Illinois Haunted Route 66

There’s no detour from terror on this creepy thrill ride down part of America’s historic highway—from the author of Haunted Ozarks. Route 66 is no longer the main thoroughfare between Chicago and St. Louis, but if local lore is to be believed, ghostly traffic along the Mother Road continues unabated. Janice Tremeear chases down accounts of a man executed for witchcraft, the demon baby of Hull House, and the secrets of H. H. Holmes’s “Murder Castle.” Native American legends place the piasa bird in the skies above the highway’s southern stretch with the same insistence that characterize contemporary UFO sightings in the North. In between, spirits such as Resurrection Mary join the throng of hapless souls wandering the roadside of the Prairie State’s most famous byway.