Two tours in one — Prohibition mob and downtown ghost stops
Royal Sonesta Hotel, 71 E. Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60601
Age
All ages; under 6 free
Cost
$$
Adult (13-64): $36; Senior (65+): $34; Youth (7-12): $26; Child (0-6): Free.
Access
Limited Access
City sidewalks for the walking tour; minibus seating for the bus tour
Equipment
Photos OK
Chicago Gangsters and Ghosts Tour launched in 2017 as a hybrid product designed to capture two distinct visitor markets in a single ninety-minute walk. The walking tour begins at the Royal Sonesta Hotel at 71 East Wacker Drive — a 1929 art deco tower built as the Mather Tower's neighbor — and threads through the Loop and River North.
Guides cover the Chicago Outfit's central figures — Jim Colosimo, Johnny Torrio, and Al Capone — at the addresses they actually used: speakeasies, hotel suites, and corners where contract hits were carried out. The tour also stops at sites with documented paranormal reports, including buildings tied to the Eastland disaster of 1915 and the Iroquois Theatre fire of 1903.
A seated minibus version departs from the Palmer House Hilton at 17 East Monroe Street, the lobby of which has its own history as a 1920s political and gangland meeting place. Tours run daily with four departures — 11 am, 1 pm, 4 pm, and 8 pm — with seasonal adjustments. Pricing is $36 for adults, $34 for seniors, $26 for youth, and free for children under six.
Sources
The tour's ghost stops are anchored to addresses with documented mass-casualty events. The Iroquois Theatre fire of December 30, 1903, killed at least 602 people in a Loop theater built only weeks earlier; the alley behind the modern Nederlander Theatre, once nicknamed Death Alley by the press, is included on the route. Guides reference reports collected from theater workers and pedestrians since the 1920s, including the smell of smoke in the alley on still days.
The Eastland disaster of July 24, 1915, killed 844 Western Electric employees and family members when their excursion steamer rolled in the Chicago River. The tour visits riverbank stops where bodies were temporarily stored and where later building occupants — most notably the staff of Harpo Studios in the 1990s — described phantom voices and footsteps.
The gangster sites are presented in parallel. The Lexington Hotel, Capone's Prohibition-era headquarters, was demolished in 1995, but its former site at Michigan and Cermak is referenced. Hotel rooms in the existing Palmer House and Congress Plaza are included as buildings where staff have reported recurring activity. The minibus version expands the route to additional locations including former speakeasy sites along the Loop.
A guided walking tour of downtown Chicago that pairs Prohibition-era gangster history — Capone, Torrio, Colosimo — with reported paranormal activity at crime-scene addresses. Meets at the Royal Sonesta Hotel at the corner of Wacker and Wabash.
A seated minibus version of the tour from the Palmer House Hilton at 17 E. Monroe Street, covering more geographic range than the walking tour.
A specialty tour pairing Prohibition-era organized-crime history with stops at restaurants and former speakeasy sites in the Chicago Loop. Operated by Chicago Gangsters and Ghosts Tour.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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.
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.
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.