Details are sketchy on exactly when this tragedy occured; but according to local legend, this old apartment building used to house college students from Eastern Illinois University. One night, a fire broke out in the building (again, the cause is unknown), and the smoke alerted students to escape. For some unexplained reason, not one person was able to escape the place alive. The building burned from the inside out, and investigations proved baffling. They could not figure out why nobody was able to break out of the burning building. Locals whisper about the building being sealed from the outside by a paranormal force. Nobody has tried to reuse the perfectly sturdy building since, its windows broken out and boarded up from the horrific fire that smote the lives within so many years ago. Are they afraid the same thing will happen again?
The Charleston Police Station sits across the street from the building now. Look at your own risk, as the place is in disrepair and private property.
This is a story you will find in no Haunted Illinois book unless lifted from this website. Another tale of mine, the hauntings of the apartment building which my boyfriend used to live in was notorious by the people who lived there. At night, footsteps would echo through the hardwood-floored corridors between apartments, along with whistling and laughter. The building used to be housing for nurses who worked at the hospital down the street many many years ago. Not only did I personally hear these noises above my head at 2:00 in the morning, when nobody was awake at the apartment (it was a working-class building where everybody was asleep from 12:00-5:00ish), but several odd instances convinced my boyfriend and I that something was definitely in the apartment with us.
Twice the computer gave us unexplainable problems while we were in bed. I heard both of these, as I have a hard time falling asleep. The first was when an episode of Seinfeld started playing out of nowhere on my boyfriend's laptop. All programs had been shut off and the computer was sitting idle. He keeps files on his computer with a plethora of Seinfeld episodes, but why would one suddenly start up playing? A second time, months later, I distinctly heard a rattling on the keys, as if something was quickly typing, then the sound stopped and I heard a beep, like someone had hit the keys all at once. Sure enough, the next morning, I checked the computer and there was a message saying something about the computer making an error. There were no cats or other people in this apartment at the time accept for me and my boyfriend. Okay, now the kicker.
The infamous cowboy picture. Where it came from nobody knows, where it goes, nobody knows. All that we know is that one day it was hung up in the basement of the apartment building above the washing machines on a nail under a window. One tennant in the building noticed, as he was coming and going from washing laundry one day, that the picture disappeared in the middle of his loads and appeared again when he came back to check his laundry. The picture in itself is creepy enough, looking like something from the 1800's. Nobody is brave enough to move it. So there the picture stays, leaving and reappearing at its own will. Before my boyfriend moved out, I took this picture of the photo. Still it gives me the creeps!
Look on any Haunted Illinois website and you will find information on the incidents reported from the old Avon Theater. Although I have personally not had any odd experiences at this movie house, the current manager and a crowd of tourists are pretty clear they saw something one night during a Haunted Decatur Tour.
While on the tour, Skip Huston, the manager of the theater, was telling a group of people about his first experience with the resident ghost. The theater was closed at the time, and Huston was alone on an errand collecting a few marquee letters from a storage room upstairs. After hearing a few peculiar sounds, he felt like somebody was looking at him. He turned and came face-to-face with a man standing in his office doorway. Huston described the man as older, in his 50's or 60's, with graying hair and a slim build. As Huston was about to ask the person "Can I help you," the man walked past the doorway. When Huston ran out to the hall to confront the man, he had disappeared into thin air.
Just as Huston was finishing up his story on the tour, a lady from the audience screamed. Others turned around to see what was the matter. They found her pointing up at a old man in the balcony of the theater, looking down at them. The figure they saw before their eyes was peering down at them with interest. Like a herd of spooked wildebeest, the tourists fled the theater in panic.
The Avon Theatre is now open for business. Check out the theater's website to learn more about the ghosts and visit it for yourself! Maybe you, too, can come back with a story to share!
One summer day in 1965, a little black dog was dumped by the side of the road near Ashmore, IL. There he stayed, watching every car as it passed by, waiting patiently every day for his master to return. To the coaxing of good-intentioned people he turned up his nose, always went back to his spot where his master had dumped him. People from the area nicknamed him "Blackie" and brought him food and water, as the dog refused to leave the Intersection where he was dumped. Finally, when winter came, Blackie was hit by a truck as he was standing his daily vigil by the side of the road. Heartbroken, the people of Ashmore created a memorial and placed it in Blackie's spot, with an inscription that sums up how this dog touched the hearts of those who knew him:
May he finally rest in peace.
