Overview
Thirteen years after our “ghost bus” pulled out into the Chicago night for the first time, Chicago Hauntings Tours continue to be known as Chicago’s most authentic and researched ghost and dark history tours, standing head and shoulders above the abundant knock-offs, “alternative” “strange” tours and “free tours” that seem to be everywhere these days, when you can get a ghost tour and a cupcake tour from the same company. A cupcake tour? Yes, really.
Founded and directed by Ursula Bielski, 30 year paranormal researcher and author of ten books on Chicago ghostlore and the paranormal, we are not merely a tour company but a natural extension of Chicago Hauntings, Inc. a paranormal research organization dedicated to uncovering and sharing Chicago’s paranormal history. Unlike other companies, who hire career tour guides to lead their tours, our tours are led by Ursula and her partner, David Cowan, author of To Sleep with the Angels (on the tragic Our Lady of Angels school fire) and Great Chicago Fires, as well as Clarenece Goodman, popular Chicago historian and avid lecturer at Chicago libraries. We are not only native Chicagoans from the North, West and South sides, respectively, but we are also astute Chicago historians with a passion for Chicago and veterans in paranormal theory and research. Chicago Hauntings has even designed tours for the City of Chicago, the Chicago History Museum and haunted Lincoln Park Zoo, and we hosted “The Hauntings of Chicago” on PBS Chicago’s WYCC.
Our classic Chicago Hauntings Ghost tour is a 2.5 hour fully-narrated tour by coach bus, with numerous stops along the tour route at some of the most actively haunted sites in Chicago, including the site of the Eastland Disaster, where 844 souls perished on the Chicago River; Death Alley, where more than six hundred children and their chaperones lost their lives in the worst single building fire in American history; and the site of the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in storied Lincoln Park, the original and now abandoned City Cemetery, where an estimated 13,000 unmarked graves remain. Some of our most common stops include murder sites, disaster sites, a serial killer’s body dump, a cursed skyscraeper, gangland sites, Chicago’s most haunted house, and others. You are welcome to take photos at all of our stops. Sometimes your camera may capture more than just spooky scenery.
Our Devil & the White City Tour is the original H.H. Holmes Tour, begun in 2004 and copied by many companies but never equalled. We take you to the site of the World’s Fairegrounds in Jackson Park, the Midway Plaisance, and the site of Holmes’ Englewood Murder Castle on 63rd street, as you folllow in the deadly footsteps of America’s Serial Killer.
Our Gothic Chicago Tours invite you to come over to the dark side of our history, as we introduce you to devils in the White City, ghosts, graves, vampires, serial killers, assassins and more on an in-depth afternoon excursion through Chicago’s many neighborhoods.
Our many fans have called our tours of Chicago provocative, dark, scary and creepy, but also intelligent, sophisticated and fun. Many find that they’re the best way to discover the city – period. Come find out for yourself!
