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Towns in INDIANA:
Gary, Hammond, Schererville, Highland, Munster, East Chicago, Highland, Crown Point, Valpo, Portage, Dyer

Further West in ILLINOIS:
Aurora, Elgin, Rockford, Algonquin, Genoa, Carpentersville, Naperville, Oak Park, Antioch/Chain of Lakes area and Waukegan

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Vanderbilt’s idea was to replicate the working estates of Europe. He commissioned Richard Morris Hunt, who had previously designed houses for various family members, to design the house in imitation of several Loire Valley chateaux, including the Chateau de Blois. Wanting the best, Vanderbilt also employed Frederick Law Olmsted to design the grounds, including the deliberately rustic three-mile Approach Road, and Gifford Pinchot to manage the forests. Intending that the estate could be self-supporting, Vanderbilt set up scientific forestry programs, poultry farms, cattle farms, hog farms and a dairy. The estate included its own village (today Biltmore Village) and even a church. Family members and friends invited from all over the United States and beyond came to experience the opulent estate with the splendor of Olmsted’s sweet-smelling gardens, rich foods at the 64-seat banquet table, and the stunning beauty of Vanderbilt’s mountainous grounds. Famous guests through the years include author Edith Wharton, novelist Henry James, Presidents McKinley, Wilson, Nixon, and Charles, Prince of Wales.

Vanderbilt paid little attention to the family business or his own investments, and the construction and upkeep of Biltmore depleted much of his inheritance. After Vanderbilt died of complications from an emergency appendectomy in 1914, his widow, Edith Stuyvesant Vanderbilt, finalized the sale of much of the original 125,000 acres (506 km²) to the federal government (begun by Vanderbilt before his death), which became the nucleus of Pisgah National Forest.

The estate today covers approximately 8,000 acres (32 km²) and is split in half by the French Broad River. It is owned by The Biltmore Company, which is controlled by Vanderbilt’s grandson, William A.V. Cecil, II. In 1963, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Here is a site that names a couple of places they believe are haunted in that area including the Biltmore Estate.

Asheville Hauntings & Legends
aSkyeWolfe Magickal Pages
NC Hauntings & Legends
US Hauntings by State
Haunted Home
Forum
Basilica St. Lawrence – During the construction of the cathedral, the architect was very particular as to not let anyone know the exact way that he was building it. This cathedral has the largest dome of its kind, but no one knows how it was built because if anyone walked up during its construction, the architect would cover up his work until he was alone again. It is believed that the architect’s body is buried within the walls of the cathedral. However, the church will not allow any further research to take place within the cathedral.

Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria – 42 Biltmore Avenue – A restored 1920s appliance store. Site of Asheville’s Largest Mass Murder on November 13, 1906 Will Harris, a fugitive from Charlotte, killed five people, including two policemen, and injured more, before being gunned down himself. Harris died from more than 100 bullets from a posse of over 1000 men. Property close behind Barley’s was the site of gallows where many criminals met a public demise for years. Employees and customers, share paranormal experiences dating back to the early 1990s (it opened in 1994) At least one employee quit his job due to paranormal activity. He witnessed a backroom elevator "operating itself."
Battery Park Hotel – 1 Battle Square – at the corner of O. Henry Street – This Georgian-style high-rise building was once downtown Asheville’s grandest hotel. Though now an apartment complex for senior citizens, the building is haunted by the ghost of a young female hotel guest who was brutally murdered here in the 1930′s, and also by at least two male suicide victims who jumped from the roof and are sometimes seen plummeting toward the ground before vanishing in mid-air – about which the Asheville Police Department occasionally receives calls from horrified witnesses.

Battle Mansion – Now vacant, the former headquarters of WLOS-TV, Asheville’s ABC affiliate, is neighbor to the Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa. A spirit named Alice, thought to be that of a maid who died in a fall down a staircase haunts this imposing mansion. A ghost in a lavender dress, somehow connected with the Battle Mansion, is sometimes seen walking with the Grove Park Inn’s "Pink Lady" on the Inn’s golf course.

The Biltmore Estate – Numerous phantoms stalk the elegant halls of America’s largest home, including a woman dressed in black who appears on the second floor, a maid who appears to startled visitors and offers them a glass of champagne from a tray before vanishing, a headless orange cat seen in the gardens, and a maid who stands guard by a door on the third floor. Unidentified spirits, thought to be Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt, haunt the Library, Oak Sitting Room, and Billiard Room, while the sound of maniacal laughter sometimes issues from the drain of the basement swimming pool.
Chicken Alley – off Carolina Lane – dead-end downtown street known to those who live there as Chicken Alley.The legendary ghost of Dr. Jamie Smith, who lived at this infamous Asheville locale known as "Chicken Alley" over a century ago. For decades, countless sightings of his ghost have been reported. Dr. Smith was killed in a bar-room confrontation in 1902 at the old historic "Broadway’s Tavern" The tavern was destroyed by fire the following year. The close vicinity known as Chicken Alley has been victim to his ghost for over one hundred years!

Club Fusion – This Asheville nightspot occupies a former warehouse over a century old in Biltmore Village. Poltergeist activity has been reported here, and from time to time a misty white human form appears on security videotape, striding across the dance floor before disappearing. Peculiar electrical, temperature, and light phenomena seem to cluster around the dance cages.

Clyde A. Erwin High School – This modern building was constructed in 1973 on a plot of land owned by Buncombe County and thought to contain a handful of graves from a small family cemetery. To their horror, engineers and county officials discovered well over a thousand graves beneath the soil, and an investigation revealed that the land was home to a long-forgotten paupers cemetery where orphans, drifters, criminals, and patients from local tuberculosis hospitals were interred. Nails, splinters, and pieces of broken bone work their way up through the soil after heavy rains and numerous grave-shaped and -sized depressions dot the school grounds. Though efforts were made to relocate all the graves, between one and two hundred bodies are believed to still lie beneath the school. Custodians are reluctant to work inside the building at night, and report being followed by heavy footsteps through the halls.

Estes-Winn Memorial Automobile Museum – Located near the famous Grove Park Inn, this showplace of antique cars is home also to mysterious orbs of light, visible using infrared cameras, seen flitting from vehicle to vehicle at night.
The Grove Park Inn – 290 Macon Avenue – A mysterious Pink Lady has been seen, felt and experienced by hotel employees and guests at The Grove Park Inn Resort in Asheville for more than three quarters of a century. Around 1920, a young woman dressed in pink fell to her death at the hotel’s Palm Court Atrium. No one knows if her death was a suicide, murder, or accident. Even her name remains a mystery. However, shortly thereafter, hotel guests and employees began encountering the apparition of a "pink lady". A benevolent spirit, she especially seems to like children. In fact, she’s also fond of childish pranks, like manipulating room lights and door locks. Some have heard her voice–others have felt her electrical presence pass through them. Separate accounts of unexplained severe cold chills in Room 545 and an apparition in a dense pink smoke, said to be a very gentle spirit, have been reported ever since.

Helens’ Bridge – As you drive up Beaucatcher Mountain on Vance Gap Road (I have also been told Town Mountain Road), you’ll pass through a narrow, steep-walled gorge. Look up, and there it is – the strange little stone bridge that seems to connect nothing to nothing – Built in 1909 to provide access to the Zealandia Mansion on the crest of Beaucatcher Mountain, Helen’s Bridge, or Zealandia’s Bridge was special from its conception. The bridge was graced with beauty, both in its arched design and its quarried stone construction. R. S. Smith was the designing Architect. R. S. Smith was the field architect for the Biltmore House and designed The Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village. The story goes that Helen was a woman who lived on Beaucatcher Mountain many years ago with her only daughter. One night her house caught fire and the child perished. Helen was so distraught she hung herself from the small stone bridge near her home. Since that night it has been said if you go to the bride late at night, turn off your car, and call Helen’s name she will appear to you. A sad glowing figure. If you are "lucky" enough to see her you may as well settle in. Those who see Helen find that their car won’t start when they try to leave.

Highland Hospital – originally known as "Dr. Carroll’s Sanatorium," founded by Dr. Robert S. Carroll, a distinguished psychiatrist. Montford Avenue in 1909, and was officially named Highland Hospital in 1912. A variety of buildings built in Georgian Colonial, Norman and Arts and Crafts styles housed the patients and the facilities, most of which still stand today including Highland Hall. The campus also included Dr. Carroll’s home at 19 Zillicoa Street, known as Homewood. On March 10, 1948, a deadly fire broke out in the main building and took the lives of nine women. Among the victims was author Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The doors were locked, the windows were chained, and the wooden fire escapes burned.
Jackson Building – 22 S. Pack Square – Built from 1904 to 1925, Asheville’s first skyscraper, stands on the site where the monument shop of author Thomas Wolfe’s father once stood.The upper floors of Asheville’s most historic skyscraper are haunted by the despairing spirits of financiers who lost their fortunes in the stock market crash of 1929 and consequently hurled themselves from the roof.

Kenilworth Inn – 60 Caledonia Road – This handsome hotel was opened about 1890. The original Kenilworth Inn was built in 1890 and was destroyed by fire in 1909. The Kenilworth Inn was rebuilt in 1913 and served as a military hospital for officers during World War I. The Kenilworth Inn Resort reopened following World War I, but failed during the depression and was closed. The property was purchased by two local doctors, William Ray and Mark A Griffin, two brothers who reopened the property as a psychiatric hospital in 1931. It remained a psychiatric hospital until 2000 when it was turned into apartments.

The Melting Pot Restaurant – Biltmore Village – Originally built, in the early part of the last century, as the Biltmore-Oteen Bank. A series of strange occurrences reported there – including ghostly footsteps and unexplained figures The ghosts at this popular Biltmore Village restaurant date from the building’s history as a bank controlled by mobsters during the Prohibition era. One ghost is that of a man perpetually searching for a lost fortune hidden in the walls.

Reed House Bed and Breakfast – 119 Dodge Street – Built in 1892 by Samuel Harrison Reed, one of Vanderbilt’s lawyers, this Victorian mansion in Biltmore Village is haunted by the ghosts of its original inhabitants, including Mr. Reed, who can be heard playing billiards late at night in the game room, Mrs. Reed, and their children, who are heard laughing and bounding up and down the back staircase.

Shiloh – Abandoned Forestry Compound – There is a building in the compound which has all the windows boarded up. The downstairs consists of a long dark hallway with doors alternating on either side. In one downstairs bathroom there is a toilet filled with blood. Upstairs there is a room once used by a now dead prostitute. This building is nicknamed the "Whorehouse" for that reason. Even when the temperature outside is 70 degrees, it barely reaches 40 degrees inside. Strange noises are heard by people who live in the Shiloh neighborhood, and lights have been seen as well. There are other buildings in the compound, and their doors are open and closed at random. There is a length of rope hanging from the rafters in one building.

1889 White Gate Inn – 173 E. Chestnut Street – Circa 1889 Shingle-style house, surrounded by landscaped grounds with a greenhouse/conservatory filled with orchids and tropical plants.2 spirits are said to reside at the inn, merriam a warm hearted caretaker and another not so nice.
Zealandia Castle – 40 Vance Gap Road – built in 1889, sits near the infamous “Helen’s Bridge – Zealandia was completed in 1898. John Evans Brown of Buncombe, who, after success as a Forty-Niner in California’s gold fields, migrated first to Australia and then to New Zealand where he raised sheep on an extensive scale, was elected to Parliament and was a distinguished Minister of Education. Returning to Asheville after an absence of 30 years, he built a home atop Beaucatcher Mountain and named it Zealandia.It has changed hands many times throughout history. It was the corporate headquarters for Peppertree Resorts and sold to Equivest Finance, Inc. in late 1999. Legend has it that a woman named Helen lived in Zealandia with her daughter on top of Beaucatcher Mountain. (See Helen’s Bridge). It has been the site of paranormal investigations.

Feel free to include horrifying true stories and tales that only freaked you out because you were outside, in the dark, in the water, etc. I want stories ready for any occasion.

ONLY THE MOST HORRIFYING, PLEASE!!!

Well, it was a long time ago, but I heard this one story about a guy who got a new apartment, and heard things downstairs only to find that he had no neighbors. Later, he was in the bathroom when he heard a few soft thumps. He could find anything so he assumed it was mice in the wall.

He went outside the next night to throw some garbage in the can, when he turned and saw the silhouette of a man in his window. He went to his friends house that night and came back the next day to get his stuff. While going up the stairs to his apartments, he noticed that the door to the apartment downstairs was slightly open even though he had no neighbors. HE went in and found a step ladder in a closet. He climbed the ladder and found it went up into he apartment, between the walls of his bedroom and bathroom. He never went back there again.

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