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The beautiful Ball Room
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If you have not stayed at the Congress Hotel in Chicago....you should!!! It is reportedly the most haunted hotel in the city. I was lucky enough to get a room at this hotel to do an investigation as a Christmas Present from my boyfriend and I loved every minute of it!!! I was also lucky enough to have one of my FAVORITE paranormal groups White Dog Paranormal to meet me there. We had a great time!
Ok....I know, you guys don't care about all that....you just want to know if we saw any GHOSTS!!!
First here is a little bit about this wonderful place. It was built to help house visitors of the World Fair in 1893. It was also owned at one point by the one and only Al Capone. Supposedly the most haunted floors are the 4th and the 12th(I stayed on the 12th). Some of the spirits roaming this place is none other than Al himself along with a mother and two sons, whom supposedly was waiting for the arrival of her husband and when she found out he wasn't coming, she through her two boys over the 12th floor balcony and then jumped herself. Then there's Peg Leg Johnny, a hobo that was murdered in the hotel. And the MOST HAUNTED ROOM OF ALL #441. YES, I did request to stay in that room but was told the whole 4th floor was closed! Of course, we had to go check it out ourselves and found that the 4th floor was completely dark! Did we leave......of course not!!! We just sat down in the floor, in the dark and started conducting an EVP Session.
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| The very top of the creepy stairwell |
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| Creepy stairway |
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| Stairwell |
When you start asking questions about the spirits that haunt the hotel you will find out quickly that some of the people DON'T want to talk about it, but a couple of the bell hops were willing to share their stories. We were lucky enough to meet Johnny the late night security guard who has worked at the Congress for about 18 years. At first, he wasn't willing to talk, but he couldn't resist my Texas accent!!! LOL He eventually warmed up to us and took us on a tour all around the hotel and to places we normally wouldn't have access to. THANK YOU JOHNNY!!!! He told us story after story of paranormal activity. Even as recent as the week before we were there, of people leaving their rooms claiming things were moving, they were touched, etc.
After we left Johnny, we investigated on our own. Yep...you guessed it, we went places not many people could or WOULD not go. We had a lot of activity in a little stairwell we found behind an unmarked door. Be sure and watch the video I am posting of that session. You DON'T want to miss it!!!
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| In front of room #441 |
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| Room #441 |
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| Creepy stairs leading from the 12th floor. |
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Where's Al??? The little room where Al Capone
played cards. |
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| Room all boarded up. hhuuummm??? Wonder why? |
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| Everybody |
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| Room #666 Completely covered over! |
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Room #666 you can run your hand over where
the door was and can see the outline of the room! |
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Dan, Michele, Me, Anthony, Tony and taking
the picture Deak. |
13 comments:
Al Capone never owned the Congress. Please get your facts straight.
It was rummored that he owned the hotel. The night guard told us he definetly conducted "business" there and used it as his head quarters. He showed up the room in which he stayed and the room in which no one was allowed unless you were a part of his "group". The night guard is the one who told us he owned it, so we will just say "it was rummored". Better?ty
Going in April. Reserved room 441. Excited!
Not sure if my comment posted the first time. But I have reserved room 441 for this early April. I'm excited!
Robert that is awesome!!! You have got to let me know how it goes!!!
4 of us just got back to Canada, and we stayed in the Congress Plaza for 2 nights (March 18 and 19) while attending Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. Buncha weird things happened.
You may or may not believe me, but of the 4 of us, one is a world-renowned psychic, and her 11yo daughter has inherited some of these abilities.
First Room: 820, North Tower - The night of March 18, going into March 19, around 3:39am, my friend woke up with a MAJOR knot in her stomach, and this only happens when she picks up strong energies nearby that she can't get away from. It made her physically ill. She has a retrocognition ability, and was able to hear the fights and the gunshots from the hallway that occurred back from the '20s-'40s. Not only that, but apparently the room we were put into was occupied by a small family that was gunned down by Al Capone's boys, and she could feel the absolute terror in the room as the night went on. The next morning, she was ridiculously sick from everything she had picked up on. So we started talking about switching rooms, and decided to call down to the front desk to get that process started. Nope. Picked up our room phone and the line was completely dead, where it was working before we went to sleep. Then her daughter went to go have a quick shower before we packed up. Nope. She BARELY touched the shower curtain (she's a very tiny 11yo), and the curtain AND curtain rod came right off the wall and nearly hit her in the head. She came out looking like a sheet and stated, "I'm not going back in there". So her mother went in (bad idea) to see what caused that. Well, remember that family I said was gunned down? The husband's presence was still lingering around, and was absolutely terrified of my friend and her daughter, as they are distant relatives by marriage to Al Capone. We made it known that we just wanted to sleep in the room and nothing more, but he was so freaked out by US that he just wanted us gone. I can attest to the energy in the bathroom, because I was fine in the main room, but going into the bathroom, I got a wicked migraine, which disappeared when I exited the bathroom. So we called down via cell phone and made the switch to a different room in the south tower. Here's where it gets a bit weirder...
The haunted floors in this hotel are 4, 8, and 12. Al Capone's suite was Room 400, and it's well known that he never stayed under his own name, for obvious reasons. And also Room 441 has a female spectre that's said to appear as a shadow at the foot of your bed and will kick your bed to wake you. But I'm deviating now...
My friend went to grab the elevator in the south tower to go check our room on the 4th floor (477, which my friend smudged with white sage just to be safe), and while she was waiting at the main level, having pressed the "Up" button, she noticed 2 things: First, one of the elevators seemed to just be sitting on the 4th floor, not moving. Second, the other elevator was on the main level, where she was, but it sat there closed for a good couple of minutes. When it finally opened, and she got on, floors 4 and 8 were already lit up. No one else was on the elevator either.
The whole building has a bit of an eerie vibe to it, including the stairwell up to the top of the parkade, where the valet parked the van we drove down in. And while I'm not one for stairs in general, I had a particularly unsettling feeling, like I was being watched the whole time.
Anyone that says the stories are made up, clearly either haven't stayed there, or they were in a "safe zone" of the hotel.
ROBERT MONTGOMERY - PLEASE let us know what Room 441 is like for you! We got a weird feeling walking past it, but nothing beyond that.
Heather. Wow! What a story! I would agree with you about the over all vibe of the hotel. Definitely eerie. We were so lucky that the security guard let us in the places Al and his men hung out and you could just "feel" their presence.
But the hallways and the stair wells were by far the creepiest to me. We have lots of activity on our equipment and we feel we communicated with a very strong female spirit that seemed follow us around.
With all that said, I love this hotel! I have been lucky enough to go there a few times now, and never has it been anything but amazing!
I am so sorry that your friend had such a bad experience. It is never good when you get physically sick in a haunted location.
Thank you so much for sharing that awesome story with me. :)
I just got to learn about this Hotel's story today and am quite fascinated by it ... ( no doubt this hotel inspired the movie "Room 1408" -based upon Stephen King's story-, but I'm pretty sure Stephen King got his inspiration from this hotel, and who knows, maybe even the eerie atmosphere and décor of "The Shining" Overlook Hotel) ... nevertheless, i still haven't found any info about that (in)famous sealed off room (should be room 1252) at the 12 th floor ... and the reason why is it sealed off ... (?????) I read about something so nasty and terrifying inside that it had to be shut ... but what ??? And if you're a customer at the hotel and ask the staff about it ... do they know why ?? And if so, will they answer ??? I saw a couple of videos about it at Youtube ... room 666 has been walled over ... why ??? I still haven't disclosed how many floors there are at the hotel ... I hear rumours about a concealed 15th floor ... (???) (I'm aware there are 2 towers, one of them being higher) ... In the videos I remarked there were quite a few rooms at the 12th floor that are missing ... It leaps from 1254 to 1250 ... then to 1246 ... 1248 is amiss ... and between them 2 doors with no number on it ... door latch missing and an extra door lock ... another door with a big screw to keep it shut (no number on this door either) ... it's weird howcome such a landmark of Chicago (after all, Presidents of the United States stayed and also had conferences there) isn't better kept and have sealed rooms ... suppose that one day, if no maintenance is done on the building, they have to demolish it ??? What will they unleash ??? and if they do make maintenance on it, sooner or later they'll have to go into those sealed rooms to repair them .. and then ????
Paulo, no doubt it is a very interesting hotel!! I wonder about the places and rooms that are boarded up to. Why would a hotel do that? Huuummm maybe someday we will find out. :) Thanks for your post. Well said.
I stayed at the Congress Hotel last night. I'd love to tell you about me night but I died. Room 1035.
I stayed in room 1035 last night. The hotel looked nice but creepy old. I'd tell you how the night was but I died.
I stayed there last weekend and died and went to heaven. I was in room 930
I've stayed at this hotel several times. I've never experienced anything until I stayed 7/9-7/12 2016. I stayed in room 930 and I will have to say what happened was out of this world.
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