▲PITTSBURGH GHOST TOUR

When: Saturday evenings, May through October. (May-Sept.: 7:30 p.m.; October: 7:00 and 9:00 p.m.) Additional tour dates in October.

Where: Outside the main entrance of the Grand Concourse (map here) in Station Square (at the Grand Concourse sign near valet parking).



Price: 2012 prices to be announced. (Orders include price of Incline ride up to Mount Washington, and back down.)

After You Order: You will not receive a physical ticket. Once you place your order, that's all you need to do. Just arrive fifteen minutes in advance of the tour, and our ghost guide will check your name off our list.  Read also our FAQ page.

ABOUT THE TOUR:  The tour launches outside the very haunted Grand Concourse restaurant in Station Square (Station Square is Pittsburgh's dining and entertainment district, a short walk from downtown across the Smithfield Street Bridge). From there, we take you to the top of Mount Washington, 369 feet above the city, at a grade of 35 degrees, 35 minutes, on the iconic -- and haunted! -- Monongahela Incline.* An acclaimed architectural historian said it best: "The ride up is thrilling, the ride down terrifying; one is obliged to try both." Franklin Toker, Pittsburgh, A New Portrait (2009). 

*Haunted Pittsburgh cannot guarantee a ride on the Incline. The Incline is operated by the Port Authority of Allegheny County. Once in a while, the Incline is down for repairs and the tour proceeds to Mount Washington on shuttle buses provided by the Port Authority. 

Once on top of the Mount, you will take in the spectacular vistas of Pittsburgh's fabled "Golden Triangle" (USA Today's Weekend magazine calls it "the second most beautiful view in America") from one of the region's most haunted neighborhoods, while our Ghost Guide regales you with the chilling tales of Pittsburgh's spectacularly macabre past. This unique, 1½ hour ghostly jaunt often sells out. It is one of the region's great attractions.

Journey with us back to the Gilded Age of ragtime and of robber barons, of boastful mansions bathed in gaslight, and of a "Millionaire's Row" that was the most exclusive address in America.  A writer named James Parton once called Pittsburgh "hell with the lid off."  We let our guests decide how accurate that is. But we can assert this without fear of contradiction: our city's character was forged in vicious labor strife and in pig iron furnaces so hot that men and women sometimes forgot their fear of hell. Any town that's experienced the turbulence ours has seen simply can't escape its ghosts, and Pittsburgh is teeming with them.

We take our story telling seriously. We aren't a seasonal Halloween gimmick, we do our tours May through October. On this tour, you will not encounter college students donning "period" costumes and trying out silly English accents that fade in and out as the evening wears on. No actors with bloody make-up will jump out of the bushes to scare you. Door knobs do not transform into the face of Jacob Marley.  We have no desire to give your heart a jolt; we much prefer to give your spine a tingle. This is the real deal: we tell ghost stories, creepy tales--yarns that will get under your skin and leave you feeling a tad uneasy before you shut out the lights to go to sleep.  Our stories are too good to embellish with cheap theatrics.

You'll hear the bone-chilling tale of the haunted Incline, and the ghost that torments the staff. The story was told to us by the man who experienced it.

You'll see the former Soffel home, said to be haunted by the ghost of Mrs. Soffel (played by Diane Keaton in the film Mrs. Soffel), who became a national sensation when she helped two vicious prisoners escape after falling in love with one of them (played by Mel Gibson in the film).

You'll stop at the haunted Carnegie Library of Mt. Washington, frequented by a bevy of friendly patrons who've crossed over to the other side, but who still hang out at the library they once loved. It happens to sit directly atop the cursed Wabash Tunnel.

You'll thrill to the other-worldly tale, which happened to be the biggest news story in America at the time, about the attempt to kill steel magnate Henry Clay Frick, "the most hated man in America," during the Homestead strike, and how, according to Mr. Frick himself, it was thwarted by a ghost.

You'll stroll by the church of the Holy Man of Sycamore Street, who received divine dispensation that supposedly made him incapable of sinning -- only to later find himself in one of the great sex scandals of the early 20th Century. Then you'll walk past the "cursed" church that kept burning down -- as a result of Andrew Carnegie's generosity.

You'll hear how hundreds of people saw Harry K. Thaw shoot Stanford White to avenge Evelyn Nesbit's honor, but the identity of White's killer remains a mystery because Thaw was possessed by a ghost at the time.

You'll here about the haunted piano that doesn't like children touching it; the great artist Maxo Vanka's unwelcome visits from Pittsburgh's most famous ghost; the haunted toaster of Mount Washington that made "ghost toast" (yes, you read that right); the ghost that followed a woman home from the university building it haunted; the spirit that saved the life of flamboyant pianist Liberace on a visit to Pittsburgh; the other-worldly premonition about the death of the incomparable Roberto Clemente, and many more.

Frequently asked questions: Answered here