State file · WI
Haunted places in Wisconsin
What are the most haunted places in Wisconsin? The best-known are The Pfister Hotel and Summerwind Mansion.
Wisconsin has a surprisingly rich supernatural reputation for a state better known for dairy farms and lake cabins. Its folklore draws on the Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Ojibwe and other Native nations who have lived here for millennia, on the German, Scandinavian and Polish immigrants who settled its towns, and on the lumber camps, breweries and Gilded Age fortunes of the 19th century. Folklorists such as Michael Norman and Beth Scott have collected hundreds of its ghost stories.
- 2 hauntings
- 9 recorded sightings
Haunted places in Wisconsin
The Pfister Hotel
Milwaukee’s grand 1893 hotel hosts visiting baseball teams – and so many players have reported ghostly nights that some refuse to stay there. Widely reportedSummerwind Mansion
A Northwoods summer mansion of a future U.S. Commerce Secretary, made famous by 1970s ghost stories. It burned after a lightning strike in 1988. Local legendThe ghost lore of Wisconsin
In Milwaukee, the grand 1893 Pfister Hotel has become baseball’s most notorious haunted hotel: visiting Major League players have reported electronics switching themselves on, furniture moved in the night and footsteps in locked rooms, and some refuse to stay there at all. Far to the north, the burned-out ruins of Summerwind, a former Commerce Secretary’s summer mansion on West Bay Lake, carry a 1970s ghost legend that historians say cannot be corroborated – and the site is on private land.
Elsewhere, ghost tours run through Milwaukee’s old brewery district, Madison’s Capitol Square and Door County’s lighthouses, and the Northwoods supply tales of lonely lakes and roadside apparitions.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Downtown and Third Ward, Milwaukee
The Pfister, historic theatres and the old brewery mansions feature on the city’s ghost walks.
- Madison
The capitol, university campus and lakeside cemeteries form the core of the city’s ghost tours.
- Door County
Lighthouses, shipwreck coasts and old inns give the peninsula a strong maritime ghost tradition.
- The Northwoods (Vilas and Oneida counties)
Remote lake country home to Summerwind and many campfire legends of lumber-era ghosts.
Timeline
- 1893The Pfister opens The Pfister Hotel
The Pfisters’ grand Romanesque Revival hotel opens, among the most modern in America.
- 1916The Lamonts buy the lodge Summerwind Mansion
Robert P. Lamont buys the fishing lodge and turns it into a family summer home. Later legend claims he fired at a ghost there.
- 1927Death of Charles Pfister The Pfister Hotel
The hotel’s founder dies; later legend makes him its resident ghost.
- 1941Sold to the Keefers Summerwind Mansion
After standing largely unused through the 1930s, the house becomes the Keefer family’s vacation home.
- 1979The Carver Effect Summerwind Mansion
Raymond Bober publishes his account of the house as haunted by explorer Jonathan Carver, naming it Summerwind.
- June 19, 1988Destroyed by fire Summerwind Mansion
The empty mansion burns after a lightning strike; fire officials report nothing suspicious.
- October 2005A Haunting Summerwind Mansion
The Discovery Channel series dramatises the Summerwind story, renewing interest in the ruins.
- May 2013“The haunting of MLB’s A-List” The Pfister Hotel
ESPN collects accounts from players including Bryce Harper, Pablo Sandoval, Michael Young, Brandon Phillips and C.J. Wilson, while Shane Victorino says he does not believe it.
- June 2023Channel-changing ghosts The Pfister Hotel
Athletics outfielder Brent Rooker says his TV kept turning itself on and changing channels, weeks after Dodgers star Mookie Betts chose an Airbnb over the Pfister “just in case.”
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