Alton Update 1

As promised here is the update on the tours and investigation from this year’s trip to Alton. This past weekend I gave this website out to many people I met on the tours so they could see the pictures. For those of you who are new to the page, you will find a collection of past writings on the right side of this page broken into categories. The paranormal writings are between the Political Essays and Funny Stuff.

Since so much happened I want to break the weekend into a few different posts. This first one I want to focus on the remains of the old confederate Prison, The Confederate Cemetery and Sunflower Island.

The History

The Alton prison was originally opened in 1833 as the first Illinois state penitentiary. It remained in service until 1860 when a new facility was built in Joliet on February 9, 1862. The vacant structure re opened as the Alton federal military prison. During the next three years at least 11,764 Confederate soldiers were held in this facility.

By all objective accounts, conditions in the prison were substandard. The mortality rate was high. Hot humid summers and cold damp winters undoubtedly contributed to the high death rate. Overcrowding, inadequate food and clothing and unsanitary conditions further compounded the prisoners misery. Pneumonia and dysentery were common killers bur contagious diseases like smallpox and rubella were the most feared. The smallpox epidemic that began in late 1862 ultimately prompted prison officials to transfer contagious prisoners to a temporary facility a safe distance from civilian residents of Alton. This facility was called Sunflower Island.

In addition to being a tent hospital, when the Confederate cemetery filled with corpses the dead were buried in mass graves on Sunflower Island in trenches. Years later when the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to make the island into a wild bird refuge, they discovered they could only make to make minor changes to the island for fear of releasing hundreds of thousands of bones into the Mississippi River. When the trees were dug up on the edge of the island hundreds of human bones were imbedded within the roots and bark.

The Hauntings

Many residents of Alton report seeing vagrants within the remains of the old prison and within the Cemetery. Only those are not vagrants they are ghosts. One night a gentleman was walking his dog and bent down to tie his shoe when he looked up he saw a homeless man standing in front of him. When he looked away momentarily to make sure his dog was under control the man vanished.

Many of the bodies of the Confederate soldiers never even made it to the Cemetery. The Union soldiers were given the task of burying the dead but they did not want to do this strenuous task. So many times they would just push the bodies off the cart into a ditch along the way to the cemetery. There is an old haunted road called Hop Hollow Road were many of the dead were hidden. To this day when the residents along this road perform yard work they still discover bones.

The Pictures


Two orbs rising from the ground at the remains of the old Prison. I don’t put much weight behind orb pictures because they can be dust or bugs, but on this night it was 35 degrees and there were no bugs. In addition, my psychic friend kept telling me there were spirits here.


An Orb at the Confederate Cemetery. My psychic friend told me to take a picture of these trees and I would see a spirit.




Sunflower Island. Here is where the trees were dug up and the bones were imbedded within the bark and roots. Under the ground is a mass grave containing thousands of bodies.


A monument dedicated to the Confederate soldiers buried within Sunflower Island. Only a few names are on it, as we do not know the names of most of the people buried here.

More to come tomorrow..........