Haunted Places in Illinois

Illinois is a Midwestern state jam-packed with haunts. Famous for being known as the “Land of Lincoln”, it’s because his ghost still haunts there!

Springfield is the sight of his grave at the Oak Ridge Cemetery where visitors have spotted him walking near his very own tombstone a night. Speaking of haunted cemeteries, the Woodlawn Cemetery of Oak Park is the final resting place of the tragic Showmen’s Rest Circus tragedy where a train derailment and fire tore an entire circus company apart overnight.

Illinois College out in Jacksonville is home to the Gray Ghost of Whipple Hall, a phantom haunting the stairwells, while across campus at Beecher Hall the eerie footstep of medical school cadavers still sound after all these years. Even the Peoria Public Library has a sinister origin as it was built over the property of a murdered man and had subsequent library directors die under bad circumstances that it was demolished and then built from scratch, but the spirits remain.

On to Chicago, pass by H.H. Holmes’s famous block where his murder castle was used to claim the lives of up to 200 people! Congress Plaza hotel still remains and was a hotspot favorite during the Prohibition-era days of mobster Al Capone. Murders and crimes abound inside during the 1920s and 1930s, shadowy figures are said to be seen here often. Stopping by Illinois and you will notice it’s 80% farmland, 20% city and 100% haunted!