• The Many Mysteries of Bachelor’s Grove

    Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery has been an enigma of southwestern suburban Chicago for over four decades. Like most such locations, it started out with a mundane existence. Over a century ago, picnickers dressed in their Sunday best lounged under oak trees in the park-like atmosphere of the cemetery. Two of the grove’s neighbors heated their small…

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  • University of Illinois’ Suicidal Specters

    As one of the oldest public universities in the state of Illinois, this college campus hosts a number of folktales and oddities. The University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois was established as an industrial university in 1867 and first opened on March 2, 1868. It became the University of Illinois in 1885 and was renamed…

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  • What Lurks on Shoe Factory Road?

    Until 2008, the most distinctive feature on Shoe Factory Road in Hoffman Estates was an old, derelict Spanish Colonial revival style building. Just down the street, in the direction of the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve, sat an abandoned farm. Both were rumored to be haunted. Unfortunately, both have been torn down and encroaching subdivisions threaten…

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  • Lost Souls of Decatur’s Greenwood Cemetery

    The undulating hills in this direful urban oasis conceal a number of strange tales. Greenwood Cemetery is rumored to be one of the most haunted locations in central Illinois. According to Troy Taylor, a popular author on haunted locations in the Midwest, the land that would become Greenwood was originally an American Indian burial ground,…

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  • Western Illinois University’s Haunted Halls

    Tales of ghostly activity in several dorms and lecture halls make Western Illinois University in Macomb one of this state’s most haunted colleges. Click to expand photos For years, students and faculty in Western Illinois University’s Simpkins Hall have told stories about phantom children. Many other odd occurrences are attributed to “Harold,” a former janitor…

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