Summer Heat Cure: Chilling Southern Illinois Haunts

A Lucky Seven Haunted Sites in Little Egypt

Murphrysboro, Jackson County. The Big Muddy Monster made a brief appearance in 1973 in Murphrysboro. It's believed the Bigfoot-type creature spent several days transiting the area, generally following the Big Muddy River, a tributary of the Mississippi River, which skirts the town. He disappeared completely after the brief visit, last seen along the river banks. One place where the creature was sighted was in Riverside Park bordered by the Big Muddy travels.

Lewis-Clark Community College, Godfrey. The ghost of Harriett Haskell, one-time principal at Monticello Female Seminary, still walks the grounds of the community college that succeeded the two-year women's college. From time to time, janitors smell lilac perfume in the late night hallways of the upper levels of the main building where Haskell once had her third floor office. Her living quarters were inside the main entrance on the first floor. A librarian once saw the Haskell ghost in what was once the chapel where Haskell lay in state following her death. The moment she saw the tall woman in the old high-necked dress at the front desk. the figure began to fade from view.

Giant City State Park, Makanda, Jackson County. Noted for the rock formations which resemble the blocks played with by giants, as Native Americans suggested, the park is with site tourists with a great restaurant at the lodge noted for its Sunday chicken dinners. It is also home to a segment of stone wall created by prehistoric Indians contemporary to the early Cahokia Mounds civilization. No one knows what the mysterious stone walls...at least ten such segments are charted on bluffs across Southern Illinois...are for. Best guess is that they helped fill some ritual religious function. Part of the Giant City stone wall, located on a hilltop overlooking the park entrance, was reconstructed by researcher, most of it appears as an elongated pile of rocks from one side of the bluff to the other.