Read Dunning Memorial Park 2022 Investigation

The complex occupied 320 acres of land between Irving Park Road and Montrose Avenue, stretching west from Narragansett Avenue to Oak Park Avenue. It was never officially called Dunning but the property just south was owned by the Dunning Family and when and later when the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway extended a line here in 1882, it was called Dunning Station.

In 1851, construction began on the Cook County Insane Asylum or Read Dunning Insane Asylum on Oak Park Avenue It began as a cemetery for the Cook County institutions at Dunning. These consisted of the County Poor house and farm opened 1854, the Insane Asylum opened 1869, the infirmary opened 1882, and the Consumptive hospital, opened 1899.

With over 38,000 burials spanning some seventy years, it began as a cemetery for the Cook County institutions at Dunning. These consisted of the County Poor house and farm opened 1854, the Insane Asylum opened 1869, the infirmary opened 1882, and the Consumptive hospital (TB), opened 1899.

The cemetery rapidly grew in size and soon evolved as the official county Potters Field for the unclaimed and unwanted dead of Chicago and Cook County. The cemetery received bodies from the Cook County Hospital, the city morgue, many Chicago area hospitals, foundling homes, and many other city social institutions.

Also interred here are Veterans from the Civil War, including Thomas Hamilton McCray, a Confederate brigadier general who moved to Chicago after the war and died in 1891, 117 unknown and unclaimed persons from the Great 1871 Chicago fire and orphaned and abandoned children.

One of the most notorious people buried at Dunning was Johann Hoch, a bigamist who was believed to have married 30 women and murdered at least 10 of them. After he was hanged at Cook County Jail in 1906, other cemeteries refused to accept his body. Even an “Unknown Man” who’d apparently stabbed himself to death was placed in the ground at Dunning in 1912.

By 1889 a judge described this place as, “a tomb for the living.” By 1910 most residents were moved to Oak Forest Hospital. In 1912 it was named Chicago State Hospital and closed shortly thereafter on June 30, 1912.

In the years after Chicago State Hospital closed, the state sold much of the property. Today, the land includes the Dunning Square shopping center, which is anchored by a Jewel store; the campus of Wright College; the Maryville Center for Children; and houses and condominiums.

State officials apparently didn’t realize that human bodies were buried underneath a section of the Dunning land when they sold it to Pontarelli Builders, which began work putting up houses. In 1989, a backhoe operator working on the project found a corpse. The state had recently passed a law requiring archaeological assessments before construction is allowed on any property where human remains have been found, so archaeologist David Keene was hired to examine the site.

He determined that a five-acre cemetery was hidden, just northwest of the current-day corner of Belle Plaine and Neenah avenues. As a result of Keene’s findings, that property was set aside as the Read-Dunning Memorial Park, which was dedicated in 2002. Construction was allowed on the land south of it.

“The area was just littered with human remains, with human bone all over the place, where they had disturbed things,” said David Keene, an archeologist.

Keene has a vivid recollection of that corpse found by the backhoe. It appeared to be a Civil War veteran. Much of the body was still intact, probably because it had been embalmed with arsenic, a common treatment at the time, which would kill any organisms that would try to consume the flesh.

“He was cut in half at the waist by the backhoe,” Keene says. “His skin was in relatively good condition … I mean, you could see his face. But there was considerable deterioration on the face. You could see the mustache. You could see his hair. He had red hair, but it was patchy. The other distinguishing features of the face were no longer there. And he had a jacket on … it was obviously a military jacket. We only saw it briefly. We didn’t spend a lot of time with it — mostly because the odor was unbelievable, to say the least.”

This was just the second-oldest of three cemeteries on the Dunning grounds. The earliest cemetery was near the original poorhouse, just west of Narragansett Avenue and north of Belle Plaine. County officials had supposedly moved the bodies out of that cemetery into the second graveyard, but Keene says bodies did turn up there during another construction project. “We found a little over 30 individuals there, and we were able to remove them so (the developer) could build his building there,” Keene says.

And when Wright College was under construction on the former asylum grounds in the early 1990s, scattered human remains surfaced there, too, Keene says.

The third Dunning cemetery was located farther west — underneath what is now Oak Park Avenue near Chicago-Read Mental Health Center.

This area was finally dedicated as the Read Dunning Memorial Park in 2002.

Address: 6550 W. Belle Plaine Ave., Chicago, IL 60634

Hauntings: There are no known hauntings or paranormal activity that has been reported here in the past but the simple fact that some of these bodies were moved several times from the earliest of known cemeteries in Chicago, the Fort Dearborn Cemetery, leads itself into the possibility of some activity since some of those bodies were never fully at rest.

One of the main reasons that cemeteries become haunted is due to grave desecration or grave robberies. This did not happen here but because some bodies were moved over and over again is perhaps the main reason that some activity could happen.

The GRS investigated the Read Dunning Memorial Park on May 25, 2022 and the team included: Paul Adams and Dale Kaczmarek

Equipment setup: Mainly hand-held equipment was employed such as digital recorders and cameras, camcorders, REM Epod, Phasma Box, Melmeter with telescopic probe and Samsung Galaxy S-21 Slim Ultra for pictures and Facebook Live session.

Experiments performed: Two Phasma Box sessions were conducted at the Chicago Fire victims memorial and later at the Orphan and Abandoned Children section.

Personal experiences:

Dale Kaczmarek: I had no paranormal sensations or activity the entire time that I was conducting EVP sessions or walking around. I would love to come back here at night since there are no signs prohibiting nighttime visitations and no No Trespassing or Keep Out signs restricting hours of operation.

There was some intermittent drizzle and the second session was contaminated with quite a bit of windy conditions. A Facebook Live session was run by Adams for both locations.

Evidence collected: None!

Words or phrases spoken by the Phasma Box: Chicago Fire Victims section – Ron Baker; Orphans and Abandoned Children section – go out there, this is the spot & are we leaving.

Conclusions: It was a very quiet visit to this very sad place where many people were buried with any markers or headstones. Very little is known about the people buried here with the exception of a very few who are known to have been interred here.

There was some severe weather moving in from the northwest, so we decided to cut the second Phasma Box session a bit shorter and leave the area. I would have wished for more time here especially in the Civil War section which we didn’t have the time to conduct any experiments. Another visit at night would be something that I would very interested in.