See more podcasts This year, I had the distinct honor of running the “Haunted History” tours at the Lincoln Park Zoo, which gave me a good opportunity to research some interesting aspects of the Zoo that I didn’t know about, search as zoo director Marlin Perkins’ search for the Yeti. And, of course, the ghost…
Tag: city cemetery
Dr. Baxter: Grave Robber
Today I’ll be running my Grave Robbing 101 tour in Lincoln Park, the old City Cemetery, as part of Obscura Day 2016. It’s sold out, so no need to promote further, but since I’ll be quoting a bit of Dr. A.J. Baxter’s memories of robbing that particular graveyard, I thought I’d post his whole bit….
The Ghostly Woman of the LADY ELGIN Graves
In 1860, the sidepaddle steamer Lady Elgin was wrecked about nine miles off Winnetka – another ship had collided with it, and the ship was busted up by breakers. Just under 400 people were on board, bound to Milwaukee from Chicago, allegedly after having seen Senator Douglas speaking in his campaign for the presidency (though the…
Inside the Couch Tomb: New Eyewitness Accounts?
We talk quite a lot about the Couch Tomb here – the mausoleum that was never moved from City Cemetery after it became Lincoln Park. No one is entirely sure why it wasn’t moved (probably money, though there are rumors of a lawsuit) or who all is in it, if anyone. But we’re always finding new…
David Kennison: Boston Tea Party Vet or Early Chicago Fraud?
excerpted from one of the sections I wrote for the Weird Chicago book in 2008, with a couple of additions: Plenty of bodies besides that of Ira Couch are still in Lincoln Park, which was once City Cemtery, but only one of them besides Ira Couch still has a grave marker there – David Kennison, one…
Podcast: Geeking Out Over Mr. Couch
Hear the podcast at archive.org, or on feedburner (scroll to the bottom), or via iTunes. Etching of the tomb above was found amongthe papers. A few weeks ago I was contacted by Rachel Williams, a great great great grand-daughter of Ira Couch, the man whose family tomb still stands in Lincoln Park, and the subject of one of our early…
Podcast: Rambling in Rose Hill
Here’s a shot that should tell you just about all you need to know about how our trip to Rose Hill went: Yeah. About like that. We were joined by Susan Sherman, who explains how she is now part corpse due to a recent surgery, and was with me at the “Murder Castle” investigation a…
Hyena Jim Terrorizes Chicago, 1897
Newspaper archives are full of odd stories about the Lincoln Park Zoo (which was, after all, built on top of the old City Cemetery). One particular story that amused me last week concerned a guy in the early 1920s who was devastated to hear that his pet monkey was the wrong kind of monkey to…