Chicago's Haunted Suburbs

The city of Chicago is, as you might know, an old one. It is filled with old buildings and old architecture. It is also a city with a very violent history. It is the city of Al Capone. It is the city where the St. Valentine's Day Massacre happened. It is the same city of John Wayne Gacy and Richard Speck. It is the city with the legendary cow that allegedly started a huge fire and the location of one of the worst shipping disasters on the Great Lakes.

In short, it is a huge city, with a lot of people and a lot of immigrants. It is a city with a rich, deep history. It is a city with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tales of things and places that are haunted.

I am not one to say for sure something is haunted or not. I spent the night at a supposedly haunted mansion in St. Louis. I wrote a book about haunted places in St. Louis called "Ghosts of St. Louis: The Lemp Mansion and Other Eerie Tales." I have suddenly become a "ghost guy." Yes, I have seen a couple of weird things, but I cannot say for sure if there is such a thing as a ghost.

Many of the best-known haunted places in Chicago are located downtown. This stands to reason, of course, because that is the oldest part of the city. This is where Al and his friends spent their days and nights. The older portions of the city, as you might surmise, have more tales of hauntings than other places.

However, why should the city have all of the fun? There is a huge suburban population around here. Some of those suburbs are also fairly old. What about them? What ghosties and beasties supposedly lurk in the suburbs and makes those suburban homes go bump in the night?

It turns out there are quite a few haunted places in the 'burbs. I have decided to talk about three of them. I am cheating with one, however, because one is reputedly no longer haunted and the building that supposedly as has been torn down. Still, these are my top three Chicago suburban haunted places.

The Cemetery

Most cemeteries are a natural place for folklore and, in particular, ghost-lore. It seems that any place with that many dead people, is just bound to be a spot where ghosts are spotted. Chicago has its share of very old cemeteries.