Peoria Historical Society offers many different trolley tours through many months. However with the Halloween spirit already among us, the society offers Haunted Peoria trolley tours and also walking tours.
Peoria’s Haunted Peoria trolley tour not losing steam
The Peoria Historical Society has multiple trolley tours of Peoria, however one the newer tours has taken off. The Haunted Peoria takes its riders around Peoria to tell stories of the darker side of the city, with stories of death and claims of sightings.
“The haunted tour take you around Peoria with a focus on the stories of hauntings in various locations,” Marilyn Leyland, Peoria Historical Society volunteer and past president said. “It is based on a book by Stephanie McCarthy originally called Haunted Peoria, but reissued with the title Peoria’s Haunted Memories.”
The tour runs every Saturday until the end of October, with the trolleys leaving at 1 p.m. in front of Kelleher’s Irish Pub, and lasts an hour and a half.
A volunteer of the Peoria Historical Society, Carin Caras, had traveled to Savannah Georgia, and was impressed by how much the trolley tour cost and how full the tours were. Caras also aware that McCarthy was writing the book at the time. As a result Caras pitched the idea to the Peoria Historical Society, and the idea was improved.
The trolley tours tell not only a few stories from the McCarthy’s book, but also stories from the public.
The trolley first ran in October 2011, and was sold out. The next year the it ran in September and October, and were sold out. This year, the it has been running since July and will conclude at the end of October. This year the ticket sales have been going very well in September and October.
The guides have to change their script each year, due to buildings being torn down, buildings being used for different purposes and new stories appearing. Additionally, tour guides know more about each location than what is being told during the tours, and the guides also do specialized tours.
The Peoria public has been very attached not only to this tour, but all the tours the Peoria Historical Society offers according to Leyland. With the many generations, children that are home schooled, senior citizens and the Red Hat groups taking different tours. In addition, families with out of town visitors take these tours to show off Peoria.
However with all these different groups taking tours, Bradley University students have not been attracted to any tours, and the Peoria Historical Society thinks the students would enjoy not only the Haunted Peoria tour, but all the other ones offered.
“Bradley students would find it interesting since parts of it goes through campus,” Leyland said. “I think they would find it interesting because, specifically because, it goes through campus. And tells two different stories, or at least that’s what we’ve had time for. One with Constance Hall named for Miss Jenny Constance, who was brutally murdered in Chicago. But does her spirit still haunt that hall?
“And over in one of the men’s dorms there was a student who was killed coming back from one of the bars. Died over in Bradley Park. Why does the elevator stop at this floor when I press this floor? It stops at the floor where he lived. He never made it home.”
The Haunted Peoria trolley tours do offer a new view of the town. With its popularity still very high, it is a popular trip for anyone.
A closer look into the walking tours
If you cannot make it to the trolley tour, the Peoria Historical Society offers free walking tours, with online maps and a podcast; which both are provided by the society for free. Included is a Google Map to show specific points of the walking tour, and a brief amount of history provide by the Peoria Historical Society.