Haunted Places in Minneapolis: 9 Ghost Stories You Can Visit
A woman in a green coat in the old bus depot, a hanged man on the fifth floor of City Hall, a shadow in a museum period room and an elevator that stops where nobody asked. These are the ghost stories of Minneapolis, with the history behind them.
Minneapolis wears its ghost stories lightly. Its art museum shares its own haunted tour, its Swedish castle runs flashlight tours, and a bed and breakfast keeps a speakeasy named after its ghost. A few stories rest on real tragedies, like the 1878 flour mill explosion and the 1898 hanging inside City Hall, and we have treated those with care. We checked each place against current sources and corrected the details older lists get wrong, such as the claim that Wilbur Foshay jumped from his tower.
Where to look The fifth floor, the old courtrooms and the rotunda
Reported ghosts John Moshik, hanged inside the building in 1898
Visiting A working government building, open on weekdays
Tours A stop on Minneapolis ghost walks
Ghost hunting No ghost hunting; a working courthouse and city hall
Minneapolis City Hall and Hennepin County Courthouse was built between 1888 and 1909 to designs by Long and Kees, with a 345-foot clock tower and a five-story rotunda holding the Father of Waters statue. Rubbing his big toe is said to bring luck. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is open to the public on weekdays.
On March 18, 1898, John Moshik was hanged on the fifth floor for a murder committed during a $14 robbery. It is the only execution ever held inside the building, and accounts say it was badly botched. Night staff have long blamed him for falling pictures, doors that open and close and voices in empty rooms. The author Michael Norman, though, heard the rumors and could not find anyone who had actually met him.
Haunted Rooms tip: Visit on a weekday to see the rotunda and the Father of Waters, and listen for the noon chimes on Fridays in summer.
Where to look The women's restroom (the fifth stall), the Main Room dance floor and the Record Room
Reported ghosts A young woman in a green coat, said to have died in the bus depot
Visiting A working music venue; go inside with a ticket to a show
Tours Venue tours offered by First Avenue
Ghost hunting No public ghost hunts
First Avenue opened in 1937 as the Art Deco Greyhound bus depot for Minneapolis. The buses moved out in 1968, and on April 3, 1970 it reopened as a club called The Depot. It took the name First Avenue at the end of 1981 and became world famous through Prince and Purple Rain. More than 400 stars on its outside walls name the artists who have played here.
Its ghost is a young woman said to have hanged herself in the depot restroom during World War II after learning that her soldier sweetheart had been killed. Staff and concertgoers since the 1980s describe a woman in a green coat in the fifth stall of the women’s room and dancing in the Main Room. No record of such a death at the depot has been published, so treat it as the club’s own legend.
Haunted Rooms tip: See a show in the Main Room, or book one of First Avenue’s behind-the-scenes venue tours.
Where to look The Connecticut Room and the Tudor Room, third-floor period rooms
Reported ghosts A shadowy figure in the Connecticut Room, a child who tugs coats
Visiting Public art museum, free general admission
Tours The museum has shared a self-guided Haunted Mia tour
Ghost hunting No ghost hunting in the galleries
Mia opened in 1915 in the Whittier neighborhood of south Minneapolis, and general admission is always free. On its third floor are period rooms rebuilt from real historic houses, including the Connecticut Room, made from the interior of an 18th-century New Haven home. The museum grew with a major expansion in 1997 and 1998, and staff stories from those years are among its best known.
Staff have told ghost stories about those rooms for decades. Guards describe a dark shadow in the Connecticut Room doorway and bed curtains found closed after they were left open; one guard said he had the impression the figure was female. A former staffer described lights switching on ahead of him in an empty gallery. The museum has shared its own Haunted Mia tour, and a staff researcher calls the Connecticut Room its most haunted.
Haunted Rooms tip: Admission is free: head to the third-floor period rooms and stand in the Connecticut Room doorway.
Where to look Lillian Turnblad's bedroom, the music room and the main stairs
Reported ghosts A woman in a 1970s skirt, a crying baby, a piano with no player
Visiting Museum and cultural center open to visitors
Tours Flashlight tours of the mansion before Halloween in most years
Ghost hunting No public ghost hunts
Swan Turnblad, who came from Sweden as a boy and grew rich publishing a Swedish-language newspaper, built this turreted ‘Swedish castle’ with his wife Christina between 1903 and 1908. In 1929 the family gave the house to found what is now the American Swedish Institute, a museum and cultural center on the National Register. Its turret and carved stonework are why locals call it a castle.
Staff have reported hauntings since 1921. A former chief operating officer told the Star Tribune she saw a woman in a 1970s skirt and cardigan who vanished, and a former CEO and a colleague heard a baby crying in Lillian Turnblad’s old bedroom around 2013. The Twin Cities Paranormal Society recorded a woman’s voice and a slamming door that year. Guides add piano music and sudden cold air.
What investigators report
The Twin Cities Paranormal Society reported capturing audio of a woman’s voice and a door slamming during a 2013 investigation. Staff point to Lillian Turnblad’s former bedroom off the third-floor hallway, where a baby’s cry was heard with no source.
Where to look The elevators and the 30th-floor observation deck
Reported ghosts Wilbur Foshay, a juror's family from his fraud trial
Visiting A working hotel with a public observation deck (elevator fee)
Tours A favorite stop on American Ghost Walks tours
Ghost hunting No public ghost hunts
Utility tycoon Wilbur Foshay opened his tower in 1929, weeks before his utility empire collapsed into receivership. He never lived in the apartment he built for himself. In 1932 he was convicted of fraud and served about three years in Leavenworth before a pardon. Since 2008 the tower has been the W Minneapolis, The Foshay, with a 30th-floor observation deck.
A popular story says Foshay jumped from his tower. He did not: he died of a stroke in Hastings in 1957. Ghost walk guide Linda Lee points instead to Genevieve Clark, the lone holdout on his first jury, who died with her family in 1933. Guests and tour groups describe flickering lights and elevators that stop at floors no one chose.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ride up to the observation deck at dusk for the skyline, then listen for the elevator stories on a Minneapolis ghost walk.
Open to the publicGhost toursOvernight investigations
Address 300 Clifton Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403
Where to look The servant staircase, Gertrude's old room and the basement cistern
Reported ghosts Gertrude, a lady's maid
Visiting A bed and breakfast; tours and ticketed events
Tours End point of the Minneapolis Candlelight Ghost Tour trolley; a ticketed Haunted Basement lounge
Ghost hunting No public ghost hunts
This Loring Park house was built in 1887 and remodeled by architect Edwin Hewitt into a Georgian Revival mansion for Eugene and Merrette Carpenter, who moved in in 1906. Later it was split into apartments and then offices. It joined the National Register in 1977 and is now a privately owned bed and breakfast and event venue.
The house leans into its ghost. Gertrude, the story goes, was Mrs. Carpenter’s maid and drowned in the basement cistern during a 1911 fire while trying to save valuables. Guests describe her humming in her old room, footsteps on the servant stairs and a rocking chair that moves. We could not find a record of the fire or of Gertrude, so treat her as the house legend.
Haunted Rooms tip: Stay the night, or end the Minneapolis Candlelight Ghost Tour trolley here in Gertrude’s Cistern lounge.
Visiting a haunted place by day is one thing. Investigating one after dark is another. On a Haunted Rooms ghost hunt our team takes you through a historic building with professional ghost hunting equipment, runs EVP sessions and vigils, and gives you time to explore on your own. These are the nearest ones we run.
Where to look The ruin courtyard and the Flour Tower
Reported ghosts The 18 men killed in the 1878 explosion
Visiting Minnesota Historical Society museum
Tickets Adults $15; children 5 to 17 $8; tickets sold on site only
Ghost hunting No ghost hunting
When Cadwallader Washburn finished the Washburn A Mill in 1874 it was the largest flour mill in the world. On May 2, 1878, flour dust exploded and leveled it, killing 14 workers instantly; fire killed four more. A new mill opened in 1880 and ran until 1965. A 1991 fire gutted it, and in 2003 the Minnesota Historical Society opened Mill City Museum inside the ruins.
The ghost talk here is gentle. Meet Minneapolis notes that some visitors say they hear booms that echo the explosion and feel the presence of the 18 men who died, most of whom lie in Lakewood Cemetery. Nobody claims a named ghost. It is a place to stand in the open ruin and take in what happened, rather than a ghost hunt.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ride the Flour Tower show, then step out into the open ruin courtyard at dusk.
Reported ghosts No named ghost; a dark past in the pauper's section
Visiting Grounds open by day in season
Hours and season Wednesday to Sunday, 8 AM to 4:30 PM, April 15 to October 15, plus November 11
Ghost hunting No ghost hunting; daytime visits only
Minneapolis’s oldest surviving cemetery began in 1858 as Layman’s Cemetery and was full by 1919. Over half of the roughly 20,000 people buried here were children. It holds pioneers, about 190 veterans from the War of 1812 to World War I, Black Civil War soldiers, the abolitionist William Goodridge and Harry Hayward, hanged after his 1895 conviction for murdering dressmaker Catherine Ging. The city has run it since 1928.
It is less a ghost story than a hard history. Meet Minneapolis points to Section H, the pauper’s section, with a mass grave of bodies used by medical students in the early 1900s and the graves of abandoned infants and unidentified people. Nobody claims a named ghost. Its gates are open in the warm months only, by day.
Haunted Rooms tip: Visit between mid-April and mid-October, Wednesday to Sunday, 8 AM to 4:30 PM; it also opens on Veterans Day.
Address Washington Ave SE over the Mississippi River, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Where to look The covered upper deck at night
Reported ghosts Footsteps on an empty walkway
Visiting A public bridge on the University of Minnesota campus
Ghost hunting Not a place for ghost hunting; please be respectful
This two-deck bridge opened in 1965 to join the East and West Bank campuses of the University of Minnesota. The upper deck carries walkers and cyclists and the lower deck carries cars and, since 2014, the Green Line light rail. It is 1,130 feet long with 70 feet of clearance over the river, it replaced an 1884 bridge that once carried streetcars, and tens of thousands of people cross it every day.
Its reputation comes from real loss: the poet and professor John Berryman died here in 1972, and others have since. Students describe footsteps on the empty walkway late at night. In 2024 the university put up fencing, and new railings, lighting and other safety work followed. Please visit it as a busy campus crossing, not a ghost spot. If you are struggling, call or text 988 any time.
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk it in daylight for the river views from the upper deck, then visit the nearby Mill City Museum.
Please note: the Washington Avenue Bridge appears on many haunted lists because of real deaths there. We include it for completeness and ask readers to treat it with respect. If you are struggling, call or text 988 at any time.
Visited one of these places? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from visitors and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your visit. We read every story before it’s published.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most haunted place in Minneapolis?
First Avenue and Minneapolis City Hall are the most often named, along with the Connecticut Room at Mia and the Turnblad Mansion at the American Swedish Institute.
Was someone really hanged in Minneapolis City Hall?
Yes. John Moshik was hanged on the fifth floor on March 18, 1898, the only execution ever held in the building.
Did Wilbur Foshay jump from the Foshay Tower?
No. He served time for fraud, was pardoned, and died of a stroke in Hastings in 1957.
Is there a ghost tour in Minneapolis?
Yes. American Ghost Walks runs Minneapolis ghost walks and bus tours, and a Candlelight Ghost Tour trolley ends at 300 Clifton. Mia has shared a self-guided Haunted Mia tour, and the American Swedish Institute runs flashlight tours before Halloween.
Is the First Avenue ghost real?
Staff and concertgoers have described a woman in a green coat since the 1980s, but no record of a death in the old bus depot restroom has been published.
Sources and how we research
Every place in this guide is checked against its official website, historic register listings and news coverage, and we confirm whether it is open, closed, private or gone before we list it. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and local historians tell them; we say so where records contradict a story. Each place shows how many independent sources we checked it against; our own Haunted Rooms pages are not counted.
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About the authors
The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every place in our guides using official sites, historic registers, local archives and news coverage, and we report ghost stories as the stories they are. We review each guide regularly so you are not sent to a place that has closed, changed hands or banned visitors. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
