Graceland Cemetery Walking Tour with author Adam Selzer

Historically, most of the biggest, most impressive monuments in American cemeteries have been built by brewers, lumber merchants, steel barons, and real estate moguls. But there are far more stories at Graceland than just those movers and shakers. Some of those industrialists had daughters who set the city on fire with their scandalous lives and ideas. Scattered around Graceland are underground railroad workers, people who escaped slavery, party animals, daring criminals, members of the early LGBTQ community, artists, flappers, radicals, and many more. Some of the most incredible stories are in unmarked graves, and new mysteries are uncovered every day!

Adam Selzer is the author of Mysterious Chicago, HH: Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil, and many other Chicago history books, including out now from University of Illinois Press. His virtual tours continue to log thousands of viewers per week, and he's a regular on The History Channel, Netflix, WTTW, WCTP, and more. In his Graceland research, he attempts to find out not just what people owned, but what they were like, and how they interected with each other and with history.

Each tour is a little different, though almost all of our Graceland routes include the famous "Inez" and "Eternal Silence" statues.

Praise for Adam's Graceland Book:

"Tantalizing... A prolific and stylish writer, tireless tour guide, and passionate researcher." - Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune

"A truth-seeking research glutton....(the book is) an adept melding of the tours, the research, and the writing." - Chicago Reader

"Emblematic of...hipster tour guides. Selzer goes beyond mere trivia. He turns up fascinating individual stories of cemetery residents without leaning too heavily on the big names." - Third Coast Reviews

What You Need to Know:

- Meet a bit before 11:30am inside the gates. We'll be at the newly renovated main entrance at Clark and Irving Park! Look for Adam with the white glasses and headset mic.

• There is limited parking in the cemetery, and more in the nieghborhoods nearby. Parking along Clark Street is harder now, as they've changed it to a bike path. There's easier parking on Clark a bit south of the cemetery, or on the west side of Clark.
• There seems to be little danger of October basebell at Wrigley this year, so Cubs traffic shouldn't be an issue.
• This is a cemetery in late October, so there will be other groups. We probably won't have a rumble.

- Tour runs rain or shine!

- The cemetery is near the red line (get off at Sheridan or Addison and it's a few blocks), the 22 Clark bus, and the Irving Park bus.

- The walk covers about 1.5 miles over the course of 75-90 min. Some of the walking veers off the paved paths. You'll get about 3k steps!

Host or Publisher Mysterious Chicago / Astonishing Chicago