Chicago's Most Haunted Lakefront Hotel
520 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Standard rooms typically $130-220/night; rates vary by season and event calendar. Check the official site for current pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved urban sidewalk; multi-story hotel with elevators
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1893 · World's Columbian Exposition · Beaux-Arts Architecture · Presidential History · Prohibition Era
The Congress Plaza Hotel was constructed in 1893 as the Auditorium Annex, a Beaux-Arts companion to Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Building across Congress Parkway. Architect Clinton J. Warren designed the original tower to handle overflow from the World's Columbian Exposition, and the hotel was joined to the Auditorium by an underground marble corridor known as Peacock Alley.
A second tower was added in 1902, and a north tower in 1907, expanding the property to its present footprint along Michigan Avenue. The Gold Room, completed in 1909, holds the distinction of being the first hotel ballroom in America to use air conditioning. Tiffany glass, hand-painted ceilings, and ornamental ironwork from the original construction remain visible throughout the public spaces.
The hotel earned the moniker 'The Hotel of Presidents' through more than a century of political associations. Theodore Roosevelt made the famous "strong as a bull moose" remark to reporters in the hotel's Florentine Room in February 1912 while announcing his challenge to Taft for the Republican nomination — the quip that gave the Progressive Party its nickname. The formal Bull Moose Party nomination itself was held at the Chicago Coliseum in August 1912. Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton all stayed at the property. The Congress also hosted the 1968 Democratic National Convention's overflow press corps during the demonstrations in adjacent Grant Park.
Prohibition-era Chicago left its own mark on the building. Al Capone is widely reported to have maintained an 8th-floor suite for meetings, and the hotel's basement-level service tunnels connected to the broader downtown underground network used for moving liquor. A 2003 labor dispute between Congress Plaza ownership and UNITE HERE Local 1 became one of the longest hotel strikes in U.S. history, lasting roughly a decade before resolution.
The hotel remains a working full-service property today, operating 871 guest rooms across the original three towers. Travel + Leisure named it the most haunted hotel in Illinois, a designation the property has neither denied nor heavily commercialized.
Sources
Room 441 sits on the fourth floor of the South Tower. Front-desk staff document calls from guests reporting a woman who appears at the foot of the bed, tugs at the bedding, or pushes on the mattress hard enough to wake them. Local researchers attribute the activity to a suicide reported in the room, though the date and circumstances are not consistently documented in published sources.
The 8th floor — the location of Al Capone's reported suite during Prohibition — generates a separate cluster of reports. Guests describe the smell of cigar smoke in the corridor and the sound of voices in unoccupied rooms.
A recurring figure in Congress Plaza folklore is 'Peg Leg Johnny,' a one-legged drifter said to have been killed in the hotel during the 1920s. Staff and guests report doors opening and closing in unoccupied corridors, lights and electronics turning on without explanation, and the silhouette of a figure in older corridors of the South Tower.
A persistent legend involves the Florentine Ballroom and the figure of a small boy reported on the mezzanine. Witness accounts describe a child in early-20th-century clothing seen briefly near the ballroom doors, vanishing before staff can approach. Researchers have not been able to identify a documented child fatality matching the reports.
The Gold Room itself draws phenomena reports from event staff, including unexplained piano music after closing and the sound of footsteps crossing the empty parquet floor. Investigators including Ursula Bielski's Chicago Hauntings have featured the Congress repeatedly in published walking tours and broadcast segments, and the hotel has appeared in features for Travel + Leisure and CBS Chicago.
Notable Entities
Book a room in the 1893 South Tower, where Room 441 is the hotel's most-reported paranormal location. Guests have called security over reports of a woman appearing at the foot of the bed and tugging at the covers. The 8th-floor corridor near Al Capone's former suite is another active area.
The public spaces of the hotel — the Beaux-Arts lobby, the Gold Room ballroom, and the original 1893 staircase — are accessible to non-guests during daytime hours. Look for the Florentine Room and the original World's Fair-era detailing on the Michigan Avenue side.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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