ALTON - This Saturday, August 27th, join author Troy Taylor for the official release of the new, updated, and revised version of his classic book 'HAUNTED ALTON.' The original book came out on December 1st, 1999.
Mineral Springs Haunted Tours located at 301 E Broadway, Alton, IL 62002 will host Taylor's book release and signing from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
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According to his bio found on Audible, he is a supernatural historian, murder buff, and the author of almost 90 books on ghosts, hauntings, history, crime, and the unexplained in America.
[VIDEO:Ghost Tours Reflect on Alton's Haunted History]
Troy is also the founder of the American Hauntings Ghost Tour Company. Some of those tours are located in Chicago, Springfield, and right here in Alton. To find out more information or to book a tour visit the website here.
You can also check out his Facebook page with more than 30,000 followers here.
Troy describes Alton as “such a great town.”
“Alton is a fun place to go back and dig up stories that people have never heard before,” he said. "I like to correct myself if I have been telling a story wrong for years and have the wrong information. I am the first guy to admit I didn't know what I was talking about. Especially in Alton, people will often tell a story and think they are telling a true story or something that happened to them but they couldn't explain. Mineral Springs Hotel is one of the most notorious places for that.
“We hear so many stories from Mineral Springs Hotel only to find out that some of the stories were made up in the 1970s because it was a wonderful story. For instance, in the old hotel bar, it was thought for years it was haunted by an artist, but a guy did die in the bar and committed suicide in one of the booths.
[ALSO:The Ghosts of Alton, Part 1: Mineral Springs Mall]
"No one knew about that suicide death in 1970. I dug up records that told it. That happened to me quite a bit working on the new addition of the book, digging up more and more material.”
There is a lot that has been said about Milton Cemetery in Downtown Broadway,” Taylor said.
“The Milton Cemetery is off the road heading toward East Alton on the left-hand side of the road. There isn't much about it, there aren’t any fancy monuments there, but in the late 1800s it was a tourist attraction in town and there were so many people according to newspaper stories ghosts were seeing a big looming black figure in a robe roaming in the cemetery at night. The local newspaper called it a “super-natural sensation. There is a lot of interest in stuff like that.
“The McPike Mansion and Henry McPike draw a lot of interest. The Alton Glassworks and Miller’s Insurance Building and the Sparks House have haunted stories. David Sparks started Con Agra now Ardent Mills. At one time his ghost showed up at different places in Alton and at one time his house was haunted.”
Taylor said he had a lot of fun digging up new things in the new book release.
He said Haunted Alton provides a big tourism boost to the community.
"I want people to come back and we get people from literally all over the country who come to Alton just because of the ghosts,” Taylor said. I like to bring people to see the town and community. This is such a cool little place."
Taylor appeared on Our Daily Show this week:
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