Several years ago, two friends and I took daytime photographs of the McPike Mansion with a non-digital camera. We weren’t trying to capture ghosts, just the beauty of a grand old home. When the pictures came back from Walgreens, they contained an obvious mist that had not been visible to any of us at the time. It looked like white smoke at the rear left of the house in the first shot. In each subsequent picture, it got larger, closer to the foreground and further away from the house’s foundation. We were amazed and wondered if some entity had come out to greet us…or chase us away. The resident spirit there is not rumored to be kindly, so proceed with caution if you visit.

There is one other building in Alton I would testify is haunted. At the Enos Apartments near downtown, I saw two doors open on their own and received many “psychic impressions” for lack of a better term. There are tunnels underneath it from the Underground Railroad, and it was a sanitarium of some sort in the early 20th century.

Millionaire’s Row is technically in Godfrey, not Alton, and consists of many posh mansions and ridiculously overpriced land. I’ve never been inside one or heard of any hauntings, but older homes and rich families do tend to reek with drama. If anyone wants to check that area out, the trick is to avoid the guarded gate by going a block or two to the left or right and proceeding back toward the water.

Please drop me a note at LostLenore@aol.com if you’d like to chat about paranormal phenomena in the greater St. Louis area.