Turner Hall

Turner Hall in Galena has been haunted since March 1910 when Charles Scheerer, three-term mayor and longtime building manager, died of a heart attack on the front steps. Set builders see a goateed man with rolled-up sleeves watching from the balcony, and his wife Emma's ghost is spotted searching the hall for him.

"He acts as theatre critic," the locals say about the ghost of Turner Hall. If he doesn't like the show, he lets the actors know.

Turner Hall in Galena was built in 1875 for $15,000 by the town's German community. Traveling entertainment companies considered it one of the finest venues in northwestern Illinois. The guest list over the years is absurd for a small town: former Vice President Schuyler Colfax spoke there in 1877, General Tom Thumb and his wife performed in both 1869 and 1877, William McKinley visited in 1893 (three years before becoming president), and Theodore Roosevelt appeared in 1900 while serving as Governor of New York.

Charles Scheerer was the man who kept it all running. He served as treasurer of the Turner Society and business manager of the hall for years, turning it into Galena's cultural center. He also served three terms as Mayor of Galena. In March 1910, while climbing the front steps of the hall, Scheerer suffered a fatal heart attack. He was carried inside, where he died with his wife Emma beside him, in the building he'd poured his life into.

Set builders working in the hall have seen him since. An older man with a goatee, rolled-up sleeves, and intense, focused eyes watches from the balcony. A local pastor visiting the building heard a garbled voice coming from the empty balcony seating. Visitors report seeing an old man walking through the hall or out on the front lawn, always moving with purpose, like he has somewhere to be. Footsteps echo through the building when nobody else is inside.

Emma is there too, according to visitors. A woman in formal attire has been encountered in the hall, moving through the spaces as if searching for someone. The interpretation is simple: she's looking for Charles in the last place she saw him alive.

Galena is one of the oldest and most haunted small towns in the Midwest. Eighty-five percent of its buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places, and Turner Hall sits among them. The Haunted Galena Tour Company features the hall prominently, running a Thursday night pre-conference investigation as part of the annual Haunted Galena Conference. Ghost tour routes through town also include the Jail Hill Inn, Dowling House, Old Market House plaza, DeSoto House Hotel, and Otto's Place.

In 2019, Turner Hall received a Landmarks Illinois Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Award for the work done to maintain the building. Charles Scheerer would probably approve. Then again, he might have notes.