Halloween is coming up this weekend, and if you’d like to get into the spirit of things while learning about local history — there's a book for you.
30 Haunted Nights in Wisconsin highlights scary tales and mysteries from around the state. Authors Brandon Rugzie and Mitch Goth from Haunted U.S. visited each of the locations in the book themselves and spoke with those who’ve reported unexplained happenings.
Rugzie and Goth joined Lake Effect’s Becky Mortensen to share what they learned.
Shaker's
“There are a lot of haunted bars here in Wisconsin, but a lot them are too busy to make time for their ghost stories,” Mitch Goth says. “Shakers makes them an essential aspect of their whole business.”
Tours of Shaker's highlight the dead bodies alleged to be buried beneath the historic bar. The spirits of former mobsters are rumored to haunt the basement.
“They've got a door that's locked from the inside that will that will shake and rattle,” Goth says. "Supposedly there's even a ghost strong enough to throw an old, heavy iron safe around down there, and you get to see all those things.”
Pabst Mansion
When it comes to the paranormal, there are no two words that go together better than “haunted” and “mansion.” At the historic Pabst Mansion, the ghost of Frederick Pabst is said to haunt his former home.
“A beer baron mansion, incredibly opulent, wonderfully maintained — it would be wild if he didn't stick around,” Rugzie says. “And there are plenty of claims around perhaps a spectral party still happening there. I know there was a chandelier at one point that swung back and forth as though either somebody [a ghost] was walking very heavily above it or swinging on it.”
The Rave
The former home of the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, The Rave is another haunted hotspot in Milwaukee. The basement of the building houses a drained swimming pool where bands will often sign their names on the walls. But ghost stories circulate around the space too, says Goth.
“There are a lot of claims that you might expect from a historic pool, mostly along the lines of people jumped in to the shallow end — and you're not supposed to do that — and they drowned. And now their spirits supposedly haunt the area,” he says.
Rhodes Center for the Arts
According to the book, ghosts are said to love theaters. And at the Rhodes Center for the Arts, the ghost of a “lavender lady” is rumored to haunt the women’s bathroom. Theater-goers have also reported mysterious laughter during performances, allegedly from a phantom “gray lady” up in the balcony.
“They believe she was heard during a performance,” Rugzie says. “During this one part [of a play], they heard a loud laugh, a booming laugh in the middle of this performance. Everyone thought it was part of the performance — except for the actors who knew it wasn't.”
Pfister Hotel
The Pfister Hotel is perhaps Milwaukee’s most well-known haunted building. Rather than anything morbid, it’s alleged that the hotel is such a nice place to stay that spirits want to take up residence there — forever. Spirits are said to roam the hallways and cause lights, TVs and other electrical devices to flicker on and off.
“They decide to just move right in just as soon as they pass on and don't have to pay the room rates anymore — because who wouldn't? You stay one night, you might want to stay forever,” Goth says.
Shipwrecked Brew Pub
Door County’s Shipwrecked Brew Pub has been around since the 1880s — although it was rebuilt in 2017 after a fire destroyed the original building. But Goth says that hasn’t stopped sightings of a Victorian-era woman waiting for a stagecoach, an 1880s lumberjack and an alleged lost son of Al Capone.
“Fire is not going to keep the phantoms away and, well, it shouldn't keep you away either.” Goth says.
Dodgeville’s haunted Subway
“When we say a haunted Subway, we are not talking about a subterranean train, Rugzie says. “We are talking about a genuine Subway sandwich shop in Dodgeville that is supposedly haunted.”
Employees at the Dodgeville sandwich shop have reported items mysteriously falling off shelves, along with lights turning on and doors opening on their own.
Berlin Tannery
While Goth and Rugzie say they’ve been desensitized to spooky places, there’s one site they say is genuinely scary: the old tannery in Berlin.
"They used to make leather out of animal skins, so it has a number of machines that look like they're made for pulling living beings apart. And that's because, well, to some degree they are,” Rugzie says. “It is rusty and cavernous and genuinely dark and terrifying.”
Goth says the space is more like a horror movie than any of the spots on this list.
“You will find no larger per capita amount of meat hooks than in this building, truly,” he says.
