Cincinnati Haunted Handbook

INTRODUCTION My greatest two interests are the paranormal and history. I've placed these two fields of interest in this particular order because, essentially, this is the order that they struck my own interest. In 2005, I lived very near a road in Cincinnati that was reputed to be quite haunted. I can't explain with any great amount of detail why this excited me so much beyond the fact that it seemed to be something completely unexplored in my own mind. Ghosts had been only entities from horror movies and television shows. The fact that there was supposedly some real paranormal entity, not just within driving distance but within walking distance from my house was very exciting. I probably drove down that road hundreds of times hoping to experience something paranormal. Though I never did, I wasn't dissuaded from going back again. It did not matter that I had not seen anything. Other people had seen things, and so the possibility was there that I could. As my interest in this road grew, I slowly began to learn that there were many haunted places like it all over the city. My brother Michael and I would often go on little paranormal road trips all throughout the night, visiting these haunted locations in hopes of somehow running into a ghost ourselves. As we explored throughout the city, we became more and more interested in the ghost stories themselves. The ghost stories were great, and the possibility that there was really a ghost at these places was exciting, but we decided that we would look deeper into the stories themselves. We wanted to see if there was any truth behind the stories--not so much in the ghosts themselves but through the history of what really happened at these locations and the reasons behind the belief that these places were haunted. This is how my interest in history was born. As my brother and I started to uncover the history of these haunted locations, the history of the city itself came to life for us. So I guess I owe the ghosts of Cincinnati for teaching me so much about this city's history. The ghost stories and the histories of these locations make up a major part of this book. The ghost stories are more interesting with a historical background, and the reason that any of these locations are in this book to begin with is that they are haunted. That being said, this book also contains a couple of other facets that I have not seen in other ghost books--guidelines to help readers find and visit these locations. When my brother and I were exploring the city in search of these haunted locations, we would have been thrilled to have a manual such as this to guide us. I cannot even estimate the number of hours we spent looking fruitlessly for a location. For those readers who are not gifted at following directions but who have a GPS unit, we have also included the address of the haunted location. The other section in each chapter details how to visit these haunted locations. My brother and I had to learn the hard way which locations closed after dark and which ones the police frequented at night. This section in each chapter tells you the best way to visit these locations and gives you what we feel is the best chance of actually encountering one of these spirits. Perhaps my personal favorite aspect of this book is the daunting number of locations in the book--one hundred!--that are close to any reader who lives near Greater Cincinnati. That area is large enough to encompass numerous haunted locations (and their fascinating stories) but is also small enough to let you visit any of the places. Some of them you no doubt know well already. We did our best to ensure that no two locations in the book were more than an hour apart. Our goal was to create the quintessential handbook for hunting ghosts in the Greater Cincinnati area--for serious hunters as well as for armchair fans more interested in learning the stories than in visiting the places. Enjoy.