Exploring the haunted history of the Lincoln Park Zoo

Around 2 a.m., a security guard at the Lincoln Park Zoo was making his rounds near the polar bear habitat when he saw a distraught man sitting on a bench wearing a fedora.

After asking if everything was OK, the security guard told the man that the zoo had closed a few hours ago. The man stood up, shrugged and walked away into the shadows. When a guard tried to escort him, the man disappeared.

Another time, a woman approached an employee at the zoo’s visitor center, dragging her soaked son behind her. She apparently saw a hand come out of the lagoon and pull the boy inside.

“I have no idea what she thinks the member services can do about it,” joked Adam Selzer.

These ghost stories come courtesy of Selzer, an author and historian who runs “Haunted History” zoo tours in October – after dark, of course. Animal watching is not the purpose of these hour-long tours. Instead, Selzer combines historical records and the occasional anecdote from a night worker for dozens to learn more about what may be one of the most haunted places in the city (allegedly). After all, it was partially built on top of the cemetery.

Selzer collects most of his famous ghost stories from around the visitor center, located at the zoo’s eastern entrance. The man in the fedora and the boy falling into the lagoon are just a few examples, he told about 50 people on the trip this week.

His impetus for action is that just on the other side of the fence, from about 1891 to 1919, a 40-foot-tall bridge called the “High Bridge” stood over the lagoon. Selzer discovered that it eventually earned the media nickname “Suicide Bridge” after approximately 100 people jumped off it over a 30-year period.

“Some estimates… were that one person a week tried to jump off this thing and quite a few of them succeeded as well,” he said.

Sisters Emma and Clara Pontius

But Selzer said one security guard’s story impressed him. The ranger believed he heard a little girl crying near the visitor center, and a year later he heard a little girl laughing. He discovered that in 1907, two girls, Emma and Clara Pontius, who were just 12 and 10 years old, fell – or jumped, depending on who you ask – off a bridge into the lagoon.

Their father and stepmother speculated that one of them may have fallen and the other girl jumped in after her. On the other hand, their grandmother believed that the girls committed suicide after being upset by their mother’s death and the way their stepmother treated them. Apparently they visited Graceland Cemetery earlier that morning and we were talking about going to the bridge.

“But this is one of those stories where every bit of data I get just makes it worse,” Selzer said. “I looked through the records at Graceland Cemetery. I’ve been reviewing the coroner’s inquest reports. Records at Graceland showed that their father had never remarried, so they had no stepmother.

“And strangely enough, while they were doing the coroner’s inquest, a little child showed up and asked, ‘Did they find that man too?’” Selzer continued. “They were like, ‘What?’ And he said, “Well, this man dived after them and I never saw him come back.” They asked, “Have you told anyone about this?” And he said, “No, I had to take violin lessons.”

Sure enough, authorities dragged the lagoon and found a third body, later identified as John Duetinger. Duetinger, an avid swimmer who usually took daily walks in the park, had previously saved another child from drowning, Selzer said.

Selzer, of course, can’t be sure whether these are the identities of the ghosts haunting the zoo, but one man told him that as he drove past the Belden-Stratford Apartments in Lincoln Park, two girls dressed in vintage dresses jumped out in front of his house. his car and then disappeared. He added that some employees had nicknamed the alleged ghost in member services “Emma” before Selzer presented his theory.

Observations of an underpaid nurse, skunk

Speaking of ghosts, Selzer has other theories, including one that an off-duty police officer allegedly spotted in the lion’s bathroom. She likes to think she was a bathroom attendant who earned $5 less a month than her male counterpart when the zoo opened its “men’s and women’s comfort” in the 1880s.

“We go to the zoo a lot and use these bathrooms, so it was nice to hear that they can be a little scary,” said Andrea Ingrande, 35, who joined the tour with three co-workers from Blue River Animal Care. Ingrande signed up because she is very interested in Chicago history, including the history of cemeteries. She added that Graceland and Rosehill cemeteries definitely have a spooky, strange energy.

“I’m glad I used the gender-neutral bathroom when we went to the lion house,” Missy Holz, 27, joked.

Selzer also hypothesized that the skunk he sometimes spots at the zoo’s entrance is the ghost of “Sweet William.”

In 1950, Marlin Perkins, then director of the zoo, appeared in the popular show “Puck, Fran and Ollie.” He was supposed to bring a chimpanzee to the show, Selzer said, but the chimpanzee was nervous. At the last minute he decided to take William the skunk with him instead. Although William had surgery so he couldn’t spray the spray, it didn’t break the house and ended up ruining a live puppet show scene on TV, creating famous blooper.

“I like to imagine it’s Sweet William’s ghost, if only because I’d much rather see a ghost skunk than a real one,” Selzer said.

Finding a coffin under the barn

Many people were also intrigued by the zoo’s cemetery connection, which Selzer explained in the dim light outside the farm’s main barn. The zoo, which began with a pair of swans donated from New York’s Central Park, has been around for over 150 years. making it one of the oldest in the country — and the longest-running free zoo.

The Chicago City Cemetery, located north of North Avenue along the lakefront and outside what was then city limits, was established in Lincoln Park in 1843. Many of the 35,000 bodies buried there were moved to other cemeteries by the 1880s for a variety of reasons: the city’s northward expansion and health risks due to the proximity of a water supply to the site. But not all of them were removed, former zoo director Selzer said Lester Fisher he learned in 1962 while supervising the construction of the Zoo Farm.

While digging the foundation for the barn, workers found a fully intact coffin. Fisher called the coroner, who recommended calling the Department of Health. He then called the Department of Health, which recommended calling the coroner.

“They went back and forth for a while and then he finally decided, OK, I did my due diligence and I guess we just put it aside,” Selzer said. “So they put it back and built the Zoo Farm right above it.”

“There are probably many other bodies buried here that are now under our feet,” Selzer added.