In 1889, Herman W. Mudgett built a hotel in Chicago in anticipation of the huge tourist boom that was expected with the upcoming 1893 World’s Fair. Except this wasn’t a normal hotel at all, it was a weird mystery fun house, with trapdoors, hidden stairways and surprise chutes to the basement.
Herman W. Mudgett was the real name of H.H. Holmes, America’s first ‘famous’ serial killer, who used the upper floors of his hotel to torture and kill hundreds of people – most of whom were women.
Holmes built sound-proof rooms in which his victims would die of starvation and thirst. He had built rooms with gas pipes that let him asphyxiate his victims. Some of his victims were
dissected, stripped of flesh, crafted into skeleton models and then sold to medical schools. He would also require some of his workers (who were also to become his victims) to take out life insurance which he was the beneficiary to.
Holmes was eventually caught and confessed to the crimes. The Murder Castle burned down shortly after Holmes’ capture and a post office was built on the site in 1938. It still stands today and is almost certainly haunted.
Here is a drawing of the Murder Castle by Holly Corden. It gives you a good idea of what the inside looked like.
Random Toughts 