Click here to download the entire issue!

In front of the duo was an endless tunnel of darkness. Behind them, the tunnel entrance glowed almost unbearably bright, the bars that covered the opening only very briefly interrupting the sunlight. Greg and Davin slowly clawed their way forward, using the slippery cement wall as a guide. Davin clutched at Greg’s shirt sleeve, but Greg, who was about a head shorter, brushed him off.

“I really think we should wait for the others,” Davin said nervously. “Who knows what’s down there? Not us, I’ll tell you that.”

Greg, who wore a ragged, olive green U.S. Army shirt from the Vietnam War with the sleeves rolled up, sighed in frustration. “Where is your sense of adventure? Why don’t you get out of the basement every once and a while and live a little?”

“I am out of the basement,” Davin grumbled. He jumped as his foot hit something long and thin—a branch that had been carried into the tunnel and deposited there during a heavy rain. “Man, there could be snakes in here and God knows what else.” …Davin was unable to complete his thought before several figures interrupted the light coming from the tunnel entrance.

“Good, Mike and the others finally made it,” Greg said and quickly turned to give his friends a verbal lashing for taking so long to get there. When he turned to face the tunnel entrance, however, he saw only the outlines of three figures, each about six feet tall and two feet wide. They seemed to be absorbing all light, like deep black silk. An icy chill ran down his spine.

What happened next? Download Volume 5 issue 2 of the Legends and Lore of Illinois to find out!

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New issues of the Legends and Lore of Illinois will be posted throughout 2012, after a year’s hiatus. To celebrate its return, we have created a series of 4×6 postcards depicting the location discussed in each issue. Simply click on the image to your left to download a high resolution .jpg of this month’s postcard, then send it to your local Walgreens to have it printed. Collect all twelve! Loyal fans who collect all our postcards this year will be eligible for a drawing in December that will determine who is the greatest fan of the Legends and Lore of Illinois of all time!

At 2,493 feet, the Winston Tunnel was the longest railroad tunnel in Illinois. It was built in 1888 for the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad, a line that ran from Chicago to Minneapolis, Omaha, and Kansas City. It took 350 workmen (and $600,000) more than nine months to complete the tunnel. Shortly after, the Minnesota and Northwestern became known as the “Chicago Great Western Railway.” At least one worker is known to have been killed during construction of the tunnel, which was so long a pump house had to be built to ventilate it. In fact, it is said that the ghost of this Finnish laborer still haunts the site to this day.

Today, the Winston Tunnel is not easy to find. The east entrance has been covered over with dirt and debris, and the west entrance is quite a walk. The path is full of pitfalls, rusted steel supports, and rotting timber. It is very dangerous – if you go, make sure to wear jeans and good hiking boots. But before you go, make sure to read all the hidden history and folklore of this location in the latest issue of the Legends and Lore of Illinois!

This issue is packed with photos and information you won’t find anywhere else. Plus, read about your favorite paranormal adventurers, The Fallen, as they explore this mysterious and maligned location. Click here to Download the issue for free!

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New issues of the Legends and Lore of Illinois will be posted throughout 2012, after a year’s hiatus. To celebrate its return, we have created a series of 4×6 postcards depicting the location discussed in each issue. Simply click on the image to your left to download a high resolution .jpg of this month’s postcard, then send it to your local Walgreens to have it printed. Collect all twelve! Loyal fans who collect all our postcards this year will be eligible for a drawing in December that will determine who is the greatest fan of the Legends and Lore of Illinois of all time!

Downloading an issue of the Legends and Lore of Illinois is very simple!  Check out the image to your left and notice the round, black button. This button appears whenever an issue of the Legends and Lore of Illinois is available. Simply click on the icon and the issue will open up in your browser window. If you are having trouble viewing the issue, or it appears distorted, try re-installing Adobe Acrobat Reader or installing the latest version.

And that’s it! Read the issue in your browser window, save it for later, or print it out and read it the old fashioned way – it’s entirely up to you. So now that you know how to download the Legends and Lore of Illinois, there is no excuse for missing an issue!

We want your letters! In future issues, we hope to print your letters commenting on what you have read.  Only the best (shortest) letters will be published. Please e-mail your letters to trueillinoishaunts@blackoakmedia.org.  Also, we will read your personal experiences, but we do not publish unsolicited experiences.

Click here to download the entire issue!

Mike dug into the pockets of his trench coat and produced a small pair of binoculars. He scanned the woods, which luckily were barren of underbrush since most of the weeds were dead, and saw something moving in the newly fallen leaves.

“What is it?” Emmer asked.

“I don’t know,” Mike replied. “There’s something moving around.”

“Let’s check it out,” Greg said as he began moving in the direction of the sound.

Mike tried to protest, but his friends left him standing alone as they walked toward the woods. He shook his head and followed.

Greg entered the hinterlands of the forest and then stopped dead in his tracks. He was so startled by what he saw that he nearly fell over backwards and took Emmer with him.
Aurelia shoved her way past the two. A few yards ahead, a mangy dog growled and whined menacingly, but appeared to be stuck. The dog was covered by patchy, dark gray hair and seemed malnourished.

“What is that thing?” Emily asked, keeping herself strategically behind Davin.

What happens next? Click here to download the entire issue (.pdf) and find out!

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Legends and Lore of Illinois Vol. 2 – on Kindle!

Or, order all 12 issues of the Legends and Lore of Illinois from 2008 for only $5.00 in a special Kindle edition. Places covered in Vol. 2: Archer Cemetery, Sunset Haven, Peoria State Hospital (Bartonville Asylum), Airtight Bridge, University of Illinois, Calvary Cemetery and ‘Seaweed Charlie,’ Lakey’s Creek, Peck Cemetery, Blood’s Point Road, Old Union Cemetery, Hartford Castle, and more! Plus, read letters from our readers, book reviews, ghostly games, and put your knowledge of these locations to the test with challenging trivia questions. Don’t miss these classic issues from the archives of the Legends and Lore of Illinois.

Order it today on Amazon.com.
Note: Amazon Kindle required.

Legends and Lore of Illinois: The Fallen Chronicles

This special collection consists of the saga of The Fallen, spanning 47 issues of the Legends and Lore of Illinois, arranged in chronological order. For the first time, our readers can follow the epic journey of Mike, Aurelia, Davin, Greg, and Emmer from their first appearance at Bachelor’s Grove to their closing act at the summit of Starved Rock. Will The Fallen escape from a shadowy entity lurking in the tunnels under Manteno State Hospital, or will they be upstaged by their ghost-hunting rivals at Greenwood Cemetery? Follow all their adventures, twists, and turns in one convenient book! You will never look at Illinois the same way -

Order it today on Amazon.com!
Note: Amazon Kindle required.

Don’t have a Kindle reader? Check out all our print-edition books here.

Histories: Built of brick, the old Abingdon Middle School at Snyder and Washington streets was formerly North Abingdon High School. In October 1956, a teacher named Karen Moriaty tragically died at the school. During the 1970s, a tornado damaged the building and knocked down its distinctive chimney. Today, the school is abandoned and off limits to visitors. Devil’s Cave was created over millions of years by water eroding sandstone rock. When the first white settlers arrived, Waubonsee Indians occupied that land. According to legend, one of these Indians had been banished from the tribe and lived in the cave. He covered himself in a fungus that glowed at night, leading passersby to believe the cave was haunted.

Hauntings: According to legend, a speech teacher at Abingdon brought her three-year-old child to work and left him outside to play on his tricycle while she ran into her classroom to get something. Unsupervised, her child accidentally fell down the cement steps and broke his neck. The teacher was so grief stricken that she hung herself in her classroom. Ever since, the ghosts of both the woman and her child have been seen in and around the school, and a former janitor even reported these sightings to the police. Some storytellers claim that blood stains appear on the steps where the child died.

The story of Devil’s Cave is slightly less gruesome. According to the Kane County Chronicle, one member of the Waubonsee tribe was not happy when white men moved into the area and began to play pranks on the settlers. After he was banished from the village, some of the settlers were found murdered and scalped. During the search for the perpetrator, they noticed a light coming from a nearby cave in the woods. A joint band of Waubonsee and white settlers lit brush on fire at the entrance to the cave to smoke out whatever was in there. The banished man ran out of the cave, caught fire, and leapt to his death into in the Fox River.

Which of these two locations do you think is the scariest? Leave your comments below!

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• Edmonds, Margot and Ella E. Clark. Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends. Castle Books, 2009.
• Erdoes, Richard and Alfonso Ortiz. American Indian Myths and Legends. Pantheon: 1985.
• Jones, David and Brian Molyneaux. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Indian Mythology. Anness, 2010.
• Lake-Thom, Robert. Spirits of the Earth: A Guide to Native American Nature Symbols, Stories, and Ceremonies. Plume, 1997.
• Smith, Philip. Favorite North American Indian Legends. Dover Publications, 1994.

For reasons I have yet to figure out, many Americans, particularly those interested in the paranormal, believe that American Indians possess some kind of unusual or supernatural connection with spirits and otherworldly forces. This is certainly how they are portrayed in popular culture, and especially in horror movies like Wolfen (1981) and in television shows like X-Files. However, every human culture, if you go back far enough, shares similar cultural elements – shamans, natural medicine, beliefs in nature spirits and animism, etc. From a folkloric perspective, there is nothing unusual about the diverse variety of American Indian cultures when compared to others in the human community.

That being said, it is important for anyone who is interested in the legends and lore of North America to understand that there were people living on this land long before Europeans arrived. Peoples from as far back as the end of the last Ice Age roved across the plains and forests of the Midwest. Wherever we live today, there is a chance that something of those ancient peoples is buried beneath us. The books listed above give a pretty good overview of the beliefs, legends, and myths of the American Indian tribes that were the heirs to these pre-Columbian cultures. By understanding these legends, we can demystify American Indian culture and help bridge the gap between us by recognizing our common humanity, which can be found in our love for stories and in the mysterious aspects of our existence.

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Interested in the ghostly legends and lore of Illinois? Check out Michael Kleen’s book Paranormal Illinois. Paranormal Illinois presents in-depth and original research on some of Illinois’ most unusual tales, including the phantom lady of Kennedy Hill Road, the headless horseman of Lakey’s Creek, and the ghost of Ange Milner. Chapters on Archer Avenue, Manteno State Hospital, Ashmore Estates, Airtight Bridge, Devil’s Gate, and other infamous places present information and interviews never before seen in print. Fun, informative, and greatly entertaining, this painstakingly researched book leaves no ghost unturned.

Order it at Amazon.com today!

Were you born and raised in Alton, Illinois, and what was it like growing up in what has been called the most haunted town in Illinois?

No, I was not born in Alton, I moved here in 1989 and when I moved here I had no idea about much of the town’s history, and definitely did not know about how haunted it was.  That was something I did not find out about (in more detail) until about 1993.  Living in the most haunted town in Illinois is interesting to say the least; going into different buildings here creates a whole new meaning to the phrase “not knowing what is around the next corner”.

How long have you been interested in the paranormal? What was it that sparked your interest?

I have been interested in the paranormal most of my life, having seen things for years that would “defy logic”.  However I would have to say that my interest got a “jump start” when I met Antoinette, a well known psychic from Alton, she took me on my first investigation and that is what really sparked my interest.

When did you first realize you had psychic abilities, and what does your particular ability allow you to do?

I have pretty much have always had some experience with psychic abilities, not knowing what they were.  Can I tell you your past, present or future, NO, I am not that kind of psychic.  My particular ability allows me to be able to see ghosts and on rare occasion, hear ghosts.  But the primary thing I can do is my ability to catch a ghost with my bare hands and hold it as long as I want to, it can not get away from me unless I choose to let it go.  After many years of doing this, and searching for others who could, I have not found anyone else who can do what I do, anywhere.

What is it like to “catch a ghost” with your hands? How can (or do) you demonstrate this ability to a skeptical audience?

It is a very unusual feeling, in the hand I catch a ghost with, I get a feeling of both some “solidness” of the air, as well as a shocking feeling in the palm of my hand about the size of a quarter, that is similar to sticking a 9 volt battery on your tongue (everybody has tried that at least once).  But the “voltage” if you will, can range from a fully charged 9 volt to an almost dead battery.  I feel that directly relates to how strong the spirit is, or how much energy they have at that moment.

The best way I have found to demonstrate this ability to anyone, paranormal enthusiast or to the skeptic is to actually catch a ghost in their presence, which I have done hundreds of times over the years.  The biggest problem with that is the sheer fact that a spirit has to be within arms length of me to catch one, which does not always happen.

When I do catch a ghost in other people’s presence, I invite them to come up and feel its energy.  I have had reports from people of four different ways they experience the ghost when I have hold of it.  First is that they feel cold on their hand, the second is that some people feel heat instead of cold, the third is that they will feel a “shock” in their finger tips, but the fourth and the most common experience people have is that they feel a solidness to the air where the ghost is.  The best way to describe that is to imagine a balloon full of air, you can reach out and touch it and it feels “solid” due to the pressure it has built up inside of the balloon, when I have the ghost caught; they feel that “solidness” but no balloon is there.

I must say that I always enjoy when I have a skeptic or even better yet, a complete non believer present and they feel the ghost for the first time, they will touch it, move their hand away, move back in and touch it again, sometimes several times, then the surprised look that comes across their face is priceless.  I have had some resort to the use of expletives as their reaction to what they felt.

There have been rumors of a TV show in the works, what can you tell us about that? Will we see it on the air soon?

These rumors are true; I have shot a working pilot for a television series that will be appropriately called “The Ghost Catcher ™”.  It has been marketed to several networks and one in particular has stated they want it, but they want completed episodes and producers are working on investors to get the funding to complete the series.  With the way the economy is right now, investors are scarce and therefore I can not even venture to say when it will air.  Hopefully it will get off the ground SOON.

How can our readers get in contact with you if they have any questions or would like to know more about the hauntings of Alton?

Come visit my website at www.proghosthunter.com and they can email me from there.

Click here to download the entire issue in .pdf

According to local legend, sometime in the distant past a private all-girls school stood behind the set of iron gates off of a sharp bend in River Road, deep inside what became the Independence Grove Forest Preserve. One day, a maniac broke into the school and abducted several of the girls. He killed each one and mounted their severed heads on the spikes of the gate. Every full moon, the heads reappear on the rusted spikes. In reality, this property, known as the Doddridge Farm, passed through several incarnations as a summer camp. It opened as the Katherine Kreigh Budd Memorial Home for Children in 1926. Between 1936 and the early 1980s, the Catholic archdiocese operated it as St. Francis Boys Camp. The archdiocese then sold the camp to the Forest Preserve, who knocked down all the buildings and converted the nearby gravel pit into a lake. The gate to St. Francis still sits at the entrance to what is now a horse and bike trail.

For an in-depth look at this location, check out Volume 1 Issue 3 of the Legends and Lore of Illinois, featuring the history & hauntings of Devil’s Gate, the adventures of The Fallen, trivia, and much more!

Click here to download the entire issue (in .pdf)

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Legends and Lore of Illinois Vol. 1 – on Kindle!

Order all 12 issues of the Legends and Lore of Illinois from 2007 for only $5.00 in a special Kindle edition. Places covered in Vol. 1: Bachelor’s Grove, Greenwood Cemetery, Devil’s Gate, Chesterville Cemetery, Resurrection Cemetery, “Cemetery X,” Shoe Factory Road, Ridge Cemetery, Cuba Road, Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, and St. James-Sag! Plus, read bonus “personal experiences” and put your knowledge of these locations to the test with challenging trivia questions. Don’t miss these classic issues from the archives of the Legends and Lore of Illinois.

Order it today on Amazon.com.
Note: Amazon Kindle required.

Legends and Lore of Illinois: Investigation Reports

This collection consists of 47 haunted locations from the archives of the Legends and Lore of Illinois, arranged alphabetically and by category, with over 60 accompanying photos. Many of these photos have never been seen before. Inside, you will find the history, ghost stories, and folklore of popular locations such as Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery, Resurrection Cemetery and Archer Avenue, Manteno State Hospital, Lakey’s Creek, and the Peoria State Hospital, plus local haunts such as Ashmore Estates, Chanute Air Force Base, Vishnu Springs, and Peck Cemetery. Learn the real stories behind the legends: misconceptions and misinformation about these places and more are tackled head on.

Order it today on Amazon.com!
Note: Amazon Kindle required.

Don’t have a Kindle reader? Check out all our print-edition books here.

“With all this exposure of ghost stories and even old time radio shows like Inner Sanctum and Lights Out, is it any wonder that my curiosity was peeked at a very early age? I wanted to find out just which stories were true and which were simply in the minds of the teller. Which of the stories were simple folklore and which were actual true accounts of supernatural visitation? I poured over these and many other stories by researching the tales themselves and then tracking down first-hand encounters by the witnesses themselves. However, that wasn’t enough.”

- Dale Kaczmarek, Windy City Ghosts