Brat House Bar & Grille

A church turned brat-and-beer restaurant in Wisconsin Dells, now a regular stop on the local ghost tour circuit — which is a sentence that could only describe the Dells.

The Brat House Bar and Grille occupies what is believed to be the oldest publicly accessible building in the Wisconsin Dells area, with a history stretching back to 1850 when it was constructed as the Delton Academy, a one-room Baptist Boys School House. In 1865, the building was converted into the Delton Methodist Church, and over the following decades the congregation expanded it significantly, adding rooms, installing stained glass windows, and constructing a bell tower. The building also served as a meeting hall for the Grand Army of the Republic, the fraternal organization of Union Army veterans that formed after the Civil War. The original entrance was replaced with a G.A.R. stained glass window during this period. The Methodist congregation built a new church in the 1970s and vacated the historic structure, which later operated as an antique mall before being converted into the Brat House Grill restaurant in 2007.

The building's connection to Civil War veterans and its long history as a place of both education and worship may explain the two distinct spirits that haunt it. The most frequently reported entity is a young girl who appears in the restroom area. Staff and patrons have encountered her peering out from behind the bar and lingering near the bathroom, her presence often accompanied by an uneasy feeling that someone is watching. Her identity remains unknown, and no records connect a specific child's death to the building, but her appearances have been consistent enough to become a fixture of the location's reputation.

The second spirit is a Union soldier who appears in full military uniform, most often seen near the back of the building. Given the structure's documented history as a Grand Army of the Republic hall where Civil War veterans gathered for decades after the war, the soldier's presence carries a certain logic. Some who have encountered him describe a figure standing at attention or walking purposefully, as though still reporting for a meeting that ended over a century ago. Additionally, people with sensitivity to such things have reported the presence of one of the former clergymen who served the building during its years as a Methodist church, as though the spiritual caretaker never fully relinquished his post.

The building's haunted reputation is amplified by its proximity to other paranormal landmarks in Wisconsin Dells. Confederate spy Belle Boyd, one of the most famous female spies of the Civil War, died of a heart attack on June 11, 1900 while lecturing to a Grand Army of the Republic audience in what was then Kilbourn City. She was buried at nearby Spring Grove Cemetery with G.A.R. members serving as her pallbearers, and before the gravestone cap was placed, the United Daughters of the Confederacy sprinkled Virginia soil over her casket so she could rest in the earth of both states. The Showboat Saloon, another stop on the local ghost tour circuit, is haunted by Ghost Molly, a woman who died mysteriously in the apartment above the bar.

The Wisconsin Dells Haunted History Trolley Tour, a 90-minute evening excursion departing from Bobbers Island Grill, makes the Brat House a featured stop. Visitors disembark and use ghost meters to detect extremely low frequency readings associated with paranormal activity, searching for orbs with particular attention to red ones. The Brat House is also included on the Haunted Pub Crawl, a 21-and-over tour that stops at the area's most active paranormal locations. The combination of the building's 175-year history, its service to Baptist educators, Methodist worshipers, and Union veterans, and its persistent ghostly residents makes it one of the most layered haunted sites in southern Wisconsin.