We have hand-picked the best 8 or 12 stories from spooky real-life locations that will let you in on the secrets of the Gateway City that rarely see the light of day. Our deeply researched histories will unveil sordid tales of gruesome murders and unexplained events from the turbulent past of the Lou’.
If you want to be entertained, informed and a little bit frightened this is the St Louis activity for you. From the surprising history of the 30’ tall burial mounds that dotted the city to modern-day tragic accidents; St Louis has some of the best ghost stories around.
Like the haunted underground drinking dens built on top of an earlier layer of Indian caves. The disease-infested shoreline, where corpses from the Spanish Flu epidemic were flung into ditches. Will you be able to hear the screams of the charred ghosts of victims of the Great Fire of 1849?
Our St Louis Ghosts tour has received great reviews, even from locals, who say they always learn new things about their home city on our tours.
Our passionate guides are locals St Louisans who love the city and its dark, twisted past. The horrid stories of grim deaths and the spirits that remain are plucked straight from the history books. We only share well-researched accounts of unexplained phenomena with our delighted guests.
The ghosts of St Louis appear in many forms; on our terrifying tour, you will discover every way the past haunts the present in this shadowy city by the dark Mississippi.
St Louis Ghosts is the only tour that entertains you with scary stories and sneaks in the spectacular history of Saint Lou without becoming a boring lecture! You will find being in the actual locations of these hauntings and hearing the gripping histories told in gory detail will cement these stories in your mind forever. Available for instant recall to entertain family and friends forever!
St Louis has a fascinating history of firsts, the first kindergarten, the first freeway, the first purpose-built gas station and the first Olympic Games in America. This spirit of innovation has created a driving force that has thrown countless passionate innovators into the gutter of life. They are sad stories, but they make for excellent ghosts!
We can’t wait to share some of the creepy history and horrifying haunts of Saint Louis with you. Our hour-long walking tour on the just-dark streets of St Louis will take you deep into the sordid past of this groundbreaking city.
Many guests on our tours and our fantastic tour guides have experienced things for which they have no reasonable explanation. We can’t promise you will experience anything specific, but we will show you where these strange things happened.
St Louis Ghosts will take you on an hour or 90-minute walk around some of the fascinating stories of this trailblazing city that values progress at all costs. One of the other notable world firsts for St Louis was the first successful parachute jump at Jefferson Barracks on March 1, 1912. The St Louis Gateway Arch was also the site of a much less successful one, years later.
Ghosts of the Gateway Arch
Even this spectacular steel monument has its ghosts. The monument celebrates the westward progress of the American nation; but it casts a long shadow over the whole downtown area. Visited by millions every year, it is still the tallest accessible structure in Missouri.
No one died during the construction, but years after it opened to the public a daredevil parachutist jumped from an airplane high above the arch and somehow managed to land on top of the structure. His widow later stated the plan had been to jettison the main chute after he landed atop the arch and use the reserve to jump from the top of the arch to the ground. Tragically after landing on the narrow arch, he was blown from his feet and dragged by his main parachute down the North leg. His reserve chute failed to open and his wife, looking from below, saw him plummet to the earth and his death.
The jumper’s ghost has been seen many times, wandering dazed and confused at the base of the arch, always slipping from view if anyone approaches.
Join the St Louis Ghosts haunted walking tour to experience first-hand the tales of tragedy and human misfortune that have lined the streets of St Louis with the finest ghost stories west of the Mississippi.
The nine ghosts of Lemp mansion
The site of the Gateway Arch was formerly the site of the first brewery in St Louis. John Coons opened it in 1809. Brewing has been an important industry in St Louis for hundreds of years.
One of the brewers that went under during prohibition was the William J. Lemp Brewing Company, which started in 1840. It was the first to introduce lager to St Louis. They used the natural caves under the city to age the beer in the always cool climate. At its peak, the brewery spanned five city blocks. William Lemp’s fortune grew, and a vast mansion was built for the growing family just south of Downtown. However, in 1901 things started going wrong. William’s sickly son Frederick died age 21. His daughter, who had married into the Pabst brewing family, brought the devastating news that his good friend Frederick Pabst had also died. William went into a spiral and committed suicide in the home his family had built. Willam Lemp started a horrifying family tradition of suicide in that house.
The Lemp mansion today is one of the most haunted houses in St Louis. Paranormal investigators have counted the spirits of the Lemp house. At least nine beings continue to haunt the place. Today it is used as an event space, including haunted sleepovers and murder mystery dinners.
Book your place on our haunted walking tour, and you will see more of the strange apparitions that St Louisans have seen and recorded for centuries.
St Louis Ghosts has tours every night of the week. Click ‘book now’ to see the tour times and if spots are available. Our easy walking route and fun-filled tour takes to you some of the classic haunted locations in St Louis. We also venture deeper into the depths of history to reveal some of the true stories behind the legends from St Louis.
The real life setting for ‘The Exorcist’
The book and film ‘The Exorcist’ is actually based on events that happened in St Louis. A confusing mist of myths and legend has grown up around the actual exorcism that took place here from January to April 1949.
Our in-depth research has the real story of what happened here. Our tour will let you into the secrets that remained boarded up for decades.
One day, in a small town in Maryland, welts appeared on a 13-year-old boy’s body. They appeared to spell the word ‘LOUIS.’ The family took this as a sign. They moved to St Louis to live with relatives in Bel Nor, a suburb in North St. Louis County.
The boy developed severe behavioral problems and went to St. Alexius hospital for treatment. He was released and later treated at home by the priests that ran the hospital. One of the priests that assisted in the ritual, Father Halloran, wrote a 29-page diary about the exorcism that disappeared for years. In the diary, he describes in shocking detail seeing scratches appear on the boy’s arm before his eyes, “as if a cat were slowly clawing his arm, the wounds grew.”
The exorcism was concluded at the St Alexius hospital in South St Louis. The room where the ritual happened was sealed off and never used again. In North St Louis, the ordinary-looking suburban house where the exorcism started is still there today. Unfortunately, it is not within walking distance for our tour. The hospital is gone now, but in its time, it had the look of a place that could put the devil in you, more than help take it out.
St Louis has more of these horrible tales to share. Join us tonight and we will take you to the places where the very worst happened and share with you the very best of St Louis Ghosts.
