As Halloween’s shadow creeps closer to Chicago, there’s no better time to walk the streets, alleys, and theaters that still whisper of betrayal and restless spirits. In this city, ghost tours don’t just offer cheap frights: They’re where true crime, history, and the supernatural collide.

Ghost stories thrive in Chicago because of its turbulent past. Events like rapid growth, extreme wealth and poverty, mob rule, Prohibition, epidemics, riots, and devastating fires have left behind the whispers of spirits and psychic bruises. Buildings that burned in the Great Fire of 1871 , theater disasters, and infamous gangster shoot-outs are part of the city’s foundation.

Stories of real-life crime make the city’s ghost tales even darker. John Dillinger was gunned down outside the Biograph Theat

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