services psychiatric facility in central Peoria. The state closed Zeller on June 30, 2002. In 2003 the site was reopened as Illinois Central College's North Campus and continues to operate in that role.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Rockford — 6

Aerial survey view of Faust Landmark (formerly the Faust Hotel)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Faust Landmark (formerly the Faust Hotel)

Rockford, IL

The Faust Hotel opened in 1929 as a fifteen-story, four-hundred-room hotel and apartment complex in downtown Rockford, Illinois, named for Levin Faust, a prominent Swedish immigrant. The building has since been owned by the Shriners (as Tebala Towers) and converted in 2010 into restricted-access senior residential housing as the Faust Landmark.

$ All Ages (exterior viewing); 55+ residency restriction Family: High

Historic 1904 view of Rockford College grounds with Adams Hall and Linden Hall in Rockford Illinois

Museum / Historical Site

Rockford University (formerly Rockford College)

Rockford, IL

Rockford University is a private liberal arts university in Rockford, Illinois, founded in 1847 as Rockford Female Seminary. The institution became Rockford College in 1892 and Rockford University in 2013. Its most famous alumna is Jane Addams, the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and co-founder of Hull House in Chicago.

$ All Ages Family: High

Tinker Swiss Cottage historic Swiss-style residence, Rockford, Illinois

Museum / Historical Site

Tinker Swiss Cottage (History Tour)

Rockford, IL

Robert Hall Tinker built the 27-room Swiss-style cottage between 1865 and 1870 on a limestone bluff above Kent Creek in Rockford, Illinois, after returning from European travel in 1862. The Tinker family donated the property to the city in the 1940s, and it now operates as a house museum and gardens.

$$ All ages for history tours; paranormal investigations recommended for ages 12 and up Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Tinker Swiss Cottage Museum & Gardens

Rockford, IL

Robert H. Tinker began building Tinker Swiss Cottage in 1865 on a limestone bluff above Kent Creek in Rockford, Illinois. Inspired by his 1862 European tour, the twenty-room cottage is one of only a handful of Swiss-style residential buildings remaining in the United States. Tinker — a former Rockford mayor and founding member of the Rockford Park District — surrounded the cottage with twenty-seven acres of gardens and a Swiss-inspired three-story barn.

$$ All ages for daytime tours; paranormal events are 12 and older Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Tinker Swiss Cottage Museum & Gardens

Rockford, IL

Tinker Swiss Cottage in Rockford, Illinois is a 27-room residence built between 1865 and 1870 by accountant and traveler Robert Hall Tinker on a limestone bluff above Kent Creek. The Tinker family occupied it through 1942; it has operated as a public museum since 1943.

$$ All Ages for daytime tours; paranormal events 12+ per museum policy Family: Moderate

Haunted House / Historic Home

Tinker Swiss Cottage

Rockford, IL

The Tinker Swiss Cottage is a 27-room Swiss-style chalet built by Robert Hall Tinker in Rockford, Illinois, between 1865 and 1870 on a limestone bluff. Tinker, inspired by an 1862 European tour, married Mary Dorr Manny in 1870. The Rockford Park District opened the property as a museum in 1943, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

$$ All Ages for daytime tours; 12+ for paranormal events Family: High

Aurora — 5

Exterior of the Paramount Theatre in downtown Aurora, Illinois, photographed in August 2017 showing the Art Deco facade

Theater / Performance Venue

Aurora Paramount Theatre

Aurora, IL

The Aurora Paramount Theatre opened in September 1931, commissioned by J. J. Rubens at a cost of one million dollars and designed by Rapp and Rapp in an Art Deco style with Venetian Gothic detailing. Its opening performers included the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Jeanette MacDonald, and Burns and Allen. The theater closed for renovation in 1976 and reopened in 1978. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and continues operating as downtown Aurora's primary performing arts venue, with current capacity of 1,885 seats.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Aurora Two Brothers Roundhouse Ghost Tour & Investigation

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Aurora Two Brothers Roundhouse Ghost Tour & Investigation

Aurora, IL

The Two Brothers Roundhouse in Aurora, Illinois was built in 1856 as a service hub for the Chicago and Aurora Railroads. It is the oldest limestone roundhouse in the United States and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was restored beginning in 1995 and reopened in 1996 as Walter Payton's Roundhouse Complex, and operates today as a Two Brothers Brewing taproom and event venue.

$$ 13+ Family: Moderate

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Leland Tower

Aurora, IL

The Aurora-Leland Hotel was constructed in 1928 at a cost of $3.1 million, designed by architects Anker Sveere Graven and Arthur Guy Mayger. At 22 stories, it was the tallest building in Illinois outside of Chicago when completed. The building served as the city's premier hotel and entertainment venue until the 1960s, when it transitioned to residential apartments. It continues to operate as Leland Tower Apartments under Karademas management.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Mount Olivet Cemetery

Aurora, IL

Mount Olivet Cemetery in Aurora, Illinois was established in the 1850s as a Catholic burial ground in Kane County. Now administered by the Diocese of Rockford, it contains more than 11,000 interments. The cemetery's apparition tradition is unusual in its specificity: witnesses consistently describe figures in 1950s attire, and a 1958 Lincoln Continental that drives to the front gates before dissolving.

$ All Ages Family: High

Exterior of the William A. Tanner House at 305 Cedar St, Aurora, Illinois, photographed in 2011 showing the 1857 Italianate facade

Haunted House / Historic Home

William Tanner House (Aurora Historical Society)

Aurora, IL

William A. Tanner arrived in Aurora from Watertown, New York in 1835 as one of the city's earliest settlers. After years of surveying and farming, he opened a hardware business that ran for 140 years under successive owners, eventually closing in 1979. He built the Italianate house at 305 Cedar Street in 1857. Four deaths occurred in the residence — William (1892), his wife Anna (1908), and two of their ten children — with funerals held in the home. The family donated the property to the Aurora Historical Society in 1936, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

$ All Ages Family: High

Carbondale — 4

Other Dark Tourism Site

Carbondale Old Train Depot

Carbondale, IL

Carbondale's old train depot dates to around 1905, making it the third railroad station to serve the city. Located in the downtown area, the building served the Illinois Central railroad line. Ghost tours now use it as a documented stop citing shadow figures and temperature anomalies recorded by investigators.

$ All Ages Family: High

True Crime Site

Hundley House

Carbondale, IL

On December 12, 1928, former Carbondale mayor J. Chas Hundley and his wife Luella were shot and killed inside their home at 601 W. Main Street. The case was never prosecuted — the only suspect, Hundley's son, was allegedly connected to a bootlegging operation. The murders remain officially unsolved.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Oakland Cemetery

Carbondale, IL

Oakland Cemetery on North Oakland Avenue is one of Carbondale's historic burial grounds, referenced repeatedly in local press accounts as one of the city's most frequently cited haunted locations. The cemetery's mausoleum is the central architectural feature in its paranormal reputation.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Theater / Performance Venue

Shryock Auditorium

Carbondale, IL

Shryock Auditorium was built in 1918 on the campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. It was named for Henry William Shryock, the university's president, who died suddenly while speaking on the auditorium's own stage on April 13, 1935.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Quincy — 4

Theater / Performance Venue

MacHugh Theater (Quincy University)

Quincy, IL

MacHugh Theater sits on the Quincy University campus, a Franciscan-affiliated institution founded in 1860. The theater occupies land adjacent to the former site of the St. Aloysius Orphanage, which operated on campus grounds in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

$ All Ages Family: High

Asylum / Hospital

Solano Hall — Quincy University (St. Aloysius Orphanage Site)

Quincy, IL

Solano Hall at Quincy University stands on the site of St. Aloysius Orphanage, which burned in the late 1890s killing multiple children. A connected 1899 fire at St. Francis parochial school on or near the campus killed twelve girls during a rehearsal.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Villa Kathrine

Quincy, IL

Villa Kathrine was built in 1900 by George Metz, a wealthy Quincy, Illinois native who spent three years traveling the Mediterranean before returning home with architectural drawings and North African furnishings. Metz hired local architect George Behrensmeyer — in his first professional commission — to translate those sketches into a Moorish Revival villa on the bluffs above the Mississippi River. It is the only example of Moroccan-influenced architecture on the Mississippi.

$$ 18+, or 16+ with a responsible adult for ghost hunts Family: Moderate

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

Woodland Cemetery Ghost Tours

Quincy, IL

Woodland Cemetery was founded in 1846 by Quincy's first mayor, John Wood, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 58-acre Victorian-era grounds hold the remains of many of Quincy's founding figures.

$ All Ages Family: High

Bartonville — 3

Peoria State Hospital historic building exterior, Bartonville Illinois

Asylum / Hospital

Peoria State Hospital (Cottage B1)

Bartonville, IL

The Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane, opened February 10, 1902 near Bartonville under Superintendent Dr. George Zeller, was designed as a progressive 'cottage system' campus of 33 buildings spread across 215 acres. At peak capacity the facility housed 2,800 patients. It closed in 1973, and subsequent demolitions reduced the original 63 buildings to 12 survivors. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

$$ 13+ for American Hauntings events (under 18 requires adult supervision) Family: Low

A surviving building on the grounds of the former Peoria State Hospital in Bartonville, Illinois, in winter, listed on the National Register of Historic Places

Asylum / Hospital

Peoria State Hospital Museum & Guided History Tour

Bartonville, IL

The Peoria State Hospital opened in 1902 in Bartonville, Illinois, originally chartered in 1895 as the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane. Under superintendent Dr. George A. Zeller, the institution adopted the cottage system across 33 buildings and became a regional model for reform-era psychiatric care. The hospital closed in 1973, and most buildings were demolished or sold at auction in subsequent decades.

$$ All Ages (children must be supervised on tours) Family: Moderate

Peoria State Hospital historic building exterior used for paranormal tours, Bartonville Illinois

Asylum / Hospital

Peoria State Hospital Public Paranormal Tours

Bartonville, IL

The Illinois Hospital for the Incurable Insane opened in 1902 in Bartonville on bluffs above the Illinois River, growing into a 63-building Kirkbride Plan complex that operated as Peoria State Hospital from 1909 until its closure in 1973. Today the Pollak Tuberculosis Hospital is the only surviving hospital building, operated as a museum and the site of public historical and paranormal tours.

$$$ Historical tour appropriate for older children; paranormal investigation portion 18+ Family: Low

Bloomington — 3

Haunted House / Historic Home

Adams Hall — Illinois Wesleyan University

Bloomington, IL

Adams Hall is a former private residence at the corner of Beecher and Main streets in Bloomington, incorporated into the Illinois Wesleyan University campus as student housing. Author M.A. Kleen documented its haunting accounts and building history in 2019.

$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Evergreen Memorial Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Evergreen Memorial Cemetery

Bloomington, IL

Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois, was established in the nineteenth century and holds some of the most notable graves in central Illinois, including those of Vice President Adlai Stevenson I, Supreme Court Justice David Davis, Hall of Fame pitcher Charles 'Old Hoss' Radbourn, and Dorothy Gage — the infant whose name L. Frank Baum borrowed for his Oz heroine.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Kemp Hall International House — Illinois Wesleyan University

Bloomington, IL

Kemp Hall was built in 1907 as a private Classical Revival mansion in Bloomington, Illinois. The original owner, A. E. DeMange, occupied the home with his wife for less than a year — Mrs. DeMange died in 1908, only shortly after the family took up residence. Illinois Wesleyan University later acquired the building and converted it into Kemp Hall International House, student housing serving the university's international student community.

$ All Ages Family: High

Forest Park — 3

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Forest Home Cemetery (former German Waldheim)

Forest Park, IL

Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, grew from two adjacent cemeteries — German Waldheim (established 1873) and Forest Home (1876) — which merged in February 1969. The 220-acre site was chosen as a non-denominational burial ground, a policy that made it the only Chicago-area cemetery willing to accept the bodies of the Haymarket defendants in 1887.

$ All Ages Family: High

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Showmen's Rest

Forest Park, IL

Showmen's Rest is a 750-plot section of Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, owned by the Showmen's League of America since 1913. Its earliest burials, in June 1918, were 56 to 61 employees of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus killed in one of the deadliest train wrecks in U.S. history.

$ All Ages Family: High

One of five mourning elephant statues at Showmen's Rest in Woodlawn Cemetery, Forest Park, Illinois

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Woodlawn Cemetery / Showmen's Rest

Forest Park, IL

Showmen's Rest is a 750-plot section of Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, owned by the Showmen's League of America and reserved for circus and carnival performers. It is best known as the burial site of 56 to 61 Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus employees killed in a catastrophic train wreck near Hammond, Indiana, on June 22, 1918.

$ All Ages Family: High

Joliet — 3

Haunted House / Historic Home

Frank Shaver Allen House

Joliet, IL

The Frank Shaver Allen House at 608 Morgan Street in Joliet was built in 1887 for architect Frank Shaver Allen (1860-1930). The limestone cottage features a cylindrical tower and ornate Queen Anne woodworking. Allen relocated his family to Los Angeles in 1904. The home remains a private residence.

$ Drive-by viewing only Family: Moderate

Haunted House / Historic Home

Hiram B. Scutt Mansion

Joliet, IL

Hiram Scutt, a Civil War veteran, commissioned this Second Empire mansion in 1882 after founding Joliet's first barbed wire company in 1874. He died in 1889 from a riding accident. The mansion passed through multiple owners; in 2004, 19-year-old Steven Jenkins was shot and killed at a party in the house. A subsequent owner, Seth Magosky, died suddenly of an abdominal aneurysm inside the mansion in 2007. The Victorian museum that briefly operated inside closed in 2013.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Prison / Reformatory

Old Joliet Prison

Joliet, IL

The Old Joliet Prison opened May 22, 1858, when fifty-three inmates arrived at a small structure to begin building the larger penitentiary around themselves. Designed by Chicago architect William W. Boyington and constructed of limestone quarried on-site, it operated until 2002 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.

$$ All Ages (children must be supervised) Family: Moderate

Belleville — 2

Theater / Performance Venue

Lincoln Theatre

Belleville, IL

The Lincoln Theatre has operated in downtown Belleville, Illinois since 1921, designed by architect William Henry Gruen. In the 1920s, performers including a young Ginger Rogers and the Marx Brothers appeared on its stage. A $30,000 Wurlitzer organ was installed in 1927, and the theater converted to sound film in 1929. Now over a century old, the Lincoln continues showing first-run films and hosting live events.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Papa Vito's Restaurant

Belleville, IL

The building housing Papa Vito's Restaurant dates to the mid-19th century and served multiple purposes before becoming a dining establishment, including use as a private residence and reportedly as lodging connected to stagecoach routes.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Cairo — 2

Museum / Historical Site

A.B. Safford Memorial Library

Cairo, IL

The A.B. Safford Memorial Library was built in 1884 as a gift to the city of Cairo from Mrs. Alfred B. Safford. Designed in the Queen Anne style, it was one of the earliest purpose-built public libraries in southern Illinois and has served Cairo residents continuously since its founding.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Magnolia Manor

Cairo, IL

Magnolia Manor was built in 1869 by flour merchant Charles Galigher, whose company supplied the U.S. government during the Civil War and exported internationally. The 18-room Italianate brick mansion is now operated as a house museum by the Cairo Historical Association, preserving Victorian furnishings and Civil War-era artifacts.

$ All Ages Family: High

Evergreen Park — 2

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Evergreen Cemetery

Evergreen Park, IL

Evergreen Cemetery was established in 1910 by the LaSalle Sales Organization (a partnership of Max Guthman and Jacob Rothschild) on 110 acres in what is now Evergreen Park, Illinois. The grounds were designed by Danish landscape architect Svend Lollesgard as a memorial park. The cemetery is sometimes called the Village of Churches for the many religious institutional sections.

$ All Ages Family: High

Active Catholic cemetery at 87th and Hamlin in Evergreen Park, Illinois

Cemetery / Burial Ground

St. Mary Catholic Cemetery and Mausoleum

Evergreen Park, IL

St. Mary Catholic Cemetery in Evergreen Park, Illinois, was consecrated in 1888 as the second cemetery established by the German Angel Guardian Orphanage Society. It is the largest cemetery serving the southern area of the Archdiocese of Chicago, anchored at 87th and Hamlin.

$ All Ages Family: High

Hillside — 2

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Mount Carmel Cemetery

Hillside, IL

Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside was consecrated in 1901 and spans 214 acres with over 238,000 interments. Operated by the Catholic Cemeteries of Chicago, it serves Cook County's Catholic community and contains graves ranging from turn-of-the-century Italian immigrants to Chicago political figures. The cemetery's most documented legend centers on Julia Buccola Petta, who died in childbirth in 1921 and was exhumed in 1927 at her mother's insistence.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Memorial sculpture at Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, site of reported Marian apparitions

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Queen of Heaven Cemetery

Hillside, IL

Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois is a Roman Catholic cemetery that contains the Shrine of the Holy Innocents, the only public memorial to the 92 children and 3 sisters killed in the December 1, 1958 fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago. Twenty-five of the victims are buried at the shrine.

$ All Ages (visitors expected to behave respectfully) Family: Moderate

Justice — 2

Haunted Dining / Bar

Chet's Melody Lounge

Justice, IL

Chet's Melody Lounge has operated at 7400 Archer Avenue in Justice, Illinois, since 1963, when its founder Chet Prusinski opened the bar across the street from Resurrection Cemetery. It was one of three taverns near the cemetery's main gate on Archer Avenue and is the only one still in operation. The bar's location on the Archer Avenue corridor — a stretch of southwest Chicago suburbia associated with the Resurrection Mary legend since at least the 1930s — makes it a consistent anchor for ghost tours.

$ 21+ Family: Low

Main gate of Resurrection Catholic Cemetery on Archer Avenue in Justice Illinois

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Resurrection Cemetery

Justice, IL

Resurrection Catholic Cemetery in Justice, Illinois, was consecrated in 1904 to serve the southwest suburbs of the Archdiocese of Chicago, particularly the growing Polish Catholic community. The cemetery spans 397 acres and contains the Resurrection Mausoleum, whose 1971 stained-glass window is recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest in the world.

$ All Ages Family: High

Minooka — 2

Aerial survey view of Aux Sable Cemetery (Minooka)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Aux Sable Cemetery (Minooka)

Minooka, IL

Aux Sable Cemetery is a historic pioneer cemetery (also recorded as Walley or Cryder Cemetery) at the south end of Brown Road in Aux Sable Township, Grundy County, Illinois, in the countryside between Minooka and Morris. With more than a thousand burials, it is one of the most frequently cited 'haunted' cemeteries in the state.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Aerial survey view of Dresden Cemetery (Minooka)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Dresden Cemetery (Minooka)

Minooka, IL

Dresden Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in the Minooka area of Grundy County, Illinois, established in 1847 on Hansel Road. It is closely associated with the early-twentieth-century relocation of many area burials to the newer St. Mary's Cemetery in Minooka, a move rooted in documented difficulties with flooding and grave conditions.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Monticello — 2

Allerton House (The Farm) — Robert Allerton's country estate mansion near Monticello, Illinois

Haunted House / Historic Home

Allerton Mansion

Monticello, IL

Allerton Mansion is a 40-room Georgian Revival country house completed in 1900 on the central Illinois prairie. Designed by Philadelphia architect John Borie for Robert Allerton, heir to a Chicago banking and stockyard fortune, the 5,500-acre estate was deeded to the University of Illinois in 1946 and now operates as a public park and retreat center.

$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Crybaby Bridge (Piatt County)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Crybaby Bridge (Piatt County)

Monticello, IL

Crybaby Bridge Road crosses the Sangamon River roughly three miles north of Monticello in Piatt County, Illinois. The original one-lane iron-and-wood truss bridge was built in 1899 and stood for about a century before being demolished and replaced with a modern concrete span in 2001-2002. The crossing sits in a wooded, rolling-hill landscape near the Piatt County Forest Preserve District's Lodge Park.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Naperville — 2

Historic downtown commercial buildings in the Naperville Historic District, the DuPage County area covered by the nightly walking ghost tour

Other Dark Tourism Site

Naperville Nightfall Nightmares Tour

Naperville, IL

Naperville, Illinois, was settled in 1831 by Joseph Naper and incorporated as DuPage County's first city. The Naperville Nightfall Nightmares Tour, operated by US Ghost Adventures, meets at the Spirit of the American Navy statue in Burlington Square Park at 317 N Ellsworth Street.

$$ All Ages; mature themes at parental discretion Family: Moderate

The Spirit of the American Navy statue in Burlington Square Park, Naperville, Illinois — the meeting point for the Nightfall Nightmares ghost tour

Other Dark Tourism Site

Naperville Nightfall Nightmares Ghost Tour

Naperville, IL

The Naperville Nightfall Nightmares ghost tour is operated by US Ghost Adventures, a national tour-operator network running ghost walks in dozens of cities. The Naperville route covers downtown locations associated with the 1946 train disaster, the city's KKK-era history, and other documented dark events from the western Chicago suburb's past.

$$ All Ages (subject matter discusses adult historical themes) Family: Moderate

Normal — 2

The main building of the Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home (later Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's School) in Normal, Illinois, photographed circa 1908, the Victorian Romanesque structure razed in 1961.

Museum / Historical Site

Illinois Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's School

Normal, IL

The Illinois Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's School in Normal, Illinois, opened in 1865 as the Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home for children of Civil War veterans and operated until 1979. Its NRHP-listed Children's Village, eight Tudor Revival cottages built in 1930-31, survives along with other buildings, now redeveloped as One Normal Plaza and Normandy Village.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Williams Hall — Illinois State University

Normal, IL

Williams Hall is one of Illinois State University's oldest surviving buildings, built in the late nineteenth century to serve as the university's first purpose-built library. It has since been repurposed for academic and administrative functions and remains a landmark on ISU's central campus.

$ All Ages Family: High

Ashmore — 1

Asylum / Hospital

Ashmore Estates

Ashmore, IL

The Coles County Poor Farm established its second almshouse on this Ashmore, Illinois property in 1916, replacing a condemned predecessor facility. The building served impoverished residents until 1959, when it was converted to a private psychiatric hospital. Financial difficulties closed the psychiatric facility in 1986, and the building remained abandoned for 20 years before current owners purchased it in 2006.

$$ Check venue for current age requirements Family: Low

Barrington — 1

Aerial survey view of White Cemetery (Cuba Road)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

White Cemetery (Cuba Road)

Barrington, IL

White Memorial Cemetery was established as the White Cemetery Association in 1855 by Innis Hollister and Thomas White, though the earliest documented burial dates to 1847. Cuba Township assumed ownership in 1983 after a period of deterioration and has maintained the site since.

$ All Ages Family: High

Belvedere — 1

Aerial survey view of Blood's Point Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Blood's Point Cemetery

Belvedere, IL

Blood's Point Cemetery is a historic burial ground near Belvedere, Illinois in Boone County. The cemetery serves as a final resting place for generations of local residents and has been a recognized burial site for well over a century.

$ All Ages Family: High

Benton — 1

The Old Franklin County Jail in Benton, Illinois, a brick structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places

Prison / Reformatory

Franklin County Historic Jail Museum

Benton, IL

Built in 1905, the Franklin County Jail in Benton, Illinois held its most famous inmate — bootlegger and gangster Charlie Birger — before his public hanging on April 19, 1928. That execution was the last public hanging in Illinois. The gallows were subsequently loaned to Kentucky, where they were used for the final public hanging in United States history on August 14, 1936, in Owensboro. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, the building has operated as a museum since 1990.

$$ All Ages (ghost hunts 18+) Family: Low

Buckner — 1

Aerial survey view of Harrison Cemetery (Buckner)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Harrison Cemetery (Buckner)

Buckner, IL

Harrison Cemetery is a rural burial ground in Browning Township, Franklin County, Illinois, sited between the town of Christopher and the village of Buckner. Named for one of the area's first settling families, it has served the community for well over a century. A notable piano-shaped monument marks an unidentified grave and has become the centerpiece of the cemetery's folklore.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Bull Valley — 1

Haunted House / Historic Home

George Stickney House

Bull Valley, IL

The George Stickney House is an 1865 stucco-over-frame mansion in Bull Valley, Illinois, built for spiritualists George and Sylvia Stickney. The Stickneys, both practicing mediums, are said to have designed the interior without right angles to ease the movement of spirits during seances. The building has served as the Bull Valley Police Department since 1985 and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.

$ All Ages Family: High

Centralia — 1

Aerial survey view of Elmwood Cemetery (Violin Annie)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Elmwood Cemetery (Violin Annie)

Centralia, IL

Elmwood Cemetery in Centralia, Illinois, was in use by the 1860s and formally established in 1877. Its centerpiece is the marble memorial to Harriet Annie Marshall, who died of diphtheria on June 18, 1890, at age 11. The monument's statue, based on a family painting, depicts her holding a violin.

$ All Ages Family: High

Champaign — 1

Theater / Performance Venue

Virginia Theatre

Champaign, IL

The Virginia Theatre opened December 28, 1921, designed by Detroit architect C. Howard Crane for combined vaudeville and cinema programming. The 1,463-seat house operated for decades as a premier downtown entertainment venue and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. It remains an active performance and film venue today.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Cherry — 1

Aerial survey view of Cherry Mine Disaster Memorial & Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Cherry Mine Disaster Memorial & Cemetery

Cherry, IL

On November 13, 1909, six bales of hay ignited inside the St. Paul Coal Company's mine at Cherry, Illinois, triggering the deadliest mine fire in American history. A 45-minute delay in sounding the alarm allowed the fire to spread before evacuation began. Of the 481 men and boys who entered the mine that day, 259 died. The parian marble monument erected in Cherry depicts a mourning woman. A separate miners' cemetery holds those who could not be individually recovered.

$ All Ages Family: High

Cherry Valley — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Blood Point Road

Cherry Valley, IL

Blood Point Road takes its name from Arthur Blood, an 1830s settler in Flora Township, Boone County. The 2.8-mile rural road runs east-west from Pearl Street to Cherry Valley Road in northern Illinois, near Rockford.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Clarendon Hills — 1

Haunted Dining / Bar

Country House Restaurant

Clarendon Hills, IL

A roadhouse has stood at this location on 55th Street in Clarendon Hills since 1922, when the original owner built a tavern with a residence above it. The building changed hands several times before David Regnery and partners purchased it in 1974, renovating it into the Country House that operates today. The Geneva, Illinois Country House location has closed permanently; only the Clarendon Hills restaurant remains.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Collinsville — 1

Outdoor / Natural Site

Cahokia Mounds

Collinsville, IL

Cahokia Mounds is a 2,200-acre UNESCO World Heritage Site in Collinsville, Illinois containing 80 surviving prehistoric earthen mounds. The site was occupied by the Mississippian civilization from approximately 600-1400 CE, at its peak encompassing 4,000 acres with a population exceeding 10,000 inhabitants.

$ All Ages Family: High

Crystal Lake — 1

Sign at Mt. Thabor Cemetery in Crystal Lake, Illinois, photographed 2022

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Mount Thabor Cemetery

Crystal Lake, IL

Mount Thabor Cemetery was established in 1846 when early McHenry County settler Owen Dyer deeded one acre of his land to the Catholic Church for one dollar. The cemetery holds approximately 120 burials, most pre-dating 1900, though only about 35 markers remain standing after a 1965 vandalism event that smashed many of the century-old headstones. The Crystal Lake Historical Society maintains records of the site.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Danville — 1

Museum / Historical Site

Holland Apartments

Danville, IL

The Holland Apartments at 324-326 N. Vermilion Street in Danville were constructed in two sections: the northern half in 1906 and the southern half in 1927, both in the Dutch Revival style. After years as a downtown landmark in severe disrepair, the building was restored to 57 units of low-income and assisted-living housing and became Illinois's first LEED-Gold National Register of Historic Places building.

$ All Ages Family: High

Des Plaines — 1

Other Dark Tourism Site

Maryville Academy

Des Plaines, IL

Maryville Academy in Des Plaines, Illinois began in 1883 as Saint Mary's Training School, founded by Archbishop Patrick A. Feehan on an 880-acre farm as a home for dependent and neglected boys. Girls joined the facility in 1911, and after a student vote the institution was renamed Maryville Academy in 1950. Today the organization operates 19 programs across five Illinois locations, having evolved from an orphanage model to a trauma-informed care clinical approach.

$ All Ages Family: High

East Peoria — 1

Aerial survey view of Cole Hollow Road — Cohomo Monster Site

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Cole Hollow Road — Cohomo Monster Site

East Peoria, IL

In May 1972, an 18-year-old named Randy Emmert told friends he had seen an eight-to-nine-foot, white-haired creature on Cole Hollow Road near East Peoria. The story spread rapidly: by May 25, the East Peoria Police Department logged more than 200 calls, and in July a 100-person volunteer search party had to be disbanded after one searcher accidentally shot himself in the foot. Emmert later admitted the original sighting was a prank that spiraled out of control.

$ All Ages Family: High

Elgin — 1

Pastoral grounds of Hilltop Cemetery, the burial ground of the Elgin State Hospital in Elgin, Illinois

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Elgin State Hospital Cemetery (Hilltop Cemetery)

Elgin, IL

Hilltop Cemetery, also known as Hillside Cemetery and historically as the Elgin State Hospital Cemetery, was laid out in 1933 on farmland belonging to the Elgin State Hospital. The first burial took place on October 27, 1933. The hospital itself opened in 1872 as the Northern Illinois Hospital and Asylum for the Insane. The cemetery now contains 974 marked grave sites and is owned by the City of Elgin.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Elkhart — 1

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Elkhart Cemetery

Elkhart, IL

Elkhart Cemetery occupies Elkhart Hill near the village of Elkhart in Logan County, Illinois. It holds the mausoleum of Richard J. Oglesby (1824-1899), Illinois's only three-time governor, a Civil War major general, a US senator, and a friend of Abraham Lincoln. The on-site St. John the Baptist Chapel was the setting for Oglesby's funeral on April 28, 1899.

$ All Ages Family: High

Evanston — 1

Museum / Historical Site

Grosse Point Lighthouse

Evanston, IL

The Grosse Point Lighthouse at 2601 Sheridan Road in Evanston, Illinois, was constructed following the 1860 wreck of the Lady Elgin, a maritime disaster that killed nearly 300 people off the Evanston shore. Completed in 1873 and activated on March 1, 1874, the station is a National Historic Landmark.

$ Ages 8 and up for tower tours; grounds open to all Family: Moderate

Flora — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Bloods Point Cemetery

Flora, IL

Bloods Point Cemetery was established in 1836 in Flora Township, Boone County, taking its name from Arthur Blood, an 1830s settler and the first European-American resident of the region. The cemetery serves as a burial ground for over two centuries of local residents.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Forest City — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Mt. Zion Cemetery

Forest City, IL

Mt. Zion Cemetery in Mason County, Illinois near Forest City is the burial site of a congregation reportedly lost in a church fire that burned on this property while services were in session. Local researchers, including Chad Lewis and Terry Fisk, noted in their 2007 Illinois Road Guide to Haunted Locations that the church was removed from the deed by 1955, suggesting the fire predated that year — though historical documentation of victims has not been confirmed.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Galesburg — 1

Museum / Historical Site

Knox College

Galesburg, IL

Knox College was founded in 1837 by anti-slavery advocates in Galesburg, Illinois. The campus served as a station on the Underground Railroad and hosted the fifth of the seven Lincoln-Douglas senatorial debates in October 1858. In March 1998, freshman Andrea Racibozynski was beaten to death with a brick in the glass-enclosed stairwell of Seymour Hall by fellow student Clyde A. Best.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Geneva — 1

Aerial survey view of Girls' School Cemetery (Illinois State Training School)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Girls' School Cemetery (Illinois State Training School)

Geneva, IL

The Girls' School Cemetery is a small burial ground of roughly 51 graves in Geneva, Illinois, the only surviving remnant of the Illinois State Training School for Delinquent Girls (also called the State Industrial School for Delinquent Girls), which operated from 1894 to 1977. The school's grounds are now the Fox Run subdivision, and the cemetery holds former residents and infants tied to the institution.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Godfrey — 1

Museum / Historical Site

Lewis and Clark Community College

Godfrey, IL

Captain Benjamin Godfrey founded Monticello Female Seminary in Godfrey, Illinois in 1838 as one of the earliest institutions of higher education for women west of the Appalachians. Harriet Newell Haskell served as principal from 1867 until her death in 1907, rebuilding the school after a devastating 1888 fire and raising its national reputation. In 1971, the institution became Lewis and Clark Community College.

$ All Ages Family: High

Grafton — 1

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Ruebel Hotel

Grafton, IL

Michael Ruebel built the Ruebel Hotel in Grafton, Illinois in 1879. The property sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, beneath the limestone bluffs of the Great River Road. After fire destroyed the original structure in 1912, Ruebel rebuilt the hotel the following year with 32 guest rooms renting at $1 per night.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Hoffman Estates — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Shoe Factory Road

Hoffman Estates, IL

Shoe Factory Road in Hoffman Estates was named for the 1891 Ludlow shoe factory at Shoe Factory and Dundee Roads. The road has hosted the Charles A. Lindbergh School (1929), the Earl and Elizabeth Teets Farm (site of an unsolved 1970s murder), and a Spanish Colonial Revival house — all demolished by 2007-2008.

$ All Ages (drive-by only) Family: Moderate

Jerseyville — 1

White-clapboard 1827 mansion in Jerseyville, Illinois with original stagecoach-stop core

Museum / Historical Site

Cheney Mansion

Jerseyville, IL

Cheney Mansion in Jerseyville, Illinois began as the 1827 four-room stagecoach stop known as the Little Red House. Over more than a century it served as a tavern, a bank, a doctor's office, and an Underground Railroad station whose false-cistern basement hide is preserved. In 1998 the property was donated to the Jersey County Historical Society and is now operated as the county's history museum.

$$ All ages for daytime museum tours; investigations are typically 18+ Family: Moderate

Kankakee — 1

Historic view of the Kankakee State Hospital Romanesque Revival main building, Illinois

Asylum / Hospital

Kankakee State Hospital Historic District (Samuel H. Shapiro Developmental Center)

Kankakee, IL

The Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane opened in 1879 as one of Illinois's largest Kirkbride-plan complexes — Romanesque Revival on 119 acres with an interconnected underground tunnel system. A 1939–1940 typhoid fever epidemic killed more than 50 patients and staff when the contaminated water supply infected the campus. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, the historic district is now the Samuel H. Shapiro Developmental Center. Ghost stories tied to the buildings and tunnels have been collected by the Kankakee County Museum.

$ All Ages Family: High

Lake Forest — 1

Haunted House / Historic Home

Schweppe Mansion (Mayflower Place)

Lake Forest, IL

Mayflower Place was completed in 1917 by architect Frederick Wainwright Perkins as a wedding gift from John G. Shedd to his daughter Laura Shedd Schweppe and her husband Charles Hodgdon Schweppe. After Laura's death in 1937 and Charles's suicide in 1941, the estate remained largely unoccupied for forty-seven years before a 1987 restoration.

$ All Ages Family: High

Lebanon — 1

Old Main, the historic main building of McKendree University, Lebanon, Illinois — founded 1828 as McKendree College.

Haunted House / Historic Home

McKendree University Alumni House

Lebanon, IL

McKendree University, founded in Lebanon, Illinois in 1828 as the Lebanon Seminary, is the oldest college or university in Illinois. Pioneer Methodists established the institution under Archbishop Edward Raymond Ames, and it was renamed in 1830 to honor Bishop William McKendree, the first American-born Methodist bishop. The Alumni House on campus has a documented history of deaths among its occupants.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Lemont — 1

The limestone St. James at Sag Bridge Catholic Church atop its hilltop cemetery overlooking the Calumet Sag Channel near Lemont, Illinois.

Cemetery / Burial Ground

St. James at Sag Bridge (Monk's Castle)

Lemont, IL

St. James at Sag Bridge is a limestone Catholic sanctuary built in the 1850s on a high bluff overlooking the Des Plaines River Valley near Lemont, Illinois. The parish was established in 1833, making it the oldest Catholic congregation in the Chicago area, and the surrounding cemetery contains the graves of Irish canal workers who built the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

$ All Ages Family: High

Lisle — 1

Museum / Historical Site

Benedictine University

Lisle, IL

Benedictine University was founded in 1887 by Czech and Slovak Benedictine monks in Chicago and relocated to Lisle in 1901. The campus occupies 108 acres that once housed St. Joseph's Bohemian Orphanage (1898-1956), where twenty-three children died and were buried on the grounds.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Lockport — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Bruce Road

Lockport, IL

Bruce Road is a public road in Lockport, Illinois in Will County, located in the southern Chicago metropolitan area approximately 30 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Marshall — 1

Aerial survey view of Macke Cemetery ('Hatchet Man Cemetery')

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Macke Cemetery ('Hatchet Man Cemetery')

Marshall, IL

Macke Cemetery is a small, remote rural cemetery on Macke Road near Marshall in Clark County, Illinois. Better known in regional folklore as the 'Hatchet Man Cemetery' or 'Wolf Skins,' it has been investigated by paranormal groups and documented in folklore collections, though the violent legend attached to it is not supported by documented records.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Mattoon — 1

Aerial survey view of Campground Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Campground Cemetery

Mattoon, IL

Campground Cemetery is a small historic burial ground located in Coles County, Illinois, adjacent to Lake Road southwest of Mattoon. The cemetery serves as a burial site for early local residents and reflects 19th and early 20th-century burial practices in rural Illinois.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

McClure — 1

Aerial survey view of Grapevine Trail (Dead Man's Curve)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Grapevine Trail (Dead Man's Curve)

McClure, IL

Grapevine Trail is a twisting rural road in Alexander County, southern Illinois, near McClure. The road provides access to portions of the Shawnee National Forest and the Horse Creek Hiking Trail. Its local nickname Dead Man's Curve reflects documented accident history on the narrow, sharply-turning route.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Midlothian — 1

Weathered headstones cluster among trees at Bachelor's Grove Cemetery in Midlothian, Illinois

Outdoor / Natural Site

Bachelor's Grove Forest Preserve

Midlothian, IL

Bachelor's Grove Forest Preserve is the Cook County Forest Preserve District designation covering the wooded land surrounding Bachelor's Grove Cemetery. Public access is via the Rubio Woods parking area on 143rd Street; a quarter-mile forest path connects the lot to the historic 1840s cemetery.

$ All Ages — daylight hours only Family: High

Monmouth — 1

Aerial survey view of Sugar Tree Grove Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Sugar Tree Grove Cemetery

Monmouth, IL

Sugar Tree Grove Cemetery sits on a gravel road south of the Quad Cities and ranks among Warren County's oldest burying grounds. Settlers built a church on the site in the early 1800s and began burials nearby; the church is gone, marked now by a plaque. Rev. John Scott, a Scottish immigrant who served the pulpit nineteen years before joining Monmouth College, is among the documented burials.

$ All Ages Family: High

Mound City — 1

Prison / Reformatory

Pulaski County Courthouse

Mound City, IL

Built in 1911 in the small river town of Mound City, the Pulaski County Courthouse served the county's judicial functions for over a century. Its basement housed the county jail until the facility closed in 2004.

$ All Ages Family: High

Mount Prospect — 1

Mrs. P and Me restaurant photo at 100 E Prospect Ave in Mount Prospect, Illinois

Haunted Dining / Bar

Mrs. P & Me Restaurant

Mount Prospect, IL

Mrs. P & Me has operated at 100 E Prospect Avenue in Mount Prospect, Illinois since 1902, making it over 120 years old. The restaurant describes itself as a neighborhood gathering place blending rich history with American comfort food. It came under new ownership in 2004. The building's more-than-century lifespan as a hospitality venue underpins the paranormal associations attached to the property.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Nauvoo — 1

Haunted House / Historic Home

Cambre House and Farm

Nauvoo, IL

Adolphe Cambre, a French immigrant and member of the short-lived Icarian utopian community, built the saltbox farmhouse in 1867 on 20 acres of Hancock County limestone bluff overlooking the Mississippi River near Nauvoo, Illinois. The farm remained in continuous operation for more than 150 years and includes Mormon Springs — a natural mineral spring — and surrounding woodland. The property has operated as a wedding venue since 1993 and an investigation site since the late 1970s when paranormal activity was first reported.

$$ Check venue for current age requirements Family: Moderate

New Lenox — 1

Aerial survey view of Gougar Road & Route 6 Intersection

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Gougar Road & Route 6 Intersection

New Lenox, IL

Gougar Road in New Lenox Township, Will County, Illinois, takes its name from the Gougar family — among the area's earliest settlers. John Gougar acquired land in 1830 on behalf of his father William Gougar, who established a post office at the family farm in 1832. The road's intersection with U.S. Route 6 is a practical landmark in a semi-rural agricultural corridor that has weathered the gradual suburbanization of Will County since the late 20th century.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

North Aurora — 1

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Comfort Inn & Suites North Aurora (former Baymont Inn)

North Aurora, IL

The hotel at 308 South Lincolnway in North Aurora, Illinois operated for many years as a Baymont Inn & Suites. The property has since been rebranded as Comfort Inn & Suites North Aurora - Naperville. It is a standard roadside hotel with no notable historical context beyond its hospitality use.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Oak Brook — 1

1880s white frame Evangelical Church and small cemetery in the Fullersburg Historic District of Oak Brook, Illinois

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Evangelical Church Cemetery (Fullersburg Historic District)

Oak Brook, IL

The white frame Evangelical Church and its small cemetery, built by German immigrants from Hanover, sit in the Fullersburg Historic District in Oak Brook, Illinois, near the 1852 Graue Mill. The mill was one of three authenticated Illinois stops on the Underground Railroad. John Coe, an Underground Railroad conductor, and his son Samuel are buried in the cemetery.

$ All Ages Family: High

Olney — 1

Aerial survey view of Mt. Pleasant Cemetery and Church

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Mt. Pleasant Cemetery and Church

Olney, IL

Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Richland County, outside Olney, Illinois, is anchored by an old church at its front that served the rural community through the mid-20th century. Funerals stopped being held at the church in the 1950s, after which the building fell into disuse. The church exterior and cemetery grounds remain accessible to visitors.

$ All Ages Family: High

Palmer — 1

Aerial survey view of Witch's Bridge (Christian County)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Witch's Bridge (Christian County)

Palmer, IL

Witch's Bridge is a steel truss bridge built in 1916 that carries E 990 North Road across Bear Creek in rural Christian County, Illinois, between Palmer and Taylorville and near the historic Anderson Cemetery. The roughly 104-foot one-lane structure sits in open farmland and has become one of central Illinois' best-known 'haunted bridge' sites, though no documented historical event corresponds to its central legend.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Palos Hills — 1

Aerial survey view of Sacred Heart Cemetery (Archer Avenue)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Sacred Heart Cemetery (Archer Avenue)

Palos Hills, IL

Sacred Heart Cemetery in Palos Hills was consecrated in 1872, established as a Catholic burial ground serving the agricultural communities that then occupied the land around Archer Avenue and the Des Plaines River valley. A Roman Catholic Mission of the Sacred Heart was established at 101st and Kean Avenue, with a church built in 1904 replacing an earlier log structure. The cemetery spans roughly an acre and holds over 400 interments.

$ All Ages Family: High

Rock Island — 1

Quarters One at Rock Island Arsenal, a large three-story Victorian brick mansion on Arsenal Island in the Mississippi River

Museum / Historical Site

Rock Island Arsenal — Quarters One

Rock Island, IL

Quarters One on Arsenal Island in the Mississippi River was completed in 1872 for Brigadier General Thomas J. Rodman, the arsenal's first commanding officer. It is the second-largest federal residence in the United States at 51 rooms and 21,965 square feet. The island itself was the site of the Rock Island Confederate Prison from 1863 to 1865, where approximately 12,000 Confederate soldiers were held and nearly 1,960 died — mostly from smallpox and pneumonia.

$$ All Ages (paranormal investigation programs age-restricted) Family: Moderate

Rockton — 1

Aerial survey view of Wagon Wheel Resort (Site)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Wagon Wheel Resort (Site)

Rockton, IL

The Wagon Wheel began in 1936 as Walt Williamson's roadside truck stop and root beer stand near Rockton, Illinois, and grew over the following decades into a 300-plus-acre destination resort with a hotel, bowling alley, ice rinks, swimming pools, a dinner theater, and an airstrip. After Williamson's death in 1975 it declined, suffered a string of fires in the 1990s, and was demolished in 2004.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Shelbyville — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Military Cemetery

Shelbyville, IL

Shelbyville, Illinois contains several historic cemeteries including burial grounds for Civil War and other military veterans. The specific cemetery identified in the Shadowlands account as the 'Military Cemetery' in Shelbyville could not be uniquely matched to a single named facility during research. Shelby County maintains multiple cemeteries with veterans interments.

$ All Ages Family: High

Spring Valley — 1

Aerial survey view of Route 6 / Help Road

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Route 6 / Help Road

Spring Valley, IL

Route 6 is an east-west Illinois state route through Bureau County in north-central Illinois, passing the small communities of Spring Valley and DePue along the Illinois River. The so-called Help Road, identified in regional retellings as a connector route between Route 6 and DePue, anchors a local variant of the widely circulating bloody-HELP urban legend.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

St. Charles — 1

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Baker

St. Charles, IL

Colonel Edward J. Baker commissioned the Hotel Baker on the site of a garbage dump at St. Charles's Main Street bridge in 1926. Built at a cost of approximately $1.25 million in Spanish-Moroccan architectural style, the hotel opened on June 2, 1928, with rooms at $2.50 per night. Its Rainbow Room featured the first lighted dance floor of its kind — 2,620 lights in red, green, blue, and amber — and hosted performers including Louis Armstrong, Lawrence Welk, and Tommy Dorsey. The hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Streator — 1

Aerial survey view of Moon Point Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Moon Point Cemetery

Streator, IL

Moon Point Cemetery takes its name from Jacob Moon, who in 1830 settled along a winding creek in what is now Livingston County, Illinois. The cemetery's earliest documented grave dates to the mid-19th century, and Civil War veterans are interred within. The site became an object of local folklore during the late 1960s and 70s when teenagers began gathering there after dark.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Wadsworth — 1

Aerial survey view of Old St. Patrick's Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Old St. Patrick's Cemetery

Wadsworth, IL

Old St. Patrick's Cemetery in Wadsworth, Lake County, Illinois, was consecrated in 1849 and originally known as Mill Creek Cemetery before being renamed in 1864. Many of the early settlers of Newport Township (now Wadsworth) are buried here. It is administered today by Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Watseka — 1

Haunted House / Historic Home

Vennum House

Watseka, IL

Modest 19th-century home in Watseka, Illinois where Lurancy Vennum, age 14, in 1878 entered the months-long trance state that produced the case known as the Watseka Wonder, an important early document in American spiritualist and psychical-research history.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Willow Springs — 1

Aerial survey view of Indian Head Park / German Church Road Site

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Indian Head Park / German Church Road Site

Willow Springs, IL

On January 22, 1957, construction worker Leonard Prescott discovered the nude, frozen bodies of Barbara Grimes, 15, and Patricia Grimes, 12, beside German Church Road in unincorporated Willow Springs, approximately 200 feet east of County Line Road near Devil's Creek. The girls had disappeared from Chicago on December 28, 1956, after attending a movie. Police questioned 300,000 people and conducted serious interrogations of approximately 2,000 individuals. The case remains unsolved.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Woodstock — 1

Theater / Performance Venue

Woodstock Opera House

Woodstock, IL

The Woodstock Opera House was built in 1889 on the historic square in Woodstock, Illinois, to house the city's library, council chambers, court, fire department, and second-floor auditorium. Designed by Elgin architect Smith Hoag for $25,000, the venue is one of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States and contains the stage where Orson Welles trained as a student in the 1920s and 1930s.

$$ All Ages Family: High

By type

Cemetery / Burial Ground (42) Other Dark Tourism Site (36) Museum / Historical Site (26) Haunted House / Historic Home (21) Theater / Performance Venue (18) Outdoor / Natural Site (12) True Crime Site (10) Asylum / Hospital (9) Haunted Hotel / Inn (9) Haunted Dining / Bar (8) Prison / Reformatory (3) Battlefield / Military Site (2) Ghost Tour / Walking Tour (1)