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You Cannot Follow: Resurrection Mary and Other True Ghost Stories of Chicago's Haunted Archer Avenue
Join Chicago Public Library Foundation award winner Ursula Bielski on a journey along one of the world's most haunted roads!
In this volume, native Chicago historian, folklorist and 35-year veteran paranormal researcher Ursula Bielski shares the word-of-mouth tales she first documented more than three decades ago, with shocking updates from her decades of research since. In its pages you'll ....Meet the phantom friars of "Monk's Castle"--St. James at Sag Bridge--and discover its cemetery that BREATHES. Danceat the fabled Willowbrook Ballroom, and tip a glass across the road where Al Capone once supervised a hush hush basement dig.Learn about the phantom residue of the Grimes Sisters murders--and the death of Dianne Masters, found bound in her own car trunk in an area canal.Watch for the famous ghost light at Maple Lake, one of the world's most famous mysterious lights.Meet the terrifying "Demon of Lemont" who traumatized a local family in 1901 with letters from thin air.Wait in the moonlight for "Grey-Haired Baby," the werewolf of Sacred Heart CemeteryReturn to the scene of Joliet Prison's enigmatic "singing ghost"Cruise the road in the wee hours in search of the vanishing hitchhiker, "Resurrection Mary"....and much more!
FROM THE
Just southwest of Chicago, past the bend at Harlem Avenue, a street leaves the city to run through the outlying industrial towns of Bedford Park and Summit to villages further south and, ultimately, to the heavily forested Palos division of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. It is an old road, originally an Indian trail with its origins on the shore of Lake Michigan, in Chicago’s present-day Chinatown. The road takes its name from one of the most important events in American history and runs, too, through the imaginations of many, both skeptics and believers, for there is a magic along its path which generations have longed to hold—or tried to dispel. It’s a highway populated with ghost lights and vanishing hitchhikers--and a road flooded with the tears of laborers, murder victims and the countless mourners who have carried their dead to the seven cemeteries which flank it. That ancient road, built up by Irish workers on the Illinois and Michigan Canal in the 1830s and '40s, has established itself as no less than the magnetic center of Chicago's supernatural forces and is known today as one of the most haunted roads on Earth.
That road is Archer Avenue.
In this volume, native Chicago historian, folklorist and 35-year veteran paranormal researcher Ursula Bielski shares the word-of-mouth tales she first documented more than three decades ago, with shocking updates from her decades of research since. In its pages you'll ....Meet the phantom friars of "Monk's Castle"--St. James at Sag Bridge--and discover its cemetery that BREATHES. Danceat the fabled Willowbrook Ballroom, and tip a glass across the road where Al Capone once supervised a hush hush basement dig.Learn about the phantom residue of the Grimes Sisters murders--and the death of Dianne Masters, found bound in her own car trunk in an area canal.Watch for the famous ghost light at Maple Lake, one of the world's most famous mysterious lights.Meet the terrifying "Demon of Lemont" who traumatized a local family in 1901 with letters from thin air.Wait in the moonlight for "Grey-Haired Baby," the werewolf of Sacred Heart CemeteryReturn to the scene of Joliet Prison's enigmatic "singing ghost"Cruise the road in the wee hours in search of the vanishing hitchhiker, "Resurrection Mary"....and much more!
FROM THE
Just southwest of Chicago, past the bend at Harlem Avenue, a street leaves the city to run through the outlying industrial towns of Bedford Park and Summit to villages further south and, ultimately, to the heavily forested Palos division of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. It is an old road, originally an Indian trail with its origins on the shore of Lake Michigan, in Chicago’s present-day Chinatown. The road takes its name from one of the most important events in American history and runs, too, through the imaginations of many, both skeptics and believers, for there is a magic along its path which generations have longed to hold—or tried to dispel. It’s a highway populated with ghost lights and vanishing hitchhikers--and a road flooded with the tears of laborers, murder victims and the countless mourners who have carried their dead to the seven cemeteries which flank it. That ancient road, built up by Irish workers on the Illinois and Michigan Canal in the 1830s and '40s, has established itself as no less than the magnetic center of Chicago's supernatural forces and is known today as one of the most haunted roads on Earth.
That road is Archer Avenue.
133 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 4, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 8, 2024
The title is accurate. And to be truthful completely I believe it would be 3 star read for most others because they would have no visual or personal contact knowledge with 95% of the places and location venues of Archer Avenue over the last 50 or 65 years, which I absolutely do. In fact I can remember the Willowbrook Ballroom extremely well. In my late 20's I used to go to singles' events and dances there- and overall more than half a dozen times.
Archer Avenue is one of those streets in grid exact portioned and planned cities that goes "against the grain" and cuts diagonally across the entire gridding at a Southwest angle. More West than South eventually. It was most probably the main Native American trail to get to Lake Michigan for centuries. And afterwards a trading route path too for the same exact reasons. It was there "before the grid" so to speak.
For a good portion of my life I took the Archer Ave. bus downtown after 2 other buses. Both for school and for work. And in later decades I was on a much more SW portion of it for eons too.
All of these are fairly true stories I have heard before. Although I do think she got a couple of the restaurant names wrong. In my life, I have personally heard tales from 2 different people who have seen Resurrection Mary themselves. One of which never believed in any portion of ghost existences before it occurred.
The story of that horrendous railroad accident with the coal train / passenger train from centuries ago I have heard about before. All of these places still have a historical rockface or memorial post stuck in the middle of a sidewalk or on some parkway that you could notice at times. Lots of things happened along the I & M Canal too- even before that waterway was dug /completed.
In my job which was in Romeoville, IL (directly in these paths on the way to Joliet, IL) I was the person who maintained and at some points scanned etc. - all the historical records for the building and history of the Illinois and Michigan (I & M Canal) which was a hard earned structure which connected the Illinois River to the Mississippi (eventually). The I & M Canal historical archives are kept at Lewis University. I have also taken the I & M canal lock system etc. by boat west myself in the 1990's- a couple of times. Much death and hauntings occurred over great spans of history near this water as well. The Irish built the I & M canal with accident and death a common fact. They were not buried but cremated (despite any other wishes of religion or family) and their ashes were all spread near the limestone quarries or near the canal.
I don't recommend this book if you are not a Chicagoland person. It is 90% memories of what was and NO LONGER IS. Some of the names are still there but neighborhood cultures etc.- entirely gone or vastly different. Even the malls and shopping centers- all in the past.
Archer Avenue is one of those streets in grid exact portioned and planned cities that goes "against the grain" and cuts diagonally across the entire gridding at a Southwest angle. More West than South eventually. It was most probably the main Native American trail to get to Lake Michigan for centuries. And afterwards a trading route path too for the same exact reasons. It was there "before the grid" so to speak.
For a good portion of my life I took the Archer Ave. bus downtown after 2 other buses. Both for school and for work. And in later decades I was on a much more SW portion of it for eons too.
All of these are fairly true stories I have heard before. Although I do think she got a couple of the restaurant names wrong. In my life, I have personally heard tales from 2 different people who have seen Resurrection Mary themselves. One of which never believed in any portion of ghost existences before it occurred.
The story of that horrendous railroad accident with the coal train / passenger train from centuries ago I have heard about before. All of these places still have a historical rockface or memorial post stuck in the middle of a sidewalk or on some parkway that you could notice at times. Lots of things happened along the I & M Canal too- even before that waterway was dug /completed.
In my job which was in Romeoville, IL (directly in these paths on the way to Joliet, IL) I was the person who maintained and at some points scanned etc. - all the historical records for the building and history of the Illinois and Michigan (I & M Canal) which was a hard earned structure which connected the Illinois River to the Mississippi (eventually). The I & M Canal historical archives are kept at Lewis University. I have also taken the I & M canal lock system etc. by boat west myself in the 1990's- a couple of times. Much death and hauntings occurred over great spans of history near this water as well. The Irish built the I & M canal with accident and death a common fact. They were not buried but cremated (despite any other wishes of religion or family) and their ashes were all spread near the limestone quarries or near the canal.
I don't recommend this book if you are not a Chicagoland person. It is 90% memories of what was and NO LONGER IS. Some of the names are still there but neighborhood cultures etc.- entirely gone or vastly different. Even the malls and shopping centers- all in the past.
December 23, 2024
🖊Each one of these stories about supposed hauntings in the Archer Avenue Triangle are fascinating. Although I know about most of them, there are those that I had not heard of until now. The stories can make a person wonder. I did enjoy this, including the snippets of Chicago history.
NOTE: Some more editing needs to be done, due to formatting, spelling, and grammatical errors.
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NOTE: Some more editing needs to be done, due to formatting, spelling, and grammatical errors.
જ⁀🟡 Kindle Unlimited.
✴︎⋆✴︎⋆✴︎⋆✴︎
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews