HAUNTED TOURS OF CHICAGO

Chicago-area sightseers looking for something more offbeat than the Art
Institute or the Lincoln Park Zoo might consider a bus tour that stops at
Resurrection Cemetery, home of Resurrection Mary, Chicago's most famous ghost,
and Robinson Woods Indian Burial Grounds, scene of strange sights and sounds.

These are two stops on Dale Kaczmarek's "Excursions Into the Unknown" tours.
Since 1983, Kaczmarek (above), of Oak Lawn, Illinois, has conducted these
popular weekend bus tours of Indian burial grounds, murder sites, and haunted
historical landmarks in and around Chicago.

"Excursions Into the Unknown" was an outgrowth of Kaczmarek's work as president
of the Ghost Research Society. "I thought," says Kaczmarek, "it would be a neat
idea for people to experience the aura of haunted places."

But do any of these people actually encounter ghosts on a ghost tour? "We have
minor encounters from time to time," claims Kaczmarek, "and we tell people to
take photographs at our most active stops."

Kaczmarek says tourgoers have taken photos of shadowy forms on a staircase in
Jane Addams' Hull House on Chicago's south side. And many have experienced a
cold spot along the staircase of That Steak Joynt, a restaurant on Chicago's
north side. While tourgoers haven't witnessed the "disappearing house" along
the dirt trail leading to Bachelor's Grove Cemetery in Oak Forest, "people have
gone back later and had strange encounters," Kaczmarek likes to explain.

Kaczmarek, who displays his brochures at the Chicago Visitors Bureau, plans new
itineraries every year. "There are over a hundred and fifty different haunted
locations in the Chicago area," he says. "That's about sixteen years' worth of
tours."