Groundbreaking was started in 1901 and finished in 1902 on a house that was slated to be one of the most opulent and astounding houses in the city of Decatur, IL. Little did the owners know at the time they were building on top of a burial ground. Workers were said to have removed bone fragments and even whole skulls during the excavation process for the basement and foundation levels. Most reports say that workers relocated the skulls to the edge of the property and buried them in a pile, and a few may have been taken home with some of the workers for souvenirs.
Shortly after the Culver family moved into the house, they reported a strange number of occurrences. Many of the family members, especially Mrs. Culver started to experience night terrors as soon as they moved into the house. She reported many of them had to do with strange bi-pedal creatures sitting on the foot of her bed watching them as they sleep.
One occurrence happened about a year after they moved into the house, the family said that "something" came down the chimney and ran across the dining room as the family was having dinner and jumped out of the window. Mr. Culver later said it could easily have been a bird or a raccoon, but his wife and kids were all in agreement that it ran of two legs and was black in color. One of the Culver children told their children that one night they awoke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and there was a solid black figure standing in the hallway swaying back and forth. The said they quickly ran back to their room and hid under the blankets.
After Mr. Culver died in 1943, the family lived in the house for 7 more years before selling the house to a developer who turned the house into some apartments. After the building was converted to apartments one of the tenants, Jacob Thomson said that one night after coming home early in the morning he encountered a strange man in the hallway who would not talk and was standing there swaying slightly like he was inebriated. Two other tenants, Jessica Hartstripe and Denise Miller, both said they woke up in the evening to find a solid black figure of a man standing at the foot of their bed, swaying "like the branches in a tree". Denise said this happened three times before she decided to move out of the building. One other tenant whom I managed to interview but they wished to remain anonymous said they would hear footsteps up and down the hall at all hours of the night, but when they would open their door to see who it was, the hall would always be empty.
At least two people have died in the home after the Culver family moved out in 1950. A suicide in 1966 in which a woman hung herself out of the window in the tower, and a brutal murder of a woman by her own boyfriend in 1988, after which the building was declared unfit for habitation and boarded up.
The man who built the house, Mr. Culver died in 1943 an old man. After his death people who would walk by the house reported seeing a strange glowing figure in the window of the tower, where the library is. Many said he resembled Mr. Culver.
In the years since, residents of the neighborhood have reported to see strange lights and figures in the house, and 27 police reports have been filed stating as such. The house is in the process of being "restored" and has been now for several years. A few people who have done work on the house have said they have heard footsteps in the upstairs hallways but never found anything upon investigation. One man even reported saying he saw the swaying figure standing in the hallway on one occasion.
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