And one more entry on the Congress before we move on…
In the closets behind the balcony o the Gold Ballroom, on the first investigation we ran of the place in 2006, we came across something that looked like a hand jutting out of the all. There was too much debris in the way for us to get close to it, but we took several photos and found that the thing actually didn’t just look like a hand, there were actually four fingers and a thumb!
Now, there are several theories here:
1. This is The Hand of Drywall Dave, a worker who was walled up inside the place (an apocryphal story that we’ve never been able to verify)
2. It’s Jimmy Hoffa (this is Willy, our driver’s favorite theory)
3. It’s the ghost of Congress Hotel regular Theodore Roosevelt, carrying a big stick.
4 (and most likely). It’s a glove plastered over by a contractor with a weird sense of humor
I’m not going to go around breaking stuff at the hotel! For all I know, it’s a load-bearing Hand of Mystery. We do have some plans to try our luck with a thermal camera at some point, but I don’t know if it’s worth bringing in an x-ray machine. If I had one of those, I’d see what was in the Couch Tomb first.
There are stories of ghosts of the victims of the Ft. Dearborn Massacre around 16th and Prairie, but I don’t know of any about the fur traders that are at all reliable (unless the stories that Jean LaLime is haunting the Tribune building are true). There are plenty of stories about “indian burial grounds,” and native american curses, but I don’t think any of them are true – most of them are the products of less reputable tour guides looking to embellish a story.
There’s a good chance it’s number 4, but why not take a hammer and find out, or maybe x-ray it?
Any stories of Native American ghosts or those of French fur traders? Chicago isn’t exactly very old.