Carbondale Historic Cemetery · Southern Illinois Burial History
Oakland Cemetery occupies a site on North Oakland Avenue in Carbondale, Illinois. The cemetery's exact founding date has not been confirmed in the sources consulted, but its inclusion in multiple local press retrospectives on Carbondale's haunted history suggests it is among the older active cemeteries in the city.
The Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois University's student newspaper, has covered Oakland Cemetery in its running series on haunted southern Illinois locations, placing it among the sites most commonly cited by Carbondale residents and paranormal investigators. The SIU student press coverage gives the location an ongoing public profile within the university community.
Castle Perilous Games, which operates ghost walking tours of Carbondale, includes Oakland Cemetery on its route, providing guided evening access to the site and narrating the mausoleum-centered accounts for tour participants.
Sources
- https://dailyegyptian.com/19360/archives/haunted-southern-illinois-3/
- https://castleperilousgames.com/haunted-carbondale/
Glow from inside the mausoleum at nightMausoleum doors unlocking without cause
The mausoleum at Oakland Cemetery is the focal point of the location's paranormal reputation. Investigators and visitors have reported seeing a glow originating from within the mausoleum at night — a light source that cannot be attributed to exterior lighting or natural causes from the accounts on record. The mausoleum doors are reported to unlock without explanation, an account specific enough to appear consistently across independent local citations.
The cemetery features in the Daily Egyptian's archive series on haunted southern Illinois, which drew on local accounts across multiple issues. The student newspaper coverage gives the location a documented public record beyond the typical single-source paranormal aggregator mention.
Castle Perilous Games includes Oakland Cemetery on its Carbondale ghost tour, which departs from a fixed point in downtown Carbondale. The tour framing positions the cemetery alongside Shryock Auditorium and other local sites as part of a mapped haunting tradition specific to the Carbondale area.
