Haunted Mine Tours – A Thrilling Lantern Tour of Creepy Local History to be Held on Saturday, October 26th

Our region is replete with 19th-century ghost stories, many of them passed down by the rowdy, tough, dangerous men whose job it was to mine lead – immigrants from Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall, from Germany and the American South. What more fitting place to experience the spine-tingling chills of ghost stories than 45 feet underground in a real 1845 lead mine at The Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums? The Museums continue the annual tradition of Haunted Mine Tours this fall on Saturday, October 26th, from 6-9 p.m.

One ghost story follows a disappearance of a secretive miner in Platteville. Another follows a gruesome hanging in Mineral Point. Yet another stems from a baseball gone awry in Linden. Aside from the physical exertion and the risk of ruining your body, mining offered many opportunities for a fast death: Falls down mine shafts, crushing cave-ins, and the risk of being blown to bits by explosives. One story retells a mine cave-in in Shullsburg that left 15 fatherless.

When the Cornish miners came to America in the 1830s to dig the grey gold, they brought with them their belief in the tommyknocker. These small dwarf-like creatures worked in the mines, tapping away and making strange noises deep in the rocks. They were often heard, but rarely seen. One unlucky miner named Eddie became a target of the Tommyknockers. They drove him crazy, pelting him with stones, stealing his tools, and blowing out his lantern. He couldn't figure out why the Tommyknockers had singled him out until one day he heard a voice calling to him from the dark opening of a nearby shaft. “Eddie, I want my five dollars!”

Besides hearing these stories and others by candle-light on a guided lantern tour underground, visitors can learn their fortune and play Victorian Halloween parlor games above ground at The Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums. The clean-cut friendly ghosts are members of the UW-Platteville Sigma Pi fraternity. We dare you to try out Platteville’s most popular underground Halloween event!

The ticket price for Haunted Mine Tours are: Adults $10, Seniors $8.50, and Children 5-17 $5. Tickets sell out fast, so book your Haunted Mine Tour now by visiting www.mining.jamison.museum or calling (608) 348- 3301. Find the Museums on Facebook and Instagram. If you’d be interested in being part of the event behind-the-scenes, give us a call to join our team of talented volunteers.