Horstman's

 Horstman's Cleaners will hold its official grand re-opening next Thursday at Noon. I do rather wonder why the  After Hours event is held in Murphysboro.

Haunted Southern Illinois Dug Hill

 Heading west from Jonesboro on Highway 146, the driver follows the approximate route of the Trail of Tears, passing a sign commemorating the route about 3 miles from the city. Another two miles and the driver sees a low hill rising out of the Mississippi bottoms. Another 30 seconds and the car drops back into the bottomlands on the other side, never realizing they have passed through what was once a major trade route for the region and one of the most haunted spots in southern Illinois:  Dug Hill.

Although no one is quite sure, it is likely Dug Hill received its name from the original road dug through it by the early settlers, allowing them easier trade access to the Mississippi River. The original roadbed is still visible, though not drivable, by travelling about 50 yards north on a gravel road named Dug Hill Road, which runs parallel to the hill but has naught to do with the stories.

The original hauntings date back to the time of the Civil War and a provost marshal named Welch, whose first name is lost to history but who captured Union deserters and turned them over to the Army for the bounty paid for them. He was so successful at this that  Southern sympathizers lured him to Dug Hill with a report of a group of deserters hiding there. According to Carl Stanton's book They Called it Treason, Welch was murdered on April 15, 1863 while hunting for them on the hill.

For years after that travellers along the road reported hearing the sound of a man moaning in agony but a search found no one there. At least one driver reported seen a body lying in the road ahead of his wagon, but when he stopped to offer assistance, the body vanished.

 

The "boger" another of the Dug Hill haunts, has been variously described as a extremely tall man dressed in black  or a large black dog, both of which would follow the traveller who would naturally speed up his horse but to no avail as the boger would easily keep pace, vanishing when the rider reached the base of Dug Hill.

Reports of both haunts have vanished with time and those living in the area say they have never heard or seen anything but that could be due to Highway 146 running parallel to the haunted area rather than through it. Or maybe cars just move too fast today for a boger to keep pace.

Chicken

 Carbondale is getting a new chicken restaurant/take out place.  Remodeling is going on in the empty location between Subway and Domino's in the Grand Avenue Mall. No idea when opening will take place,

Mayoral Objections

 Mayoral Candidate Jarius Harvey filed objections against the other 4 candidates for mayor.  His petition states the reason he is seeking their disqualification is that they failed to use their legal names when filing their nomination paperwork. I think he got the idea from President Trump who is seeking to remove Rep. Ilian Omar from her House seat by claiming she did not use her legal name when filing to run for office.  I 

Dump

 Had a friend who was dropping off donations to the Thrift Store on North Illinois refer to that section of town as a "dump". They are right as that section of Carbondale is not that attractive once you get north of Jackson. That section is a complex of light industrial buildings with several abandoned and going to seed. The only really attractive location is the Payne Accounting building, which has nice landscaping around it. I doubt anyone will ever move into the long shuttered Tesa Tuck building and the DAG Transmission building either so they will just sit there and further deteriorate. Driving into Carbondale from the North is just not attractive.

Haunted Carbondale Rain House

 Rain House stood at the northwest corner of West Oak and N. Poplar and, until it was razed a few years ago was, after Hundley House, the site of the most notorious murder in Carbondale's history, though today few people have heard of it.

 During spring break in 1982, most of SIUC decamped for the week including SIUC marketing professor Sion Raveed. However, unlike the rest of campus, Raveed did not return to campus. On March 9th the campus and community found out why.  His body  was found stuffed into a laundry bag in the basement of Rain House, dead from multiple stab wounds to his chest. Since prior to his time at SIUC Raveed had worked in international finance, his experience in the field a major reason for his recruitment to the department, and some of the activities he had been involved in were questionable to say the least, investigators thought maybe his past had caught up with him and not only the local police but representatives of the State Police, FBE and SEC visits, although what they sought was never made public.

However, the truth, when it came out, was much more prosaic. Raveed owned several rental properties in town and, sometime during spring break, he and his property manager had an argument that ended with the manager knifing Raveed multiple times, hiding the body in a laundry bag in the Rain House basement and fleeing to Canada, from where he was later extradited and convicted of manslaughter.

For a number of years afterwards, tenants in Rain House reported hearing voices, footsteps, electrical powered items turning on and off, cold spots, items moving by themselves and the smell of something dead or rotting. For a number of years after the murder, Rain House would rent then a short time after a "For Rent" sign would again appear in the window and its demolition means no other renters will encounter the uneasy spirit of Sion Raveed.

Halloween

 There was a lot of foot traffic downtown both Friday and Saturday night. Fraterinties or someone had gotten permission to close off West College for a street party and people were walking around in costume Saturday afternoon for a Halloween pub crawl to most of the bars on the strip as well as Oakland Station in the old fire station on S. Oakland. S. Glenview closed for Trick or treating and a broke water main on Chautaqua made driving out in that area to get home pretty tricky.

Apparently drunks were sleeping under some of the Road closed signs in the area as well.