Naperville Historic District · 1946 Naperville train collision · North Central College
The Naperville Hauntings Ghost Walk was founded in 2004 by Diane Ladley, a nationally recognized storyteller, folklorist, and author who wrote Naperville's Haunted Memories (originally published as Haunted Naperville by Arcadia Publishing) and Haunted Aurora (The History Press). Ladley built the tour, along with sister programs in Aurora and Elgin, under a company called Haunted Hometowns; in 2021 she sold the company to American Ghost Walks LLC but continues as the tour's guide.
The tour meets in front of Quigley's Pub at 43 E Jefferson Ave in downtown Naperville and runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM for a ticket price of $39.76 per person including taxes and fees, minimum age 13. Guests are given free handheld EMF ghost meters. The 2-hour route covers North Central College's Pfeiffer Hall and pond, St. Peter & St. Paul Church, and the site of a 1946 train collision described by the operator as one of the worst in American history, with the loss of 47 lives. The operator's page states the tour was named Naperville's Best Attraction for three years running and that its historical content was authenticated by a historian from the Naper Settlement Living History Museum.
Sources
- https://www.americanghostwalks.com/tour/naperville-hauntings-ghost-tours
ApparitionsEMF ActivityResidual HauntingUnexplained Sounds
Ladley's route treats the 1946 train collision as the tour's central case: the operator's page describes restless spirits still reported along the tracks near the site where victims' bodies were laid, with guests' EMF meters said to register activity there with notable frequency. St. Peter & St. Paul Church carries a reported account of a ghostly priest in the basement, in the operator's framing addressed as a warning to 'sinners' who enter.
North Central College supplies several more stops: Pfeiffer Hall is described by the operator as having as many as seven reported hauntings, including a recurring figure called the Lady in White and one nicknamed Charlie Yellow Boots; the campus pond carries a reported account of a student who died and is said to return to the site; and Seibert Hall is tied to an account the operator calls the Seminarian Specter, alongside a separate account referred to as the Weeping Bride, which Ladley says she has personally recounted from her own experience on the tour.
All of this is the tour operator's own marketing and narrative content, included here to describe what the tour covers, not as an endorsement of any specific claim.
Notable Entities
Lady in White (Pfeiffer Hall)Charlie Yellow Boots
