Screen capture, 13 Creepy Pittsburgh Ghost Stories, www.pittsburghbeautiful.com

While researching organized crime in Pittsburgh I stumbled upon a colossal haunted house story. My work documenting the history of a Pittsburgh family with two generations of bootleggers and numbers racketeers inadvertently led me to 1129 Ridge Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Northside neighborhood. The family I am researching was associated with the family that owned 1129 Ridge Avenue for more than 30 years.

By the last decades of the twentieth century, stories attached to the property had earned 1129 Ridge Avenue the dubious title, “America’s most haunted house.” This post, which began as an article for a community newspaper, documents how a modest 1880s home became fodder for decades of contemporary legends. Continue reading →