AMERICAN HAUNTINGS GHOST HUNTS
night at the beardstown opera house
beardstown, Illinois
next available date: FEBRUARY 17, 2024
$48 per person
sold out!
Join American Hauntings for our Return to this Historic -- and Very Haunted -- 1870s Opera House! Come along with us for an eerie ghost hunt at one of downstate Illinois' most intriguing haunted spots -- the Beardstown Opera House! Discover the history and hauntings of this 1870s opera house and find out if the renovations taking place in the building are really "stirring up the ghosts," as so many claim! Prowl the dark corridors of the building in search of these restless spirits during a private ghost hunt with American Hauntings and perhaps come face to face with one of the former patrons or owners of the old theater! The evening will include a tour of the opera house, followed by a ghost hunt that lasts into the early morning hours!
The Beardstown Opera House was constructed in 1872 and was almost totally destroyed by a tornado that same summer. Rebuilt by the owners and volunteers from the community, the first star to play the opera house was General Tom Thumb, a sideshow performer made famous by P.T. Barnum. Other stars followed, including Jenny Lind, the famous opera singer known as the "Swedish Nightingale,” and a succession of dramatic and operatic stars of the late nineteenth century.
The grand building — located just steps away from the Illinois River, bringing thousands to its doors — went through many different owners and partnerships over the years. Each enjoyed a measure of success, largely thanks to the highly-trafficked river, and played to thousands of sold-out crowds — many of whom left a lingering presence behind.
The opera house was sold to the Deppe family in 1904 and they operated it continuously for the next 50 years. More owners followed — as did a state of decline that impacted many former thriving river towns. As Beardstown crumbled, so did the old and now abandoned theater.
Then, in 2004, the property was purchased by the Heritage Preservation Foundation, which started a massive restoration of the property -- a restoration that seems to have awakened the resident ghosts! Over the course of the last decade-and-a-half, reports have begun to circulate about strange activity at the opera house, from ghostly footsteps to knocking sounds, whispers, voices in the dressing rooms, doors opening and closing, mysterious shadows and even a woman in black.
Is the opera house as haunted as the stories seem to imply?? Find out for yourself during our PRIVATE ghost hunting event!