Haunted Waukegan Walking Tour showcases ghostly locales

WAUKEGAN – Rain poured down steadily Oct. 26, raindrops bouncing back up into the air the moment they hit the ground. A cold, wet Saturday night to be sure, but the mood was set perfectly for the annual Haunted Waukegan Walking Tour.

The Haunted Waukegan Walking Tour is traditionally one of the most popular walking tours that the Waukegan Park District and the Waukegan Historical Society host every year. Ten people still came out to learn about local history and ghost lore Saturday evening despite the less-than-ideal weather.

Denise Lambert shared an umbrella with her husband, James. Both were looking forward to her first time at this local Halloween tradition.

“I saw it advertised and I thought, ‘Hey, we’ve wanted to find out about Waukegan more’ and I thought this was the perfect thing,’” she said. “I figure we’re gonna find some history along with the spooky part of it. You know, Waukegan used to be the happening place.”

Indeed, Ty Rohrer, tour guide and park district manager of cultural arts, said that’s one of this favorite parts about the haunted walking tours.

“My favorite part is that I trick people into learning history along the way,” he said, smiling. “It is a walk that is telling stories of course, but to understand the stories, you need to know the historical context behind some of these places and the people involved.”

The tour lasts roughly two hours and visits about 15 allegedly haunted locales throughout Waukegan. The stops include the old Jane McAllister Hospital – Waukegan’s first hospital building built in 1904 – which has since gone through several reincarnations, including student housing for Shimer College and, today, is an apartment building. Stories claim that two spirits remain in the building from its days as a hospital: a good nurse who continues to care for the sick and an “evil janitor” who haunts the basement.

Rohrer’s favorite stop on the tour – and favorite story – is the Genesee Street Bridge. Rohrer found this story himself in a 1913 issue of the Waukegan Weekly Gazette.

“The headline was, ‘Ghost seen on the Genesee Bridge’,” he recalled. “The way they depict it is a ‘real-live, up-to-date ghost that is not fake’.”

The century-old article recounts three separate accounts in as many weeks in which witnesses saw an individual cross the bridge and jump from it, but when the witnesses rushed to the bridge’s rail and peered over, no one was there. Witnesses claimed that the incident occurred every week for three weeks in the dark hours of Sunday mornings around 2 a.m.

Rohrer added, “By week three, they call the police, they do a stakeout and the police actually say they saw the exact same thing.”

The Waukegan Park District and Waukegan Historical Society offer several walking tours throughout the year. The last tour of the season, the Sunset Cemetery Walking Tour, will be Nov. 1. In the spirit of Dia de los Muertos, this walking tour will “showcase some of the Waukeganites buried there, and really the theme is to show the diversity of Waukegan.”

This summer introduced a new walking tour, Waukegan’s Historic Parking Lots.

“Unfortunately, many of our parking lots are historic. … When you learn what was there before they were parking lots – there’s a lot of history there,” Rohrer said. “It’s really that story about historic preservation and the need and hope to save what’s left and also to realize that not everything can be saved, of course, but we can still remember what was there.”

Rain forced the Oct. 26 walking tour to end about half an hour early Saturday evening. Another haunted walking tour will be at 6 p.m. Oct. 31.

Lambert and her husband were fully prepared for the cold.

“We’ve got a pot full of chili and hot cocoa at home waiting for us,” she said with a laugh.