Haunted Illinois: Chicago and the Towns the Rivers Took

The city we cover in Illinois

Chicago

Chicago carries some of the country's heaviest ghost lore: Resurrection Mary, the Eastland disaster and the H. H. Holmes story that true crime built an industry on. Some of it is documented, some of it is marketing, and our Chicago guide splits the two before pointing you at the tours guests rate best.

The ghost towns Illinois forgot

Downstate, Illinois keeps a quieter kind of haunting. Cairo, at the state's southern tip, was once a bustling river port whose steamboat economy never recovered from flooding and changing trade routes, and its emptied commercial blocks are among the most striking sights in the Midwest.

Kaskaskia, the old French colonial town on the Mississippi, was largely erased by the river itself. Benjaminville survives as a Quaker meeting house and cemetery where a settlement once stood, a peaceful stop rather than a spooky one. None of these run nightly ghost tours, and that is the point: they are for travelers who want the history raw.

Questions people ask

What is the most haunted city in Illinois?

Chicago, without much argument. The city's disasters and crime history generated more documented tragedy than the rest of the state combined, and its ghost tour scene grew to match, running from bus routes to pub crawls.

Is Chicago worth visiting for ghost tours?

Yes. Chicago's walks double as architecture and history tours, and the range of formats is the widest in the Midwest: bus, bike, Segway, pub crawl or a self-guided audio route. Start with our Chicago picks.

When should you go?

Chicago tours run year-round, but lakefront winters are a real factor on walking routes, so November through March favors the bus tours. October is peak season and sells out early.

Line up the next city with our haunted city guides, or walk with the team that writes them on our Arizona tours in Flagstaff, Tucson and Prescott.