Local Haunted Places in your area

[Pumpkin_Man]

Hi Folks:

I am thinking about doing some traveling this Summer, and I would like to check out some haunted places. I am looking for information on where I can go within a reasonable distance of my home. I live in Dwight Illinois, about 80 miles or so South of Chicago.

In and around my area we have the following haunted places. My own house for one, is supposedly haunted and "orbs" have been seen by various neighbors. We have a ghost train that travels our rail road tracks every April. Supposedly the ghost of Abraham Lincoln's funeral train can be heard chugging along the tracks on certain nights in April.

A little further away from Dwight, there's Bachelors Grove, cemetery and forrest preserve. Legends and ghost stories abound about this popular haunt that's often packed with people as the Halloween season draws near. The St. James Sag cemetery has been refered to as "The Breathing Place of Hell." I actualy didn't like hearing that as both my parents and grand parents are buried there.

Old Route 66 abounds with all sorts of ghost stories of travelors who were killed along that road. We also have some abandoned prisions near Joliet, a lot of cemeteries and other abandoned places. The Manteno Mental Health Center, abandoned since the late 80s is also prime material for haunting stories, but I think it was torn down to make way for a shopping mall or something. Gary Indiana, is for the most part, abandoned. There are some people still living there, but the down town section, from what I hear, is mainly abandoned buildings that are falling apart due to lack of maintenence. Stories, have been told of orbs, ghosts and sounds of past life in Gary.

So if any of you good people know of any other haunted places that I can check out in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa or Misure, post it to this thread. May be I'll put over there on my bike and shoot some video footage.

Mike

[Andybev01]

That's pretty funny, 'cause shopping malls make me crazy.

Have you been to the Prarie Ghosts site? http://www.prairieghosts.com/

He is based in Dacateur, Ill.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Thanks for posting that link. I'll definately be checking them out.

I know what you mean about shopping malls. I would prefer to see fewer of them personaly as a lot of grand old buildings are torn down to make way for them. Don't get me wrong. I do go to shopping malls from time to time, and I love going out to movies, but I wish they would not destroy our History by tearing down those beautiful old houses so we can have a few more places to get an artificial sun tan or buy minutes for our cell phones.

Mike

[Nikolantern]

My house is haunted. I haunt it my self.

[Pumpkin_Man]

I guess I can say that I haunt my old hosue, too, being that I'm such a nug for Halloween,but there have been a lot of stories about my 100 year old house, whichis why I bought it in the first place. I have never personaly experienced anything out of the ordinary, but it is pretty neat to live in the old place, especialy in October.

Additionaly, this is going to be the year of 'haunted road trips' if I have my way.

Mike

[Nikolantern]

Wow. My post had bean the last post on this forum for like, a week!

[Pumpkin_Man]

I would be here more often, but my work load is down right insane these days. This may be the year of the haunted road trips, but is also is turnig out to be the eyar of photo shoots, and it's still only January. But thena gain, the simesters are usualy very busy anyway.

Mike

[jadewik]

I could show you all sorts of haunted places in Arizona... but that's about 2000 miles from where you're at. So... I'll just have to get off my duff and periodically post some places, photos and stories!

[Pumpkin_Man]

Jade, that sounds like a good idea, and I do a lot of traveling by motorcycle, so I may find myself in Arizona some day. I don't know when. For now, my budget can only acomodate haunted places in or around Illinois. All though I am planning on a vacation to Michigan this Summer. I'll definately at least stop by a haunted place for a photo op, but I plan to spend most of that trip swimming in Lake Michigan. Hey, Lake Michigan does abound with stories about ship wrecks and sailors that lost their lives under tragic circumstances. All the Great Lakes, in fact, have such stories. There was even a Top-40 song about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerold back in 75 or 76. That could be an interesting 'haunted road trip' right there.

Mike

[jadewik]

Hey! If you're going to Michigan, you could go to Hell!

Haha. Sorry. Yes, it's a real place. Hell, Michigan. I have a couple tee-shirts from the place. It's a wide spot in the road the last time I went to Hell and back... but they have a post office (so you can mail a letter from Hell) and a gift shop.

[Murfreesboro]

I'm guessing that whoever named that place had a sense of humor. . . .

I haven't had any ghostly experiences myself, but several years ago our family went on one of those local ghost tours a day or two before Halloween. We learned all kinds of stories about the houses in the historic district, most of which are antebellum. Nashville has a ghost tour, too, but I've never been on it.

Lots of Civil War fighting took place around here. The Battle of Stones River (Murfreesboro) had the most Union casualties of any battle in that war, and the Confederate casualties were second only to Gettysburg. As a teenager, my husband used to work out at the battlefield, and he tells stories about an area called "the slaughter pen," where, obviously, a lot of men died. He says the temp. is always about ten degrees colder in it, and the birds won't fly over it.

In the warm months, the workers at the battlefield put on something called a "Hallowed Ground" tour. They take groups up to 35 people by lantern-light at dusk into the Union cemetery, and stop by various graves. People costumed as Civil War soldiers, or their loved ones at home, read letters written by and to those who are buried there. It isn't intended to be ghostly, but it is very moving and rather theatrical. You can go on the tour for free, but you have to get tickets ahead of time, because they don't use mics, so the groups have to be small enough to hear the actors' natural voices.

[Pumpkin_Man]

I actualy heard of Hell Michigan, and there is also a Route 666 in Arizona. I actualy saw it, but I didn't have time to take the bike down it.

There are a lot of haunting stories about verious places where Civil War battles took place. Here in illinois, in the Chicago area, but I don't know exactly where, there's the remains of a prison camp where Confederate prisoners of war were confined, tortured, starved and horibly mistreated in some unimaginable ways. It's said that this camp, and others like them were the very models that Hitler used in the design of places like Auswitz and Treblinka.

It, like so many other places where human misery was so common, is one of the most haunted places in the state. I do plan to make a 'haunted road trip' out to that place when the weather warms up.

Mike