A 1933 Art Deco rail terminal and National Historic Landmark now housing the Cincinnati Museum Center, where night staff report doors closing on their own and accounts tied to the 1989 murder of security guard Shirley Baker.
1301 Western Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45203
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Cincinnati Museum Center admission required for interior museums; rotunda viewing may be free. Check official site for current pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Fully accessible Art Deco terminal with ramps, elevators, and level rotunda; large facility with significant walking distances between exhibits.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1933 · Major Art Deco passenger rail terminal designed by Fellheimer & Wagner · Half-dome rotunda is the largest in the Western Hemisphere · Designated a National Historic Landmark on June 22, 1977 · Now operates as the Cincinnati Museum Center with multiple museums and OMNIMAX · Completed a $228 million restoration in 2018
Cincinnati Union Terminal opened on March 31, 1933, replacing five separate downtown passenger stations with a single consolidated terminal in the Queensgate area west of the Mill Creek. The project was the result of a decade of planning by the city and the major railroads serving Cincinnati, and the building was designed by the New York firm Fellheimer & Wagner with interiors by Paul Cret and Roland Wank. The Art Deco rotunda, with its 180-foot-wide half-dome and ribbon mosaics by Winold Reiss, became one of the most celebrated train-station interiors in the United States.
Passenger rail traffic at Union Terminal peaked during World War II, when the building handled enormous volumes of military traffic. Post-war declines in passenger rail led to a gradual reduction of service through the 1960s and 1970s; the last regular passenger trains under the original arrangement departed in 1972. The building cycled through several adaptive uses, including a brief stint as a shopping mall in the 1980s, before being repurposed as the Cincinnati Museum Center.
The Museum Center opened in 1990 and today houses the Cincinnati History Museum, the Museum of Natural History and Science, the Duke Energy Children's Museum, the Cincinnati History Library and Archives, and an OMNIMAX theater. Limited Amtrak service was reinstated and continues today.
Union Terminal was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 22, 1977. The building underwent a comprehensive $228 million restoration completed in 2018 that addressed long-standing structural problems and renewed the iconic rotunda. It remains one of Cincinnati's most recognizable architectural symbols and the largest half-dome in the Western Hemisphere.
Sources
Union Terminal's central ghost story is anchored to a documented homicide. On the night of September 6, 1989, 50-year-old Shirley Baker of Mount Healthy was working as a security guard at the then-largely-vacant terminal when she heard breaking glass and went to investigate. She never returned. After a nine-week search, her remains were found on November 18, 1989, in a shallow grave on Binning Road in Clermont County. The Hamilton County Coroner's Office determined the cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head. Three men — Thomas Andrew Haynes of Springfield Township, James Wetherell of Amelia, and Damon K. Harp of Milford — were indicted by a Hamilton County grand jury and charged with aggravated murder and aggravated burglary; Haynes was named as the principal offender and prosecutors sought the death penalty in his case.
From that documented event, regional ghost lore developed. According to Creepy Cincinnati, Cincinnati Magazine's 'Spooky-Nati' feature, and Ohio Haunted Houses, night staff and cleaning crews at the Museum Center have reported footsteps following them on rounds, doors closing and locking on their own, and flashlights moving in empty halls. Some staff describe a sensed presence that they identify as Shirley's, often associated with checking locks and rattling doorknobs — fitting actions for a security guard.
Unrelated to the Baker case, additional reports describe a WWII-era soldier seen wandering the platforms in uniform — a detail tied to the terminal's heavy wartime troop traffic — and a 'ghost pilot' figure occasionally reported near the WWI plane exhibit inside the museum complex. These accounts are uncorroborated and lack specific named witnesses, and they should be read as folkloric layering on a real building with a real and tragic incident in its recent past.
The coverage cited above frames Shirley Baker as a victim deserving respect; ghost stories that name her should be approached with the same care.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Tour the Art Deco rotunda, history museum, museum of natural history and science, and OMNIMAX theater housed within the 1933 terminal. Look for the WWI plane exhibit referenced in regional ghost lore.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Cincinnati, OH
The Cincinnati Art Museum was founded in 1881 and opened to the public in its current Eden Park building on May 17, 1886. It is one of the oldest art museums in the United States and houses an encyclopedic collection spanning 6,000 years of art history. Reuben Springer led the founding fundraising; the building has been expanded repeatedly into the 21st century.
Cincinnati, OH
The Taft Museum of Art occupies the Baum-Longworth-Sinton-Taft House, a Federal-style mansion built about 1820 in downtown Cincinnati. After housing four prominent Cincinnati families, including Anna Sinton Taft and Charles Phelps Taft, the home opened to the public as an art museum on November 29, 1932. It is now one of the oldest domestic wooden structures still in use in downtown Cincinnati and a National Historic Landmark.
Cincinnati, OH
Krohn Conservatory is an Art Deco, Gothic-arched botanical glasshouse opened in 1933 in Cincinnati's Eden Park. It replaced an earlier 1894 Eden Park Greenhouse and was renamed in 1937 for Irwin M. Krohn, a Park Commissioner from 1912 to 1948. The conservatory is operated by the Cincinnati Park Board and hosts roughly 200,000 visitors a year.