Galena, Illinois is a former mining and steamboat town near the Mississippi River in northeastern Illinois. It’s believed that Native Americans used this location to mine for lead for use in burial rituals two thousand years ago and the first European mining here took place during the French exploring/trading era of the late 1600s through the 1700s. By the early 1800s shipping allowed the easy hauling of iron ore from the cite, leading to Galena becoming the first mining boom town in US history.
Today Galena is a beautiful, locked in time community… I mean literally locked in. About 2.25 square miles of downtown is a preserved, historic district. Of course, all that history, all that preservation helps those from the other side feel right at home here.
The Haunted Galena Tour Company, run by Ted Williams and Robyn Davis takes people through the downtown, occasionally even entering the historic sites, while pointing out favorable vantage points to try to capture paranormal photos while also showing some of the highlights of the best images caught on the tour. I should also point out that they offer a “Spirits & Spirits Tour,” that is a haunted pub crawl that goes through three haunted watering holes. Your $25 ticket nets you all of the history and hauntings at these places along with a specialty cocktail at EACH location.
That’s tough to beat, we imagine, but the key was in the presentation where Ted would go into a story in a somewhat expected way – telling of the significance of the location, before suddenly Robyn would appear and talk about a moment in history as if she were eye witness to the tragedy as a townsperson living in the relevant era, giving way again for Ted to finish the tale by talking about the paranormal happenings that are observed to this day. It is theatrical and there’s a million ways it could come off as cheesy or over-the-top, but the Ted/Robyn duo absolutely hit the right tone. Book your tickets by clicking here or the tour company logo above.
I know you’re saying, “Get to the damned ghost stories already!” Well fine, pushy! I’ll even reward your patience with a video clip. It’s not uncommon for a walking tour to also feature a story about a location that’s too far to walk to. In this case, it’s the Adly House, a site of an unknown number of murders. Click on the video to hear the story directly from Ted & Robyn.
In rapid fire teasing, the tour leads into the re-discovered room in the basement of the DeSoto Hotel where the lady in black, Galena’s most famous ghost, has been seen. The tour swings by a former tombstone factory where the tour guides shared outdated (and seriously strange by today’s standards) funerary traditions. A stop was also made at one of the more paranormal photo-friendly locations in town, the oldest structure in the city, the 1820s built Dowling House where the group was invited to try their best to capture something on camera.
One of my favorite reasons for taking a ghost tour in a new city is to find locations I can revisit. One such location where people can do a little ghost hunting is the Old Market House. This location is a historic site, but it’s used as an information hub / visitor resource center. One fact that is definitely not in any of the ‘visit Galena’ brochures is that there was once a jail cell built in the basement of this structure. A woman by the name of Marianne Miller was something of a ne’er-do-well, repeat offender type and one night she was placed into holding in this newly constructed cell. The timing could not have been worse as this night was a night where the river overflowed its banks and the basement flooded and Marianne drowned.
While Ms. Miller wasn’t considered the fabric of the Galena community, she was still a neighbor who deserved better. That jail cell was never used again, but the psychic energy remains. Among other paranormal phenomena observed within, it is possible to make contact with Marianne, even from outside of the building. There is an exterior staircase that heads down to basement level. If you, especially on nights when the weather is inclimate, knock on the basement door and you may have your knock returned to you from the other side. Other times, instead of knocks, you may hear fingernails on the door scratching back at you, this poor, unfortunate soul who still appears to be clawing to get out of her cell.
I always hesitate telling someone else’s story (in the sense that I simply haven’t done enough of the research myself), but in the case of the Galena Tour company, no write-up, no matter how detailed, could match the entertaining presentation you could get by hearing the story directly from Ted and Robyn. There are a lot of ghost tours out there, but Haunted America’s Lake Geneva Tour and The Haunted Galena Tour Co. are two must-have experiences for anything looking to feel an extra chill down their spine.
On a side note, there is another tour company in town, which I did not take, but I cannot stress enough that this is the tour you want to book. Plan and book your tickets in advance to make sure you get a spot on this tour!
