Lincoln Park Zoo

Lincoln Park Zoo was built on top of Chicago's City Cemetery, and researcher Pamela Bannos estimates 15,000 bodies remain buried beneath the grounds. In 1962, workers found a body while building a barn and constructed directly over the grave, and the 50-ton Couch Tomb still stands with its door unopened for over a century, contents unknown.

Construction workers building a barn for the farm animals at Lincoln Park Zoo in 1962 dug into the ground and found a body. The zoo director contacted the appropriate authorities and received no guidance on what to do. So they built the barn directly over the grave. Doors in that section of the zoo have been slamming on their own ever since.

The body shouldn't have been a surprise. Lincoln Park Zoo sits on top of Chicago's original City Cemetery, which accepted burials from around 1843 to 1866. Tens of thousands of people were buried here: cholera victims during the devastating epidemics of the 1850s (more than 200 interred in a single six-day stretch in July 1854), families in private lots, Jewish and Catholic sections, and Confederate prisoners of war who died while held in Chicago.

The city closed the cemetery in 1866 because it was a public health disaster. Caskets buried near the marshlands washed up during high water, and decomposing remains contaminated the drinking water. Officials supposedly relocated the bodies between 1868 and the 1880s, but researcher Pamela Bannos has determined that as many as 15,000 bodies may still be under the park, the zoo, the ball fields, the Chicago History Museum, and even nearby homes. The original removal crew was just ten men. Then the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed most of the grave markers, making it nearly impossible to find what was left.

In 1998, workers building a parking garage for the Chicago Historical Society unearthed 81 partial skeletons and an iron coffin containing a remarkably well-preserved corpse.

The Couch Tomb is the one visible survivor. Ira Couch, owner of the celebrated Tremont House Hotel, died on vacation in Cuba in 1857 at age 50. His brother James commissioned the 50-ton limestone mausoleum the following year, built from stone quarried in Lockport, New York, at a cost of $7,000. When the cemetery was cleared, nobody moved the tomb. The Chicago Park District says it was probably too expensive to relocate.

Whether anyone is actually inside is a genuine mystery. The door hasn't been opened in over a century. Ira's grandson once claimed seven people were entombed within, but most of the names he mentioned have headstones at Rosehill Cemetery across town. Rosehill's records, however, show no one named Couch buried there. So the headstones exist, but the bodies might not be under them. They might still be in the tomb. Or they might be neither place.

Ghost stories around the mausoleum date to the 1880s. Local folklore held that if you stood at the tomb at midnight and said "The graves belong to the dead, not the living" three times, a big white figure would appear. Zoo staff over the years have reported seeing people in Victorian-era clothing near the Lion House, a woman in white who vanishes, and figures reflected in the bathroom mirrors that aren't there when you turn around.

Paranormal investigators who conducted sessions at the zoo captured EVP recordings that are oddly specific. A male voice saying, "Get out! There's a woman here!" Another pleading, "Help me... with leaving." A voice that said, "I miss it." And as the investigators packed up to leave, footsteps on the audio followed by: "Turn out the light. Good night!"

In the Primate House, investigators documented what they described as multiple child presences and a male voice with an Australian accent. One recording referenced "Julie," the zoo's events manager, by name. When asked if they were connected to the cemetery, a voice confirmed: "Part of the cemetery that was here."

The zoo holds annual events acknowledging its haunted reputation. It's a free zoo, one of the last in the country, and families who visit during the day walk their kids past the Couch Tomb without knowing what's underneath their feet. Fifteen thousand people, give or take, resting below the polar bear exhibit and the paddle boats.