Celebrate Halloween with a Milwaukee Ghost Tour

Halloween is the time when we look for spooky things to do. Ghost Tours, haunted houses, and the like can be found in most cities. Milwaukee is no exception to those seeking out the paranormal. Milwaukee is full of haunted buildings that carry legends as old as the city itself and the best way to learn about these stories and places is to experience them up close with a ghost tour.

Update for 2020:  In lieu of Covid, Gothic Milwaukee requires the wearing of masks during the tour.

Best Milwaukee Ghost Tour? Gothic Milwaukee

My daughter and I were recent guests of Gothic Milwaukee. Anna Lardinios is the mastermind behind Gothic Milwaukee. She also hosts a weekly radio show called Haunted Heartland on Riverwest Radio and is the creator of the self-guided walking tours Walking Milwaukee: Downtown Addition and Walking Milwaukee: Tosa Addition. Most recently she released the book Milwaukee Ghosts and Legends for the Haunted America series. The former teacher’s passion is clearly combining her love of the paranormal and the city and surrounding area of Milwaukee. One of her favorite things to do is spending hours at the Milwaukee Historical Society doing research for her stories. Her excitement for the tales of Milwaukee’s famous ghosts and legends comes out in spades on her tours.

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Our Milwaukee Ghost Tour begins

After signing up online through the Gothic Milwaukee website, I received an email with meeting instructions. We were to meet at the corner of Wells and Jackson streets at Cathedral Square in downtown Milwaukee at 7 pm. For mid September it was a beautiful night for the nearly two mile 90 minute walking tour on the east side of the river. Parking was relatively easy around the park. Because it was after 6 pm, there was plenty of free street parking available.

We could not miss Anna as she was wearing her time period appropriate costume. There were nine of us in the group as we set off on our tour. There was several stops at various buildings with a haunted past along the way. As we walked along in between stops, Anna was full of fun facts and history of various buildings along the route. As someone who knows little of Milwaukee history, these little tidbits of information were interesting and made me want to see and find out more about Wisconsin’s largest city.

The most famous haunted place in Milwaukee-The Pfister Hotel

One of our stops was at the famous Pfister Hotel. Most people know of the tales of paranormal goings on at this posh downtown hotel (except those working inside the hotel! If asked, they will reply “What ghosts?”). Along with visiting sports teams encounters, we heard about celebrity stories and how the ghost of Charles Pfister still roams the grand staircase and the Imperial Ballroom. Anna “suggested” we walk through the front doors to see if we could catch a glimpse of him on the staircase!

True story-I actually had my own strange encounter at the hotel many years ago. My hubby Rick had won a spot on the Wisconsin Lottery show from a scratch off ticket. As part of the prize, out of town show guests were lucky to get an overnight stay at the Pfister. During the night we were awaken from the fire alarm sounding. Panicked, we started to get dressed. Seconds later, the alarm stopped and all was well. We never did find out what happened and at the time we knew nothing of the history of the hotel. I actually had forgotten about this until we came home from our ghost tour and while we were explaining how the tour was, he reminded me of that event well over 20 years earlier. I wished I could of remembered that to share with the group and Anna on the tour!

A few maritime tragedies mixed in.

Lake Michigan has seen it’s share of maritime disasters. As part of the tour, we took a seat on the steps along the river for a couple of these tales. With the backdrop of the river and the lights of the city, Anna told the story of the Lady Elgin and the fate of it’s 300+ passengers on a cold September night in 1860. As we sat fascinated by the stories of maritime disaster, boats cruised past on the river on the warm night.

She told two maritime stories while we sat at the river. After that it was time to walk to our remaining stops. I don’t want to give away too much of the things we heard and seen on the tour. I’ll let you find out for yourself!

We returned to our starting point as we listened to the ghost story of St John The Evangelist on Jackson Street which is on the National Register Of Historic Places.

The tour went fast and as is the case with other ghost tours I’ve been on, it’s not really bone chillingly scary. Just a fun way to hear about the “spooktacular” side of Milwaukee. This tour is perfect for most ages except for very young children simply because their attention spans are short. Anna wears a portable speaker so she is easy to hear (except when extremely loud boats pass in the river). She wants to make sure you are having a good time.

Megan and I thoroughly enjoyed the tour. It is well worth the $15 cost. The ghost stories, along with the historical tidbits of Milwaukee, made me want to explore more of Milwaukee. Anna suggested a tour of City Hall (one of the stops along the ghost tour) which includes a climb to the top of the famous bell tower. After checking the City Hall website, tours are offered only from June until the end of September. For more info, please check the tours page.

Anna made the tour fun and has an incredible sense of humor. It’s clear she loves what she does as it shown through in her personality. She’s one of those people you could sit and listen to for hours.

I highly recommend checking out Gothic Milwaukee’s ghost Tours. We did the Classic Tour. Gothic Milwaukee also offers the Ghosts Of Yankee Hill Tour. It’s best to take the Classic Ghost Tour first then the Yankee Hill Tour. Also check out the Gothic Milwaukee website for a downloadable audio tour of the history and architecture of Wisconsin Avenue.

Here’s some things you need to know

• wear comfy shoes as you will be walking
• watch the weather and dress appropriatly
• bring an umbrella if needed
• use the restroom before your tour
• cost is $20
• bring a sense of humor, Anna is a fun storyteller
• street parking along Cathedral Square is easy to find
• the tour takes about 90 minutes
• tours run through Halloween 2020, but private tour books are available year-round
• have fun!!

I’d love to know if you have taken the Gothic Milwaukee ghost tour. Many cities offer ghost tours. It’s a unique way to learn about a city. Does your city offer a ghost tour?

Thanks for reading! I’d love it if you’d share this post on your social channels. Thanks!

To order Milwaukee Ghosts and Legends click on this link

Go explore! The world is waiting.

Lori

Thanks to Gothic Milwaukee for hosting our tour. All opinions of this tour and all other things I write about are my honest reviews. 

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