What Was The Chicago Murder Castle?
The Chicago Murder Castle was back in 1893 when Chicago was preparing to host the World Fair. It was a hotel that a man named Herman Mudgett but now known as H.H Holmes, designed and he called it ¨The Castle¨. This hotel was a place where Holmes killed hundreds of people and was named Americans first serial killer.
How Was The Hotel Designed?
The hotel was designed with many trap door, dead ends, narrow corridors, rooms were scattered among oddly angled, poor lighting, with widely spaced gas jet on the walls, stairways that lead nowhere, hidden closets with sliding panes locked doors that Holmes only had the key to, and a large greased shafted that lead straight down to a cellar. It also was designed with three floors: the basement/cellar, the main floor, and the second floor.
What Was On The Second Floor?
The second floor was confusing it had 51 doors, six hallways, 35 bedchambers, but some were airtight and lined with asbestos coated steel plates or soundproof. Some of them had low ceilings and were no bigger than closets. Most of the rooms were rigged with gas pipes. Many had alarms that would sound if the guest tried to escape. It also contained trapdoor, secret passageways, hidden closets with sliding panes, and a shaft that lead straight down to the cellar.
What Was On The Main Floor?
The main floor was open to the public. It was nice and there was a counter where people would check-in and get keys to their rooms. It had bathrooms. It had chairs and tables. It also had the front door of the hotel on that level.
What Was In The Basement/Cellar?
The basement/cellar was bricked lined and dark it was like a dungeon. What happened down there was terror. He kept many things down there like acid tanks, quicklime vats, dissecting tables and surgeon cabinets and Holmes own invention at would stretch to twice their normal height. When the police found this they compared it to medieval torture racks.
How Many Victims Did He Have And How Did He Get Them?
Holmes claimed that he murdered 28 people but, the believed number of victims that he had was as many as 200 people. He had two ways that he used to lure people to the hotel the first one was lodging to world tourists. The second one was that he would place adds in the town’s newspapers, that said that he was offering jobs to young women or offering himself for marriage. With the World Fair and unsophisticated police procedure missing people were barely investigated. When it was investigated the police found a human-size kiln that heated up to 3000 degrees Fahrenheit and they found a wooden box containing several female skeletons.
How Did It End?
Holmes was arrested twice in 1894 for insurance fraud. Frank P. Geyer was the investigator of Philadelphia. He slowly started to uncover Holmes disturbing crimes. That lead to the Chicago Police investigation. They quickly learned what Holmes was doing. His trial was then held in Philadelphia just before Halloween in 1895. The trial lasted six days in length. Holmes stated in the trial.
¨I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing ¨.
Many people throughout the country and in Chicago were horrified that Holmes confessed to how he torture and murder people. Holmes even after he talked to two Catholic priests, and Holmes still refused to ask for forgiveness. Holmes was hanged May 7, 1896, nine days before his thirty-sixth birthday. After Holmes was hanged his heart continued to beat for fifteen minutes before stopping.
Two weeks after Holmes was hanged, a man by the name of A.M. Clark bought the Castle. He reopened it as a tourist attraction. But, on Aug. 19 at 12:13 a.m. a railroad night watchmen saw that the Castle roof was up in flames. Seconds later, an explosion blew out the first-floor windows.
The fire was out of control by the time help arrived and the Castle. Ninety minutes after the fire was reported the roof collapsed. They were able to save the first floor which served as a sign shop and book store until it was sold in 1937 and the building was wiped away to make room for a U.S post office which still stands there today.
Holmes legacy did not die with him though. Years after Holmes died the people who had dealings with Holmes came to strange and violent endings.
The last one to die died two full decades after the death of Holmes. It was Pat Quinlan the Castle caretaker. He committed suicide on March 7, 1914. The day after Pat’s death the headlines read ¨HOLMES CASTLE SECRET DIES.¨ Relatives claim that the months before Pat committed suicide he seemed to be haunted and could not sleep.
