HGB Ep. 377 - The Eastland Disaster

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Moment in Oddity - Pink Lemonade Origins (Suggested by: Scott Booker)

Summer has made lemonade a very popular beverage. It's quite simple, a little sugar, some water and fresh squeezed lemon juice. Lemonade was enjoyed as far back as the 17th century and grew in more popularity in the 19th century. At this same time, pink lemonade came onto the scene. An article in an 1879 issue of West Virginia’s Wheeling Register was one of the earliest mentions of pink lemonade and it was something created by traveling circuses. There are a couple of narratives about how pink lemonade was invented. Henry E. Allott had run away with the circus when he was a teenager. He was working the lemonade stand and enjoying some cinnamon candies died red and he accidentally dropped a bunch into the vat of lemonade. There was no time to make a new batch, so he served the lemonade that was now pink. That sounds pretty good, but the other story is just gross. Supposedly, a circus performer had washed her pink tights in some water and a man named Pete Conklin grabbed that water because he needed to make a batch of lemonade. The lemonade had a pink hue because of the tights. Today, pink lemonade is sometimes made with strawberries or red raspberry or grenadine or watermelon or cranberry juice. But generally, pink lemonade is just like regular lemonade, only with a pink hue. We love that pink lemonade is connected to the circus, but its origin, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Michelangelo Born

In the month of March, on the 6th, in 1475, artist Michelangelo was born. Born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni in Caprese, Italy, he was often referred to as the divine one. Michelangelo got his first apprenticeship at the age of thirteen. By the following year, he was being paid as an artist. He would paint and sculpt, but also wrote poetry and became an architect. He was the quintessential Renaissance man and many of his works are the most famous in the world. The Pieta and David are two of them and both were completed before he was thirty-years-old. I didn't realize until I saw the original David in Italy that the statue features David right before he kills the giant Goliath. You can see the rock in one of his hands and the sling over his shoulder and if you look closely, there is a vein sticking out in his neck as though he is stressed and his eyes are intense. One of the greatest frescos is his work that appears on the Sistine Chapel, all of which he painted while laying down on his back. Major parts of St. Peter's Bascilica were designed by Michelangelo in his seventies. He lived to be eighty-eight, dying in 1564 in Rome. He was buried in Florence at the Basilica of Santa Croce.

The Eastland Disaster (Suggested by: Kimmie Page)

The Eastland Disaster was the most deadly shipwreck in Great Lakes history. More passengers would die in this disaster than in the sinking of the Titanic. This was supposed to be a fun excursion to the grounds of a company picnic. The annual employee appreciation event had become a much anticipated break from the six-day work weeks that the lower middle class employees endured. On this fateful day in 1915, hundreds would die including whole families and leave a mark forever on Chicago. Locations that housed the dead until they could be identified are still haunted by the tragic event, both figuratively and literally. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Eastland Disaster!

The S.S. Eastland was nicknamed the Speed Queen of the Great Lakes. The ship had been commissioned by the Michigan Steamship Company in 1902 and was built by the Jenks Ship Building Company of Port Huron, Michigan. That speed that her nickname indicated was not an original part of her make-up. The steamer was actually top-heavy with no keel and the ballast tanks were poorly designed. The steamer would later be outfitted to run faster, but these additions would cause issues with her stability. Metacentric height is the distance between fully upright and the point at which a ship will capsize. It was said of the Eastland that fully loaded, it would need a metacentric height of two to four feet. With the changes made, its metacentric height had been reduced to four inches. In 1904, the Eastland had her first issue with nearly capsizing. The steamship company lowered the capacity limits and did away with some cabins in response. The ship would continue to list through the years when cargo was being loaded. The steamer was sold four times before 1914 and ended up on Lake Michigan.

The weather was cool and damp on the morning of July 24, 1915 when the excursion steamer Eastland was loading up for a trip across Lake Michigan. Captain Harry Pedersen was at the helm. Within minutes she would have 2,573 passengers and crew on the steamer. The atmosphere aboard the steamer was festive. A band played in the main cabin while passengers leaned against the railings to wave goodbye to friends. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best with the women sporting wide-brimmed hats, long dresses, corsets, stockings and fancy boots. Employees of the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works were being shuttled from downtown Chicago to Washington Park in Michigan City, Indiana that was 38 miles across the lake for a grand picnic. There were five vessels in total that had been chartered by the company to carry some 7,000 people. This was not a cheap treat for the employees who paid $1 per ticket when the best paid people in the plant made $17 a week.

A light drizzle chased many of the women and children below deck. Surely they had to have noticed that the ship was beginning to list from side to side after boarding was complete. Some may have thought it was a little bit of an issue, but most ignored the danger, including the Captain. The ship was only carrying 53 more passengers then it was built for, but there may have been another issue no one had considered and ironically, it was a safety measure. After the Titanic sank, it became important to make sure that there was room for all passengers on lifeboats. This made sense on transcontinental ships, but for a ship sailing on the Great Lakes, it was overkill. The added weight of the lifeboats became problematic. The Eastland listed to one side and then the other. The sway grew deeper. The open gangways soon had water pouring in and the engine room was flooded. The crew from the engine room ran for the main deck realizing that the steamer was taking on too much water. Within five minutes, the Eastland listed to a 45-degree angle.

The angle was enough that objects inside the boat started shifting drastically. A refrigerator slid across the steamer and pinned a woman. The piano on the promenade deck rolled and crushed two women. Two minutes after the 45-degree list, the Eastland capsized. The time was 7:30am and the steamer was still tied to the dock, but now lying on its side in 20 feet of water. No lifesaving equipment could be launched. Some of the passengers were able to climb over the starboard railing and walk across the hull to safety, but many more were in trouble of drowning. And imagine being on a dance floor and being rocked violently to one side and then rolled over. Many people would be severely injured just from that action, much less the fact that water was rushing into the steamer. The Eastland's captain, Harry Pedersen, was one of the lucky people who just walked across the hull.

 

Harlan Babcock wrote in the Chicago Herald, "In an instant, the surface of the river was black with struggling, crying, frightened, drowning humanity. Wee infants floated about like corks." The good people of Chicago went into action. Some onlookers jumped into the water to try to save the drowning. Helen Repa was a Western Electric nurse who had her ticket for the picnic and was riding the trolley to the dock when she heard the screams. She ran off the trolley when it stopped and hopped into the back of an ambulance to get to the scene quicker. She said, "I shall never be able to forget what I saw. People were struggling in the water, clustered so thickly that they literally covered the surface of the river. A few were swimming; the rest were floundering about, some clinging to a little raft that had floated free, others clutching at anything they could reach – at bits of wood, at each other, grabbing each other, pulling each other down, and screaming! The screaming was the most horrible of all." A warehouse worker made the same observation, claiming that he finally had to cover his ears because he couldn't take the trauma of the sound. The nurse asked a department store to send over 500 blankets and then asked several restaurants to send soup and coffee. She loaded the less injured into cars, asking the drivers to take the people home and not one driver refused. 

Other people on the dock started throwing anything that would float into the water to give victims something to hold on to until they were rescued. Within thirty minutes, all the survivors had been rescued and now the rescue effort turned to recovery. Priests stood by to give last rites, but that would be in vein because people were either alive or dead. Trucks were brought to the dock to help transport the dead because there was clearly not enough ambulances to handle the numbers. The Second Regiment Armory was converted to a morgue. Bodies were in rows of 85 and family members were invited inside in small groups, so they could identify their loved ones. Some jerks made their way in as well to gawk or steal jewelry. People who walked through reported horrifying scenes of couples locked into death grips with one another, mothers clutching their babies, little children lying in rows together and everyone dressed in their white Sunday best that was now muddied and stinking of the foul water of the river.

Many of these families were Hungarian, Polish or Czech and soon those communities would be awash in black crepe as they mourned their dead. Fifty-two grave diggers working twelve-hour shifts could not keep up with the demand. The same trucks that hauled victims from the tragedy, now hauled bodies to their funerals and to cemeteries. A Model T Ford hauled all the caskets of the Sindelar family, seven of them. The Red Cross was in town for days bringing relief to victims. The Coroner's Office formed an inquiry immediately after securing all the bodies and awarded those who helped in rescue efforts with a star that read "Valued Services Rendered." These heroes also received a letter that read, "I trust that you will accept this little token not for its intrinsic value or worth, but in memory of this terrible of all disasters which should teach us the lesson of 'Safety First' and of extending to our fellowman kindness, courtesy and consideration."

How was it that the Eastland was repeatedly certified as safe by inspectors? Apparently, since the listing of the Eastland would only occur during loading and unloading and everything was fine once she was underway, they figured she was a safe ship. Who would think that a steamer would capsize when still at the wharf? Maybe nobody thought that would happen, but Chicagoans nicknamed the Eastland a "hoodoo boat." They knew the boat was dangerous, but we imagine that the Western Electric employees were so excited for a day off and a picnic paid for by their company that they thought nothing of the fact that they were boarding a ship that many knew was not up to par. In the end, 844 died. More people than had died in the Chicago Fire of 1871, making this one of Chicago's deadliest catastrophes. 

Some of the victims: Twenty-one year old William Holtz had lived at home with his parents and siblings. He had been planning on quitting his job so he could stay home and help care for his blind mother. Jethro Richard Beel, Jr and his wife Marguerite were dancing aboard the steamer when it capsized and they both survived that initial issue. They made their way to a porthole window and Jethro pushed Marguerite through, but he could not follow because he was too big to get through. Marguerite managed to get to the surface of the water and was pulled to safety. The couple had a two-year old son who was not with them. Charles Bender was aboard the Eastland because he was going to visit his girlfriend Pauline Olach in Shallowboy, Michigan. He died on the steamer and his parents wouldn't speak to his girlfriend because they blamed her for his death. Raymond and Ione Ehrhardt would survive the tragedy when their uncle saved them, but their parents passed away. They were ten and six at the time. Bessie Dvorak was an ace swimmer, but she was no match for people drowning around her who clawed her and took her below the surface. Her parents saw that Bessie's skin was shredded by fingernails when they found her at the morgue.

Edward Gatens and his fiancee Anna Quinn, died together on the ship. Harry Foster and his wife Rachel had invited Rachel's sister and brother-in-law to join them at the picnic. Fate stepped in and forced the brother-in-law to have to work, so the couple skipped the picnic and were not with Harry and Rachel when they died in the tragedy. Willie Guenther didn't work for Western Electric, but a friend invited him to the picnic. Willie almost missed the train that day as he was running late, but the conductor saw him running and stopped the train. It is believed that Willie was crushed by something large inside the ship as he did not drown. Marenka Homola was three and half years old when she was left clinging to her father in the Chicago River. Her mother and younger sister had already perished. She and her father would be rescued, but she would never get on boat or swim in water for the rest of her life. She was one of the last known survivors of the tragedy when she died at 91 in February of 2003. All the members of 22 families perished in the tragedy.

Now that victims were buried, the people of Chicago wanted answers. And because many wanted blood, Captain Pedersen and much of his crew were taken into custody for their own protection. Chief Engineer Joseph Erickson was represented by Clarence Darrow when the trials finally got underway. He was the one that would take much of the blame because he was in charge of the ballast tanks. It was said that his mismanagement kept the ship from righting itself. But as we already pointed out, this ship was built and remodeled in a way that made it unsafe. And this was known. Erickson became a convenient scapegoat as he died during the trial. The Captain was not prosecuted. The owners of the steamer were not prosecuted either and no inspectors received any blame.

As would happen in our modern era, families filed civil lawsuits for wrongful death and injury. There were around 800 suits and very few ended up paying out anything and the amounts were miniscule. The Eastland was said to only be worth $46,000 and the salvage company had to be paid first. The Eastland was raised on August 14, 1915 and eventually sold to the Navy in 1917. The steamer became the USS Wilmette and served as a training vessel and gunboat from 1918 to 1945. She saw no combat and was scrapped out in 1946. This event was not as famous as other maritime tragedies probably because no one famous or rich was aboard, but the Eastland Disaster left a mark on Chicago's low and middle-class immigrant working families. And perhaps that is why many spirits of the victims have not been at rest. There are ghost stories connected to the Eastland Disaster, although many of the original sites have been altered.

The Second Regiment Armory, that served as the central morgue, no longer stands. In 1990, the building became home to the Oprah Winfrey Show and Oprah's production company, Harpo Studios. Oprah's show went off the air in 2011 and she shut down the studios in 2015. Demolition on the building began in July of 2016 and the site is home to the McDonald's Headquarters. It will be interesting to hear if hauntings continue at this site. When this was Oprah's empire, there were many paranormal experiences. Visitors, staff, maintenance workers and security have all had stories to share. Some claimed to hear disembodied whispering, perhaps echoing the voices of the grieving family members who had passed through to identify victims. There were also disembodied sobs and screams and moaning noises. A staircase in the lobby often gave off the sound of disembodied footsteps. Doors in the building would open and close on their own. Music from another era was also heard playing throughout the building. An apparition that was nicknamed "The Gray Lady" was seen often by people. She wore a long, gray dress and often walked the corridors in a sullen way and many times would disappear into a wall. If employees attempted to approach the woman, she would disappear as well. It is thought that she was a grieving family member and perhaps residual. Security cameras were said to have caught this apparition a couple of times.

The Excalibur Nightclub was also rumored to have been used as a temporary morgue. At that time, it had been home to the Chicago Historical Society. The television show Sightings filmed at Excalibur in 1997 and a psychic named Tim White reported on the episode that he had encountered the ghost of a little girl who said, "Stop and watch me." Employees claim to have seen the same little girl looking over the railing in the Dome Room. A blue-colored mist has been seen floating up the stairs as well.

The Eastland itself would have claims of being haunted. When it was docked near the Halsted Street Bridge before the Navy acquired it, a caretaker named Captain M.L. Edwards lived on the ship and he often complained of being awakened at night by the sounds of moaning and screaming.  He also heard loud banging noises. The area along the river that was the scene of the disaster also has stories. People dining at riverside cafes sometimes are shocked to watch a surge of water come out of the river and flood the river walk for no apparent reason. Almost as though an invisible ship has capsized, pushing water up over the walk. People walking along the river walk have claimed to see faces staring up at them under the water. The sounds of splashing and disembodied screaming have also been heard. This is not only from the walk, but also from the Clark Street Bridge. Flailing apparitions have been seen in the water and caused people to call for emergency services, only to have those figures disappear minutes later. One man reportedly jumped into the river to save someone he thought was drowning. When he surfaced and looked around to locate the drowning person, he found he was the only one in the river.

Our listener Kimmie Page, who suggested this topic, shared her own experience, "I am also Eastern European and from the Chicago area so the victims of that disaster would have been of similar backgrounds. I’m a spiritual person and I always say something kind or hello or I’m sorry that happened to you when I go to a cemetery or a site where something happened. I’ve read a lot about the disaster and gone to the memorial in bohemian national cemetery many times! My paranormal experience though was when I was kayaking in the river and my tour guide told us we were in the same spot and I did my usual 'I’m so sorry this happened' and a massive SMACK hit the bottom of my boat twice. There is wildlife in the river but the rapid succession of the smacks made me think otherwise. I felt very calm during it but it’s really meaningful to me."

Many families were looking forward to a fun day of relaxing and picnicking in July of 1915. How could they have known that many of them would never make it home that evening? Are the spirits of the victims of the Eastland Disaster still haunting parts of Chicago? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 187 - Congress Plaza Hotel

 
Moment in Oddity - The Moon Mausoleum

William Judson Moon was a successful businessman in Caddo, Oklahoma. His wife was Mollie and he adored her. He would have to leave her on occassion for business and in 1904, we made a trip to St. Louis to supervise construction on a new hotel he was building. While he was away, Mollie committed suicide. William was devastated and he wanted to keep Mollie preserved. He built a glass casket for her, had her body carefully preserved and put her in her favorite dress. The local paper claimed that “the mummification is as complete as any the Egyptians ever accomplished.” He then built a brick mausoleum for her that has come to be known as the Moon Mausoleum. It cost him $2,000 to build. He would visit her every day and brush her hair. He changed her clothes and shoes sometimes and legend claims he even bathed her body. Throughout this time, the mausoleum was open to the public and Mollie became a type of tourist attraction. Over time, vandalism caused the family to close up the mausoleum and put bars on the windows. The devotion William showed his mummified wife defied the normal conventions of society and certainly were odd!

This Month in History - Julius Caesar Assassinated

In the month of March, on the 15th, in 44 B.C., Julius Caesar is assassinated by members of the Roman Senate. Caesar was at the height of his power in 44 B.C. and in his arrogance, he declared himself "Dictator for Life." Sixty members of the Roman Senate decided that the only choice they had was to assassinate Julius Caesar. The group never met publicly and they laid out their plans in small groups at each other's homes. They discussed throwing him from a bridge or attacking him walking along one of his favorite paths, but they finally decided that the Senate was the best place. He would be alone and they could hide daggers in their togas. After Caesar entered the chamber, the Senators unsheathed their daggers. Servilius Casca hit him first in the shoulder. Casca's brother then hit him between the ribs. Cassius Longinus hit him next and the attack continued with even Brutus, whom Caesar thought was his allie and friend, stabbing at Caesar as well. He fell at the feet of a statue, mortally wounded. Every conspirator wanted to get in a stab and when they were done, Caesar had at least thirty-five wounds. A battle ensued between armies of the Senate and supporters of Caesar and by the time that was done, several of the conspirators had committed suicide or had been killed.

Congress Plaza Hotel (Suggested by listeners Matthew Hirons and Kristin Swintek)

Chicago's Congress Plaza Hotel is said to be the city's most haunted hotel. Chicago hosted the World's Fair in 1893 and the hotel was built to help provide more accommodations, so it has been around for more than a century. World leaders, US Presidents and the rich and famous have all stayed here. There are rumors that the hotel was used during Prohibition by Al Capone. And similar to the inspiration The Stanley Hotel provided to Stephen King when writing The Shining, the Congress Plaza Hotel inspired him when writing his short story 1408, which eventually became the movie of the same name starring John Cusack. There seems to be many spirits at the hotel to help provide haunting inspiration. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Congress Plaza Hotel!

We can't discuss the history of the Congress Plaza Hotel without talking about the World's Columbian Exposition. This was an event organized to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landfall in the New World. The first World Fair was held in 1790 in Prague, Bohemia. The country of France hosted the World Fairs for the next thirty years, all of them in Paris. The first World Fair hosted in America was in 1829 in New York. Chicago would host the twelfth World Fair to be held in America and this was the World's Columbian Exposition. Civic leaders in Washington, D.C., St. Louis, New York City and Chicago decided that another fair was needed in America to generate business and increase real estate values. Congress okayed the idea and it was left to them to decide if Chicago or New York City would be the host city. Financial giants from both cities competed with each other to pledge funds. New York's J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and William Waldorf Astor, pledged $15 million. Chicago's Marshall Fields, Cyrus McCormick and Philip Armour, pledged the same. Plus, the people of Chicago threw in an additional $5 million in stock subscriptions. Congress voted for Chicago and a site was selected.

Many people wanted to have the fair in a central location, but there were difficulties with traffic and property rights. A marshy bog named Jackson Park, seven miles out, was chosen. Daniel H. Burnham was named the exposition's director of works. Burnham wanted to focus on architecture and sculpture to the degree that Paris had focused on engineering. He recruited the top architectural and artistic talent, including landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted wanted to design a park that would rival Central Park in New York City. *Fun fact: George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. designed the first Ferris Wheel as a landmark for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was meant to rival the Eiffel Tower, which debuted at the 1889 World's Fair.* The fair didn't end on a good note. It left behind a small pox epidemic, a fire that swept through the fairgrounds and destroyed many buildings and Mayor Carter Harrison was assassinated.

The Congress Plaza Hotel was built in 1893 to help provide accommodations for visitors to the world fair. And we can't state that fact on our podcast without pointing out an infamous hotel built in the White City at that same time by a certain H. H. Holmes: the Murder Castle. As a matter-of-fact, that hotel was named World's Fair Hotel. Originally, the Congress Plaza Hotel was called the Auditorium Annex and was designed to complement the building across from it that was Louis Sullivan’s Auditorium Building. The hotel was designed by Clinton Warren and Louis Sullivan was a consultant for him, along with Dankmar Adler, both of whom built the Auditorium Building. Hotel developer R.H. Southgate built the hotel. The two buildings were connected by an underground marble passageway dubbed "Peacock Alley.”

Other features of the hotel were added later. Between 1902 and 1907, the Hoalbird and Roche Firm designed and built the fourteen-story South Tower. Part of this addition included the Gold Room, which was the first hotel ballroom in America to have air-conditioning. The twelve-story North Tower added the Florentine Room in 1909, which was another ballroom. At this point, there were 1,000 guest rooms. New owners decided to rebrand the hotel and give it a new identity. They looked to its location for inspiration. The street running along it was Congress Street and it was across from Congress Plaza, so they named it Congress Plaza Hotel in 1908.

Subsequent owners would add more improvements. Guestrooms were enhanced in 1916 to add electrical outlets and desk lamps and remove hanging chandeliers. Original bathroom fixtures were replaced in the early 1920s. The Elizabethan Room on the ground floor became a dance club with the innovation of a revolving bandstand in the 1930s. They renamed the club the Joseph Urban Room. In 1935, it was home to Benny Goodman and his NBC Radio show. During World War II, the hotel was purchased by the government and was used as a headquarters for U.S. Army officers. The hotel moved back to private hands in 1945 when a group of Chicagoans purchased it. In 1950, the Pick Hotel Corporation purchased the property and began a multi-million dollar renovation, which included adding a mural-encircled lobby, new front desk, new public rooms on the third floor, new corridors, new Congressional and Presidential Suites, and a new supper club called the Glass Hat. Escalators and another ballroom were added in the 1960s.

Rumors claim Al Capone once owned the hotel,but there is no proof of that.Others claim he played cards there. What does seem to be true is that Jake “Greasy Thumb” Gusik phoned Capone in Palm Island, Florida, in regards to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre from a phone at the Congress Plaza. During all its earlier decades, the Congress Plaza came to be known as the "Home of Presidents." Those presidents include Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson, William McKinley, Grover Cleveland and Richard Nixon. Political conventions were hosted here and as a matter-of-fact, the nickname "Bull Moose" for Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party was coined here. The hotel became the headquarters for the Democrat Party and President-elect Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. In 1952, the Republican Credentials Committee broadcast from the Gold Room via television. In 1971, nearly 3,000 people packed the Great Hall when President Richard Nixon addressed the Midwest Chapters of the AARP and National Retired Teachers Association.

Today, the Congress Plaza features 871 guest rooms and several suites. The lobby features beautiful mosaic tile by Tiffany and Co., along with gorgeous chandeliers. The hotel also features ghosts. Some claim that this is the most haunted hotel in Chicago. Could its tragic past associated with many suicides, be part of the reason for its notorious reputation? James Kennedy was a man from New York who came to the hotel in May of 1910. He checked into his room and then strangely cut all the dry cleaning identification tags out of his clothes and burned his documents. He then walked across to the lake and shot himself. That same year, an insurance salesman named Andrew Mack visited a friend who was staying at the hotel. He then left and walked to the lake and drowned himself. In 1916, mining investor Morse Davis and his wife attempted suicide in their Congress Plaza hotel room by taking cyanide. His wife survived, but later tried to throw herself out of a third story window at St. Mary's Mission. A salesman committed suicide by throwing himself down an elevator shaft. Another man hung himself on a cupboard hook in his room and a drifter jumped off the roof of the north tower. 

There are many rooms that reputedly have spirits hanging around in the afterlife. The most notorious of these is Room 441. This room hosts full-bodied apparitions. Cold spots and disembodied whispers have been experienced and even more startling are reports that items have launched themselves across the room. Could this room be the inspiration for Stephen King's story "1408?" Other rooms that could be candidates as inspiration for "1408" are Room 905, where constant phone static is experienced, Room 474 where the channels on the television are constantly changed and Room 759 where an unseen spirit pulls the door shut when people try to enter. There are those that would argue that Room 441 is not the most haunted in the hotel. That prize is said to really belong to an unnamed room on the twelfth floor. The haunting here was so horrifying that the hotel managers decided it would be best to not only not rent out the room, but to seal it up forever. The door was removed and replaced with a wall and covered over in wallpaper. Many claim that it is this room that is featured in the story and movie about a young man who convinces the hotel's manager to let him stay in the haunted room that was said to cause another guest to commit suicide.

One floor above, people claim to hear groans near the elevator. There are at least two people that are believed to have fallen down the elevator shaft. The Gold Room is popular for weddings, but if you chance having your nuptials hosted in this room, you just might end up with something missing in your wedding photos. Specifically, members of your wedding party or family who try to join you in those pictures. Final photos will have spaces in the pictures that are blank where someone had been standing. It's a weird phenomenon that seems to remove the living from pictures. This generally happens in any pictures taken near the grand piano in the Gold Room. Could it be that a spirit blocks the person in the picture? Could that spirit belong to a construction worker? There is a legend that a worker was walled in the drywall somehow during construction. The remnants of this can be seen in the 'hand of mystery' in the closets behind the balcony in the Gold Room.

The Florentine Room was where the roller skating rink used to be and there is a residual haunting here that features the sounds from that past time of roller skates moving across the floor, the ominous piping of organ music and the sounds of laughter and disembodied voices. The North Tower is host to the spirits of a mother and her children. Apparently, she was so depressed that she decided to commit suicide by jumping from a balcony on the North Tower, but she didn't want to leave her children behind, so she tossed them from the balcony before she jumped herself. Most often, only the apparition of one of the boys is seen.

It seems as though all common areas of the hotel have some kind of unexplained phenomenon happening. Objects throw themselves about, cold spots are felt and there are apparitions seen as well. Most of these occurrences happen at night. Some wonder if these could be the work of a ghost that has become famous at the hotel and that is Peg Leg Johnny. Johnny was a disabled homeless man who met his final fate at the hotel. He was killed here and now seems doomed to wander the halls, particularly in the south tower of the hotel. Whenever he is seen, he mysteriously vanishes before he can be approached. The apparition has only one leg.

TwistedElegance25 wrote on TripAdvisor in 2009:

"I stayed there on a company trip so didn't actually pick this hotel. All I know is it was definitely haunted. I was laying on my bed and the curtain moved to the side as if somebody was peeking at me. Then my friend said she heard someone whistling in our room when she was in the bathroom. She looked out and nobody was in there...it happened 3 times. I had NO idea this hotel was even haunted until I told my friend about it and he looked the hotel up for me. He sent me the link about it...this hotel is one of the most haunted hotels in Chicago! I wish I had known this before I stayed there! The hallways look like the hallways from that movie 'The Shinning.' The bed was super uncomfortable...the room was absolutely freezing! It was so hot out too. I had to ask the bell guy for a lot of extra blankets and my friend and I were still freezing!!!! So I then asked them how to turn the heater on and they said they only turn on the hotel heater during the winter time. He came back to our room and felt how cold it was so then searched the hotel for a portable heater for us. thank God he found one....it somewhat helped a little. The hotel seemed really pretty downstairs...but the rooms I didn't like very much at all. I felt like I was staying in an old Grandmas room. Anyways...if you guys like ghost...then yeah sure...stay at this hotel, lol."

 Matthew Hirons said:

 "It's an outdated hotel, which I found charming...ish. Think Wes Andersen movie.  Definitely helps with the creep vibe.  The location is great, right across from Buckingham Fountain. The Stephen King short story "1408" was based on the hotel, but the movie was not filmed there. There have been some pretty famous guests there. It's true that Matthew Hirons was seen checking in there. I did some walking around and took some recordings in the hallway around the infamous Room 441. I spent some time there and caught nothing. I didn't see anything. However, I did catch two ladies that had done the same as me and they said they saw a man through the divider door window to the next hallways and then he was just gone. Does this mean it's not haunted? Who knows. I think that if you really want to get to the heart of that answer, you have to book 441 and stay focused on it. If you want a fair priced hotel downtown with a lure of haunting, than it will be worth staying there."

 Kristin Swintek said:

"I absolutely love the Congress Hotel! It might not be one of the most luxurious hotels in Downtown Chicago, but it is beautiful, very affordable and in an excellent location. It's right on the famous Michigan Avenue across the street from Grant Park and Buckingham Fountain. In walking distance to the Art Institute (the art museum that Ferris, Sloan and Cameron go to in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off), very close to the Museum Campus which includes The Shedd Aquarium, The Field Museum of Natural History, and the Adler Planetarium and you can see Lake Michigan if you have a room facing Michigan Ave. I haven't stayed there in over 10 years, and from a quick look at the website, it appears the rooms have been renovated since I was there last in probably 2005. I remember there being claw foot tubs in the bathroom which appear to be gone now. Those were so neat.

My first visit to the Congress Plaza Hotel was during my college orientation week. I attended Columbia College Chicago with is located a block south of the hotel and they had deals for families coming in for orientation. My parents and I stayed in a "Family Suite" which included one large room with two queen beds and a smaller bedroom with one Queen bed off which was the bathroom. We surmised that the larger room was probably once used as a parlor or sitting room with the bedroom off of the parlor. My mom and I came down to the hotel early in the day and my dad was going to meet us there later after work. We weren't sure what our schedule would be like with the orientation so we told the front desk to hold my Dad's room key so he could pick it up and let himself into our room when he arrived.

Orientation day was done earlier then expected and decided to head back to the hotel to cool off from the hot summer day. My mom and I were relaxing together in the smaller bedroom and we read the hotel booklet with information and the history of the hotel. We were reading about all the famous people who had stayed there including former US Presidents and there were pictures of what the hotel looked like in the 30's and 40's. Then there was a section on some of the hauntings around the hotel. As we are reading this particular section, we were startled by the sound of the door opening. We jumped and screamed. It was just my Dad who had decided to leave work a little early and surprise us. He came in and was equally startled by our reaction and said "What heck is the matter with you two?" We told him what we were just reading and he agreed that an old hotel like that was surely haunted and we all had a good laugh.

We didn't have anything really definitive happen while we were there. I was sleeping alone in the larger room by myself. One of the nights I woke up and felt like something was staring at me in the middle of the night. I turned around to look into the dark room, praying that I wouldn't see anything. I found the room empty but still had the unsettling feeling. I pulled the blankets over my head, squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to go back to sleep, hoping I wasn't going to have nightmares. It may have just been an overactive imagination, knowing that I was in a haunted hotel. I've stayed there one other time with my Husband back when were dating for a little staycation in the city. I would really like to go back soon and see if anything spooky happens. It's such a wonderful place."

Ursula Bielski, Founder of Chicago Hauntings Tours, wrote, "Since 1989, I have participated in more than 3 dozen investigations of the Congress Plaza, documenting no fewer than 47 distinctively haunted rooms and at least two ballrooms, as well as common areas such as employee workrooms and public guest areas.  The sheer variety of phenomena reported and experienced at this massive structure is mind-boggling.  Truly, there seems to be no end to the historic tragedy or of its supernatural manifestations."

Are the spirits of former guests and employees still walking the corridors of this century old hotel? Is the Congress Plaza Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Road Trip Day 3 and 4 - Crime Scenes, Cemeteries and Haunts of Chicago, Illinois

Chicago’s first permanent resident was a trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a black man apparently from Haiti. He arrived in the late 1770s. In 1795, the U.S. government built Fort Dearborn at what is now the corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, a major area in downtown Chicago today. Ft. Dearborn was burned to the ground by Native Americans in 1812, rebuilt and demolished in 1857. Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837. Chicago was in a great spot to become central to westward expansion. The completion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 created a water link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Railroads then took over and today O’Hare International Airport makes Chicago an aviation powerhouse. In the 1850s, they raised many of the streets five to eight feet to install a sewer system. Unfortunately, the buildings, streets and sidewalks were made of wood, and most of them burned to the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The Chicago Fire Department training academy at 558 W. DeKoven St. is on the site of the O’Leary property where the fire began. 2000 acres were burned and nearly all buildings in its path were destroyed. The Chicago Water Tower and Pumping Station at Michigan and Chicago avenues was one of the only structures to survive. Chicago became known as the White City after this and rebuilt quickly. Much of the debris was dumped into Lake Michigan as landfill, forming the underpinnings for what is now Grant Park, Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago. Only 22 years later, Chicago celebrated its comeback by holding the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The hosting of the World's Fair is connected to a couple of haunted sites we visited on this road trip. Chicago was home to gangsters. Crime and tragedies have led to Chicago gaining a reputation as a haunted city. We visited several hot spots, which included Resurrection Cemetery, the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Hull House and the Murder Castle. Is Chicago haunted? That is for you to decide!