MHT’s Favorites: Local Haunts to Visit Before Halloween

Favorite Events and Festivals To Visit

Spooky season is upon us, and here at MHT, we love a good fall festival and even a little scare every now and then. Here are our picks for some great festivals, haunted houses, and other Halloween activities to do in the Northwest Suburbs and in Chicago!

Family Friendly Fall Festivals

Barrington: Scarecrow Festival 2018

Saturday, October 13: 11:00am-2:00pm

Held at Memorial Park in the Village every year, this is a great free festival for some family fun over the weekend! Expect pumpkin decorating, cookie decorating (yum!), scarecrow building, pony rides, face painting, and food!

Long Grove: DIY Scarecrow Day

Saturday, October 13: 11:00am-4:00pm

Located next to the Country House (430 Robert Parker Coffin Road), this festival is all about making your own scarecrow. Bring your own tools, scarecrow accessories, and builders and you will be able to make your own masterpiece! After they are built, the scarecrows get displayed around the village until the end of the month!

Chicago: Jack’s Pumpkin Pop-Up

Goose Island, Chicago

Here is a great opportunity throughout the month of October for families and couples in the city to experience some fall fun! This event hosts Chicago’s largest corn maze (with a bar in the middle of the maze), carnival rides for the family, and food and entertainment! Check out the schedule online and buy your tickets for the new coolest Halloween event in Chicago!

Top Haunted Houses in the Chicagoland Area

While this isn’t exactly our cup of tea, we thought to include it to get everyone into the scary Halloween spirit!

Basement of the Dead

Aurora

This is ranked as one of the top haunted houses in Illinois. Also know for it’s very real looking/acting killer clowns, bloody nuns (who doesn’t love a good bloody nun), and claustrophobic halls (yes please sign me up). And if you get through all of the rooms? You can play some carnival games!

HellsGate Haunted House

Lockport

This house is so secret that you have to park in the Metra parking lot and get shuttled to the location of this haunted house. Then you get 45 minutes to get through the multi-level mansion and if you find the skeleton key during your scream session, you will get your ticket for free!

Best Chicago Urban Legends:

For some reason these all seem to be about young girls who died and haunt everything…but here are a few of the city’s top Urban legends.

The Italian Bride

Mt. Carmel Cemetery is best known for being the resting place of many gangsters, including a one Al Capone, one of the most famous residents in Julia Petta, also known as the Italian Bride. Legend has it that this poor girl died in childbirth, but for years after her death, her mother would have dreams of Julia telling her she was still alive and needed help getting out of her grave. Six years after she died, her family exhumed her grave and found her body still perfectly in tact as it had been when she was alive. Many visitors to the cemetery have reported seeing a ghostly white women near Julia’s grave.

Resurrection Mary

One of the more famous ghost stories, Mary, who loved to dance, was killed in a car accident while walking home from a dance hall in 1934. But that doesn’t stop her from continuing to go out in the city. She has been said to still go to the dance halls (maybe the night clubs now, but she would look out of place in her 1930’s attire) and dance with a young man all night. Then when she asks him for a ride home, she says she lives at Resurrection Cemetery because her dad is the care taker. When he drops her off there, she disappears before his eyes. Can you image that poor uber driver nowadays? Give that guy 5 stars.

We hoped you enjoyed our Halloween edition of this blog post! And we also hope you weren’t too spooked out to stay for more!

If you know of anyone looking to buy or sell in the area, please pass this post on to them along with our referral!