St Louis has ghosts galore. From the ancient owners of the land, whose burial mounds were razed by early settlers, to the modern tales of lost love and scorned husbands and wives. St Louis Ghosts is a great way to come face to face with the locations that earned Saint Louis its title as the most haunted city in America.
Our tours all start in the early evening, after the day is done, but before the night really gets going. As the shadow of the gateway arch creeps over East St Louis the ghosts of the city arise, and our tours set out to peel back the layers of human misery that persist in Downtown St Louis.
St Louis has some amazing museums; you can visit the imposing Saint Louis Art Museum. Or dive deep into the history of the city at the Missouri History Museum. This impressive building is on the edge of Forest Park. Just to the West of Downtown St Louis, this manicured park is larger than Central Park in NYC, and was the site of the 1903 Louisiana Purchase exhibition and the 1904 Summer Olympics.
The National Blues Museum is right in Downtown too, you can hear how Saint Louis artists helped lay the foundation for all modern music. However, if you want a sweeping look at the role of Saint Louis in our nation’s history; If you want to see where it’s most fascinating sons and daughters lived their lives and met their ends; We can help you stand in the places where they continue to make their presence felt today. The St Louis Ghosts tour is the only place that offers you a sweeping tour through all of Saint Louis’s story and with added human drama on top.
We might share their horrid history of Captain Lewis Bissell, an army explorer who welcomed the Lewis and Clarke expedition to St Louis; his own father had helped equip the explorers a year earlier. After he met his untimely demise his ghost haunts the Bissel Mansion, often seen in the parking lot, next to the house, looking up at the second-floor windows. You might find out what he is looking for if you join us on the St Louis Ghosts tour.
Below are just a few of the 8 or 12 locations we will visit on your tour. Some of the sites that we researched for our tour had terrific stories. Unfortunately, some locations were further away than it would be comfortable to walk to. These stories did make it onto our blog, the Hauntings of Saint Louis and Missouri. We share the fascinating stories that prove St Louis might be the dead center of the lower 48.
St Louis has some horrid hauntings to share. Lafayette Park was the site of a Union encampment during the Civil War. Years later, it was a huge camp for the homeless during the Great Depression. Both have left their permanent marks on the park today. Several people have witnessed ghostly figures on a small bridge in the center of the park. The shadowy figure leaves the bridge and walks down to the water underneath, then disappears under the bridge without leaving a trace.
You might have heard a song called ‘Stagger Lee’. The Clash has a version, Dr. John also, and Ike and Tina Turner too. Tina Turner is a native of the city of St Louis, and in her version of the song, she sings about the heroic pimp who is shot after a gambling dispute with an unknown man who tricked him in a bar. Stagger Lee was based on a real-life hustler from the late 19th Century. The story told to legendary folk song collector Allan Lomax flips the roles; Stagger Lee is the story’s villain in this telling. He argues with a man he is gambling with, who then takes his prized hat. Stagger Lee shoots the man, who eventually dies. Stagger Lee gets his hat back but goes to jail for the crime. Many places claim to have the ghost of Stagger Lee.
This ornate and historic concert hall has not one but two ghosts. The first is benign; George is the ghost of a former patron, who has been seen dressed in a white morning coat several times in the foyer. A passionate theatre-goer, George could not bear to miss a single performance, even after he died of natural causes. The second ghost has been felt in the theatre’s projection room and is decidedly female, and less than friendly. Perhaps they knew each other?