Galena, Illinois is the perfect setting for haunting tales of mystery and sightings of apparitions that are passed down from generation to generation.  Walk Main Street and look up at the various architectural styles and ornamental masonry and you will get a sense of past aspirations in this ghostly little town, and if you stand still you will feel the presence of ghosts from the past who rush past you on the sidewalk.  Don't worry - they are too busy in their errands to notice you.

Galena has a very rich and storied past as a semi-lawless frontier town.  People were drawn here from all over the world, speaking many different languages.  They were unknown to one another - leading to suspicion and skepticism.  While there were no Salem-style witch trials, non-English speaking immigrants were again and again stereotyped and marginalized.

With little or no sanitation system, outbreaks of cholera were frequent and devastating.  Smallpox, Yellow Fever, and various other disease outbreaks were routine.  Mass unmarked burials in the Old City Cemetery contain the remains of hundreds of nameless pioneers.  They came to Galena seeking prosperity, but instead found death.

There was also the ongoing threat of attack from the indigenous communities (in retaliation for injustices inflicted upon them).  Travel to and from Galena could be deadly - not only the threat of indigenous people as you trespassed through their lands, but river crossings and sometimes rocky, sometimes swampy terrain would also tempt your fate.  And that is only if you travel over land.

River travel had another litany of horrors - the Mississippi River was a constantly moving channel, with rocky rapids and submerged obstacles invisible in the muddy water always threatening to tear holes in any boat that passed.  Going upstream meant polling, towing, or bushwhacking.  With the advent of the steam engine, travel upstream got easier but far more deadly - fires destroyed many a steamboat, and scalding steam from exploding boilers burned many victims (leading to the creation of maritime or "marine" hospitals, including the one in Galena).   Trains would prove no safer, with one trainload of recruits headed for the Civil War colliding with a freight train south of Galena, killing all on board.

And so the stories of ghosts are born - ghosts of the native people who lived and died here for thousands of years.  Ghosts of adventurers and fortune seekers.  Ghosts of soldiers from the so-called "Indian Wars" as well as the Civil War.  And ghosts of the wealthy elite who built their castles high on Quality Hill.  Galena is a town filled with ghosts - and their stories.

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