No one who visits Graceland Cemetery in Chicago can fail to notice Lorado Taft’s “Eternal Silence,” the statue of a hooded figure that stands over the plot of Dexter Graves and his family. Even official documents from the US Department of the Interior describe it as “eerie.” So iconic is the image that in 1968,…
Category: Mysterious Chicago Blog
Did H.H. Holmes Fake His Death (new info and podcast!)
A former employee of serial killer H.H. Holmes swore that he was never really hanged… we examine his claims! archive.org More Episodes Rumors continue to swirl that H.H. Holmes, subject of Devil in the White City and our most fascinating antique multi-murderer, is going to be exhumed from his grave to address rumors that it…
W.H. Donaldson: The Lost Aeronaut (Podcast)
New podcast! Listen above or download from iTunes “The next record I have of Donaldson (performing a hot-air balloon ascension) is at Chicago, IL, July 4, 1872, filling his balloon in Green’s Garden, preparatory to giving Chicagoans a blood-curdling sensation, as they never feel satisfied until they kill someone or have an explosion or conflagration…
Wild Times at the City Morgue, 1891
You know where the morgue is? The dead center of town. Har de har har! In 1891 a new city morgue was erected at the county hospital – a pleasant looking place on the outside, but of the interior, a reporter for the Inter Ocean said “the arrangements are suggestive and significant and can…
Hypnotized to the Gallows?
Can you hypnotize a person into confessing to murder? Probably not. But stories of police using excessive force and dirty tricks to get a confession out of someone when they don’t really have the evidence to convict them are nothing new. In old Chicago, they were incredibly common. This is the city, after all, where…
Did H.H. Holmes Kill Dr. Holton? (podcast)
Tickets to our first public tours are on sale now, including one of the H.H. Holmes tours that I’ve been running since 2007. The tours have evolved as I’ve researched Holmes in more depth, and I’m quite confident now that they’re the most informative and entertaining Holmes tours in town. If Devil in the White City…
Podcast: George W. Green, The Man Who Stole the Gallows
New podcast! Get all our episodes here on the page or subscribe on iTunes! According to legend, after Chicago’s first public hanging in 1840, the gallows were stolen by a man named George W. Green, who used the lumber for furniture that was then sold in his shop. Ironically, fifteen years later, the next…
Podcast: World’s Fair Charlatans
New page, new company, new podcast! Rather than just starting a new series of the old Chicago Unbelievable podcast, I decided to launch a whole new one. This particular version will feature several episodes that are just plain storytelling in addition to episodes like the older ones where we’d take a trip to explore a location,…