Tragedy and Terror in Chicago, Part One | Grave Talks CLASSIC
The Grave Talks | Haunted, Paranormal & Supernatural
Ghost Stores, Haunted, Paranormal & Supernatural Stories
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join us for another haunting exploration of Chicago’s dark past with Tony Szabelski, a dedicated tour guide for Chicago Hauntings and long-time paranormal investigator. In this classic episode of The Grave Talks, Tony unravels the heartbreaking tragedy of the Iroquois Theater—the site of one of America’s deadliest theater fires—and shares the lingering spirits rumored to roam its halls. We then venture into the eerie corridors of the Congress Plaza Hotel, widely considered Chicago’s most haunted hotel, where guests and staff alike have encountered inexplicable events. Brace yourself for chilling stories and hidden history from the depths of The Windy City.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on The Grave Talks, a conversation with Chicago paranormal investigator, Tony Zabelski. |
| 0:09.1 | Tony is a longtime Chicago paranormal investigator. He's worked with several paranormal groups in the area and loves sharing the haunted history of the city. |
| 0:19.5 | He also hosted the Chicago hauntings video series for CBS Chicago. |
| 0:25.9 | I'm Carol Hughes, in for Tony Brewski, |
| 0:28.7 | and on this episode of the Grave Talks, |
| 0:30.9 | we're going to talk about some of the windy city's most haunted locations |
| 0:34.9 | with Chicago hauntings tour guide, Tony Zabelski. |
| 0:40.8 | Tony, I would love to start with the Iroquois theater because on December 30th, 1903, |
| 0:47.3 | it had only been open for a few weeks. |
| 0:49.9 | They had a fire, a huge fire. |
| 0:52.5 | The theater had been advertised as absolutely fireproof. |
| 0:56.8 | Obviously, that wasn't the case. |
| 1:00.0 | The real claim was that it had this theater-length fireproof curtain, |
| 1:05.8 | which theoretically, if like a fire broke out in the theater, |
| 1:10.0 | the curtain would have divided the theater in half if it came down, hung from the ceiling initially. |
| 1:16.8 | And then because it was fireproof, the belief was that the fire would have just been contained on one side of the curtain. |
| 1:24.2 | It wouldn't have spread to the other. |
| 1:25.8 | So that would have made it easier to put it out. |
| 1:28.5 | So those are the reasons why they were saying this theater was fireproof. And the fireproof |
| 1:32.5 | curtain, by the way, was made of wood pulp and asbestos. That was the combination they used to make |
| 1:39.0 | that. So yeah. Getting the theater open on time, it really was not ready to be opened on November 23rd. |
| 1:48.2 | The building was still far off from being completely constructed. |
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