Events

Night at the Old Funeral Home
Jacksonville Theatre Guild
210 West College Avenue - Jacksonville, Illinois
May 12, 2012 -- 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.

Join American Hauntings and Haunted Jacksonville tour host Loren Hamilton for an exclusive ghost hunt at the former Williamson Funeral Home, now home to the Jacksonville Theatre Guild. The building was first known as the Proffit Boarding House in the early 1900s and played host to scores of touring actors and actresses who performed at the nearby Strawn Opera House on Jacksonville's downtown square.  For 55 years, it then served as the Williamson Funeral Home, where thousands of people were prepared for death and where mourning families may have left remnants of their grief behind. In 1999, the Jacksonville Theatre Guild took over the buildings and not long after, reports of a haunting began to surface. Who are the ghosts who linger here? No one can say if they are the spirits of those who made their last earthly appearance here in the viewing rooms of the funeral home, grieving family members who refused to let go, or perhaps even the spirits of performers long past, still hoping to put on a show! Strange happenings have included ghostly voices, slamming doors, moving objects and even a woman in white, wearing a dress from the vaudeville era!