Weird Chicago Tour Highlights Mafia Murders, Cemeteries, Restless Ghosts and Serial Killers

Chicago is weird, and it's not just because of the moody weather.

Chicagoans taking the Weird & Haunted Chicago tour see things tourists will probably never see in The Loop souvenir stores.

A small, black bus with the words "American Hauntings Tours" picked a group of 15 up around 6:45 p.m. in front of the Hard Rock Café, and the three-hour tour started at exactly 7 p.m.

"You can lick the windows," said the tour guide, Erica Behringer, who is also a Paranormal Investigator. "They're flavored."

Her sense of humor mixed with the equally clever comebacks from the bus driver, Willie, may have made some passengers think this tour was going to be more funny than it was scary. It turned out to be a little of both.

The first stop was the Clark and LaSalle Street bridges to hear about the Eastland Disaster tragedy. In 1915, 22 families totaling 844 people drowned because of an overloaded boat with 3200 people aboard.

According to Behringer, "People have heard or seen splashing in the water. Rescue crews have been called several times after people said they saw someone swimming."

Behringer also talked about how a Harpo Studios security guard could hear crying or people walk by on a hardwood floor, which was apparently an after effect of the bodies that were not rescued, including the 200 who were put in refrigerators at a nearby restaurant so the families could identify the bodies.

The second stop was the Congress Plaza Hotel, located at 520 S. Michigan Ave. A Circuit Court judge, who was confined to a wheelchair and liked to wheel through the hallways changing guests' television channels with his remote control, stayed in this Michigan hotel. In addition to it being the judge's last living location, there's also a White House Chair in the lobby area. Presidents Polk, Van Buren, Harrison and Herding liked to sit in this chair and presidents were notorious for reserving rooms at this hotel.

But another person who enjoyed the Congress Plaza Hotel was Al Capone, who liked to frequent the Gold Ballroom. It was created in 1903 and according to Behringer, "It was the first air-conditioned ballroom in the city of Chicago." In the 1930s, a man was shot in the ballroom due to a love triangle. Behringer also notified the group that a mother committed suicide on the 12th floor of the hotel by jumping off the balcony and throwing her three boys off as well. One of her boys, who was never acknowledged, is said to stroll through the Gold Ballroom.

A six- to seven-year-old boy allegedly walks around the ballroom at night, a piano plays even when there's no piano in the room and sometimes you can supposedly hear a fully active kitchen behind a curtain area on the other side of the ballroom.

In the Florentine Ballroom of the Congress Plaza Hotel, the room used to be a roller-skating rink. The artwork has been refinished, but the floors have remained the same.

"This is the room that security guards hate coming in," Behringer said. "They hear footsteps. A security guard came in here to take photos of the place at night and saw the curtains opening and closing like fingers were moving them."

Behringer warned the tour group that the security guards like to have a little fun with them by banging on the walls, and sure enough, a loud slam could be heard. Even though the warning was given to the guests, a loud gasp could still be heard. The furnace humming made that room all the more eerie, especially since Behringer turned the lights out so the guests could get a feel for the room at night. The last stop at the Congress Plaza Hotel was to the elevators where a freak accident happened.

The third stop was to the Oriental Theater, which used to be called the Iroquois Theater, where an unsafe spotlight for superstar Eddie Foy turned into a major fire. The theater was not properly built for a fire. When one teacher went through a fire escape door, there was no stairwell but it was too late. Twenty bodies fell to their death. Six hundred and two people died due to the Iroquois Theater fire on Dec. 30, 1903, and some are said to still hang around, including Nellie Reed, an acrobat wearing a tutu that caught on fire.

While walking through the alley where people fell to their death from the Iroquois Theater fire, Behringer told the group that the alley was nicknamed the Death Alley not only for the fire but for suicides at the adjacent parking lot. Serial killer John Wayne Gacy also liked to frequent the area to pick up young boys.

Several other stops on the trail included driving over a cemetery on Chicago's north side. It'd been shut off in 1866 because of floating bodies coming up after rain, and bodies were removed in 1869. However, according to Behringer, 20,000 burials are still down there.

On the way to the next stop, guests could see Lake Shore Drive and Chicago's skyline. But the conversations on the bus made sure that guests didn't get too cozy. Topics included murders surrounding Mafia families Moran and Capone, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a mobster named Dillinger, skeletons found at the Lincoln Park Zoo by the pygmy hippo exhibit, Adolph Leutgart and the story about a woman allegedly killed in The Sausage Factory, which was mentioned in the 1986 film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" when Bueller claimed he was "the sausage king of Chicago."

The last stop was to a previous glass house location related to the World's Fair Hotel, more commonly known as The Murder Castle. Behringer talked about serial killer H.H. Holmes, whose real name was Herman Webster Mudgett and his alleged accomplice, Patrick Quinlan. The "hotel rooms" in The Murder Castle were actually homemade prison quarters where people were electrocuted or put into gas chambers and disposed of in acid vats and pits. Because there were so many bodies at The Murder Castle on the south side, it was rumored that there was a second drop location in a glass bending factory on the north side, where Weird Chicago tourists were taken. The location was torn down in the 1900s, and there will be a "going green" area coming to this neighborhood. There are rumors that lights flash on and off as though the spirits are still in the area.

This tour ended at 10:19 p.m. Additional tours may visit different locations considering the plethora of weird places on the Weird Chicago Tour agenda.

Additional Notes from Shamontiel:

I wondered how scary the tour could possibly be with Erica Behringer's chirpy voice. She talked about ghosts and spirits the same way one would talk about her favorite shopping spree. I cracked up when she mimed talking when an ambulance went by and thought this was going to be the happiest ghost tour ever. But Behringer's outspoken disgust with those who create ghost sightings and information on what hidden haunted locations in Chicago piqued my interest. Behringer seemed genuinely interested in legitimate paranormal experiences, not a bunch of tricks with cameras and computer tricks.

The Congress Plaza Hotel was flat out creepy. The security guard banging on the wall and standing in front of the entrance doors so we could see the shadow of his feet was lame, but subtle things like the piano in the corner made me nervous, especially since no one would take Behringer's dare to play it. The Death Alley was hard to take seriously since people kept strolling through it like it was the lakefront. The Murder Castle story freaked me out mainly because of the gate and parking lot. Although we were on the territory where the glasshouse was, from the look of the area, it wasn't hard to believe something spooky happened there. When a guy walked in a nearby alley, I jumped a little. Your imagination is far more int than the actual tour, but a mix of the two makes the Weird Chicago Tour a success.

I'd give this tour 4 out of 5 stars.