Fall is the season most associated with creepy and spooky things.While some may be skeptical, a study done by the New York Times found that around 46% of people believe in ghosts.
Luckily for the people at North who are in that 46%, St. Louis is full of haunted places to visit.
St. Louis’s most famous haunted spot is the Lemp Mansion and Brewery. While they are two separate spots, both are thought to be haunted and were connected by underground caverns and tunnels.
John Adam Lemp originally arrived in St.Louis from Germany in 1838. He started a brewery and ended up dying as a millionaire. Unfortunately, that’s where the family’s luck runs out. Frederick died mysteriously at age 28. His father was grief-strickened and committed suicide as a result. The Prohibition Era made the brewery close down for good, and the family members kept dying resulting in five more deaths in a 30 year period.
“I learned it was this historical house where a lot of people died,” senior Tylah Bonds said.
Many of the rooms in the mansion are said to be haunted by the family members, and the mansion is now used as a restaurant and inn. Guests report strange sounds like footsteps and people whispering as well as strange happenings like glasses flying off of tables.
“I was outside of [the mansion] because I didn’t want to go inside. I was too scared,” Bonds said.
The Lemp Mansion isn’t the only haunted place you can stay a night at in St. Louis. The Chase Park Plaza and Hotel is haunted too. The place supposedly has two ghosts, Chase Ulman and the lady in red.
Chase Ulman is the man the plaza was named after, and he is said to be a man in a tuxedo who just walks around the hotel.
The other ghost is a woman with red hair and a red dress. She was a woman who committed suicide on her wedding day in the 1930s by jumping from the window of room 306. Because of this, her ghost is told to walk into 306.
Cemeteries are commonly known to be haunted, and the St. Louis area has two popular ones people can tour: Bellefontaine Cemetery and the Jefferson County Barracks. Typically, the spirits are said to be heard more during the night. People who visit have reported disembodied footsteps, flushing toilets, and voices. Many soldiers from the civil war era are buried there, along with civilians and soldiers from other wars.
Lastly, Zombie Road, located in Wildwood near highway 109 and Old State Road, is a known haunted trail in St. Louis. There are many different stories about why Zombie Road is haunted, although the most likely one is that a woman named Della Hamilton McCullough was hit by a train, leaving her flesh looking like a zombie.
“I’ve seen different stories. One of the stories I’ve seen was children died there, another one said that slaves died there,” said Bonds.
This alone is already horrifying, but along with it, the area is one of the largest Native American burial grounds in America. People who go along the trail have reported hearing high pitched squealing, have leg pain that doesn’t make sense, and scratches on their legs that should have been impossible to receive.
The house where the possessed individual actually lived and the hospital where the exorcism was actually performed from the movie “The Exorcist” is also located in St. Louis.
A few other creepy places, but not necessarily haunted, worth mentioning and visiting this season because they are fun are Six Flags Fright Fest, Creepy World and The Darkness, which are haunted houses.
