McPike Mansion

The story

Alton lies in the Metro-East part of greater St. Louis, and McPike Mansion stands on one of the town's highest points. The rise was known as Mount Lookout, and the house itself sometimes goes by that name. Work on it started in 1869 and ran into 1871, to plans by the architect Lucas Pfeiffenberger. The result was a sixteen-room house, now catalogued under both Italianate and Second Empire architecture, set on a fifteen-acre lot with a vaulted wine cellar beneath it.

Its builder, Henry Guest McPike (1825-1910), was a man of many parts. He was twice mayor of Alton and made his money in real estate and box manufacturing. He was also a serious grower of grapes: in 1869, the year construction began, his Rulander wine grapes were judged among the finest at a Mississippi Valley Grape Growers' Association exhibition and his Diana grapes took the top place. In the late 1880s he acted as librarian of the Alton-Southern Illinois Horticultural Society. A short illness ended his life in 1910, inside the house he had built.

The next long chapter belongs to a man named Paul, who bought the property in either 1925 or 1936 (accounts differ) and let rooms to lodgers, running it as a boarding house. He lived there until his death, dated to 1945 by some sources and 1951 by others. At some point the building also housed Brown's Business College.

After about 1950 the mansion emptied out. It was eventually condemned, and for roughly forty years it decayed. A plan to tear it down and put a shopping center on the land collapsed over zoning. Meanwhile scavengers stripped it of whatever could be carried off, from furniture and wooden banisters down to the toilets. Even its listing on the National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 1980 did not stop the decline.

In 1994 the house sold at auction to a couple who hoped to turn it into a hotel. Despite what they say they were told at the sale, no federal, state or local agency granted them restoration money. They began repairs anyway, paying for them with donations and ticketed tours, and in 2017 the Alton Historical Commission gave them a preservation award for work on the front porch and the conservatory. Stories that the house was a stop on the Underground Railroad circulate, but they remain speculation.

The legend

Almost everything said about the ghosts of McPike Mansion comes from two sources: the current owner, and the medium who works the house's tours. That is worth keeping in mind. These are identifications offered by people who also sell tickets, not findings from archives, and no dated first report of a haunting has turned up. What is clear is that the reputation grew in two stages: during the four decades the empty house sat rotting on its hill, and then after the 1994 purchase, when tours began funding the restoration. Wikipedia's short summary is that the owner considers the house haunted by one earlier owner and by a woman who once worked there as a servant. In interviews, though, the owner has put the number of resident spirits at around a dozen.

The most prominent is Henry McPike himself, who died in the house. The owner points to a photograph taken at a cellar door, showing a dark shadow, and says it is him. His wife also appears in the stories, but even her name is unsettled: one account calls her Mary, a shy first wife who loved children, while another calls her Eleanor. A St. Louis Magazine piece adds further family members. Lydia, Henry's mother, is cast as the matriarch who likes to be greeted properly in the front hall; James, his son, is mentioned; and James's wife Jenny is the joker of the group, said to tug at hair or brush visitors' ears. These figures each rest on that single article.

Then there is Sarah, probably the servant Wikipedia refers to. Here too the accounts split. One describes her as a personal attendant to the McPike family; the regional tourism office instead describes a young girl whose presence comes with the scent of lilac perfume.

Paul, the boarding-house owner, is linked to sudden whiffs of strong cigarette smoke. The owner has described glimpsing a man who stared at her from a window, then later recognizing him in a photograph of Paul. Other figures mentioned include a long-haired woman in a green dress on the stairs and a group of children, said to be either McPike children or at least three youngsters who lived on the site before the McPikes.

Visitors' reports follow familiar lines. Many involve photographs: orbs, balls of light, mists, shadowy shapes and faces in the windows. Others describe children laughing, footsteps, doors scraping, objects shifting and the feeling of being touched. The vaulted wine cellar is billed as the most active room.

Television has helped spread the name. Ghost Adventures devoted a 2019 Travel Channel special titled "McPike Mansion" to the house, reportedly as part of a two-part "Curse of the River Bend" event. Wikipedia also lists appearances on Scariest Places on Earth, on Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files (season 1, episode 7) and on Ghost Lab, though those have not been confirmed elsewhere. No historian or skeptic is known to have published a detailed rebuttal, but the contradictions between sources on names and roles show how loosely these stories hold together.

What remains today

The mansion survives and is slowly being brought back from near ruin. It is a National Register property, and recent work has focused on visible elements such as the front porch and the conservatory, which earned the owners a local preservation award in 2017. Inside, years of looting took most original fittings, so the house is very much a work in progress. The grounds include a McPike family crypt, and the vaulted wine cellar remains the centerpiece of tours. Restoration continues to depend on tour income and donations rather than public grants.

Visiting

McPike Mansion is private property and is not open daily. You can only go inside on a scheduled guided event, sold through the mansion's own website, with most dates falling in autumn. A typical tour lasts about an hour and a half: a walk around the grounds and the McPike crypt, followed by a session in the darkened wine cellar led by the house medium. Overnight camping events are also offered on certain dates. Outside those events, do not enter the grounds; look at the house from the public street.

Alton itself has been called one of the most haunted towns in the U.S. Walking ghost tours run by Alton Hauntings, the company associated with author Troy Taylor, cover the area and are a good way to place the mansion in its wider local folklore. Remember that the restoration is funded by visitors, so treat the fragile interior with care and follow your guide's instructions.

Sources

1. National Register nomination #80001389 (texte intégral) — U.S. National Park Service · Public record
2. National Register of Historic Places file (NRHP #80001389) — U.S. National Park Service · Public domain (U.S. government)
3. Wikimedia Commons category : McPike Mansion — Wikimedia Commons
4. USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Alton, IL 1927 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1927 · Public domain (USGS)
5. USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Alton, IL 1955 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1955 · Public domain (USGS)
6. "Alton, one of the most haunted towns in the U.S." — Spectrum News St. Louis (30 Oct 2023). — Spectrum News St. Louis (30 Oct 2023).
7. "The McPike Mansion" — Great Rivers & Routes (Alton regional tourism office). — Great Rivers & Routes (Alton regional tourism office).
8. "Whose ghosts supposedly haunt McPike Mansion in Alton?" — St. Louis Magazine (1 Oct 2022). — St. Louis Magazine (1 Oct 2022).
9. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.