Haunted Alton: The History and Mystery of One of the Most Haunted Small Towns in America

by Troy Taylor

HAUNTED ALTON THE HISTORY AND MYSTERY OF ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTED SMALL TOWNS IN AMERICA BY TROY TAYLOR
For more than two centuries, the Mississippi River town of Alton, Illinois, has gained a reputation for its dark side. Author Mark Twain called it "a dismal little river town," and today, it's known as "one of the most haunted small towns in America" - all thanks to its long and bloody history of death, violence, disease, disaster, and, of course, its ghosts.
Author Troy Taylor returns to the streets of Alton for a new, updated, and revised look at the town's weird history with more history and more hauntings than ever before. Filled with chilling tales, you'll find many within these pages that have never appeared in print before, plus new stories and details from places like the Mineral Springs Hotel, Enos Sanitorium, Powder Mills Road, Alton Penitentiary, McPike Mansion, Illinois Glass Works, First Unitarian Church, Lewis and Clark College, and more!
This is the original book of Alton's ghost stories in a new, revised edition and serves as the inspiration for the award-winning Alton Hauntings Tours. Discover the true story of how Alton became so haunted and how it's earned its moniker of one of the country's most spirited small towns!

Genres: History, Ghosts, Nonfiction

382 pages, Paperback

Published August 26, 2022

Reviews

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of the book really sums it up. I learned a lot of the history of an area that I have visited a number of times over the years. Things that I did not know about and found very interesting. I also enjoyed the stories of hauntings and strange happenings. Very entertaining and skillfully written!

[Cynthia Elmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great historical book of one of America's most haunted towns

I grew up not far from Alton and had friends who lived there. It's a very pretty town built next to the Mississippi River. The long history of the town, and it's haunted areas, has intrigued me for a long time. I have taken the ghost tours, and my family used to attend the UU Church of Alton. Troy did a great job documenting the stories. I've been to the Mcpike Mansion several times, and it's still beautiful. The stories Troy wrote in this book confirmed what I have known for a long time, that Alton is a very haunted area. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining read that covers a great amount of the history of Alton. One star removed for the large amount of typos and grammatical errors, including Alton as “Altron”. I have the 2022 revised edition so this was a little annoying. As someone born and raised in this town, I feel the McPike Mansion chapter could have contained more information. Overall, this book does do justice to those who want to learn about this town.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The updated and revised edition of Haunted Alton provides a compendium of local history that is incredibly meaningful for locals but may have varying degrees of interest for people outside the Alton area. For anyone local who has attended a walking tour or local museum, Haunted Alton works to compile much of the local lore in an easy to reference manner.

[David Devine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A excellent history of Alton and its surrounding area, delving into the notable people and events from the time explorers were venturing west right up to the 2000's mixed with the unexplained happenings that have been reported through the years.

[Christina Wooff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

I read the first edition years ago when it came out. This book was just as good. I like these ghost stories and enjoy the history of the city of Alton.

[Clara Blanco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not whst I expected

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, a little background about myself and why I was interested in this book...
I have always had a strong curiosity about things that cannot be explained (who doesn't?!?) And let's face it, there is a lot of stuff that cannot be explained using any amount of physics, math, science, etc. And everyone who knows me (or knew me during college years especially) knows that I WANT THINGS TO HAVE AN EXPLANATION!!! That is just me and my scientific mind. So, I guess that is why the un-explainable is so engrossing to me, because my brain is trying to work out an answer to it all the time. Anyway, having lived in an old house in Alton (yes, very old) and having my own un-explainable experiences there, I was really interested in reading this book. I also have a passion for history, but not the history as told in school text-books (war 'X' began on blah blah date and ended on blah blah date with the final battle of blah), but rather history told from a personal perspective - where you are really drawn into the moment because you feel a personal connection with those people who lived before us. (Which is why I love historical fiction so much - and archaeology).

OK, so I like history, unexplainable stuff, and had a personal interest in the area. Perfect! I had a great book to read!

Well, let me give the positive points first.
The stories of the region were told in a (somewhat) chronological order, starting with pre-settlement of the area on through to some present-day stories. Occasionally the chronological-ness was less chronological because Troy went in a more geographical fashion - OK, that is fine, I understand the purpose for that. For example, not all of the famously haunted places in Alton have a known "ghost date" nor do we have any sort of ghost dating system :)

For the most part the stories told were very interesting - You can easily see that Troy has done a lot of work in researching his passion to give us this book.

Also, it was very neat to learn about the history of the area itself - from how it was originally settled and developed, to the Lincoln stories, Lovejoy stories, Civil war prison stories, etc.

And onto the negatives...

I don't think I have ever read a published book with so many grammatical errors, typos and (as a friend put it) jr high book-report style writing. I was thinking 1/3 of the way into the book that I should have been counting the times the word "specter" occurred. There was also a point early on in the book where an entire section was simply repeated. It was almost like a cut & paste was done and then they left the duplicate in anyway. I think all of this could have been solved with a good editor. It made reading the book kind of a pain at some points, and I kept wanting to quit, but I was so curious about the content - so I trucked on. I admit, I am no writer myself, but I have read plenty, and this just did not stack up well against good writing. I am convinced that if the book had been well-edited, that Troy would be a pretty rich guy. But who knows? Maybe he is rich! ;-)

[Tonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm ready for fall and haunted houses. I could think of no better way to research about it than checking out the local lore. The book offers several stories divided into sections with information about reported haunts. I'm ready to go!

[Beanaly000 · Rating 5 out of 5]

It gave me great information i needed to know for my report.