Des Plaines River
River in IllinoisWikipedia
38
MENTIONS
20
EPISODES
16
PODCASTS
Search complete. 38 mentions across 20 episodes found for "Des Plaines River".
Sep 25, 2026
Ursula BielskiHOST
The anchor of Archer Avenue's preternatural notoriety is a wildly sloping churchyard.
Ursula BielskiHOST
The oldest established cemetery in the county, its acreage seems to mark the southern end of the haunted portion of Archer Avenue, just north of the old sag quarries, where the Cal Sag Channel and the Des Plaines River rendezvous.
Ursula BielskiHOST
Like Archer Avenue itself, the parish and its cemetery date to the early 1800s, when Irish canal builders, most of them from the town of Bridgeport, now Chicago, put down this road along the route of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.
Ursula BielskiHOST
under the direction of Colonel William B. Archer.
Ursula BielskiHOST
An earlier church stood here in those days, replaced later by the current limestone structure, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1853 and which took local men six years to complete.
Ursula BielskiHOST
Tradition has long told that an Indian burial ground preceded the European burial ground here, another possibility often brought to explain the site's impressive host of hauntings.
Ursula BielskiHOST
Supernatural events have been reported at St. James Sag since at least 1847, when phantom monks were first seen gliding up this bluff, a long archer near its intersection with the Sanitarian Ship Canal, the Illinois and Michigan Canal, the Des Plaines River, and the Cal Sag Channel.
Ursula BielskiHOST
130 years later, in November of 1977, a Cook County sheriff was passing the grounds late one night and reportedly saw eight hooded figures floating from the adjacent woods towards the rectory.
Brett PetuHOST
Restoration crews at Nippersink and Kestrel Ridge Forest Preserves in Round Lake, plus Duck Farm and Oriole Grove, could use more hands too.
Brett PetuHOST
Other groups monitor wildlife, process seeds at the native seed nursery in Grays Lake, grow flowers and vegetables at Bonner Heritage Farm in Lindenhurst, or remove trash and log jams from the Des Plaines River.
Brett PetuHOST
Even if a volunteer group is full, we still encourage you to apply.
Brett PetuHOST
Waitlists are available.
Corinna HarrodHOST
The crawlspace had filled up with bodies towards the end of his killing spree.
Corinna HarrodHOST
By Gacy's own later account, he'd essentially run out of room and he'd shifted to a different method of disposal for his final victims, which he was then driving out to the Des Plaines River southwest of the city.
Corinna HarrodHOST
As they talked to people, it became clear that a lot of the young men and boys who worked for Gacy just sort of disappeared.
Corinna HarrodHOST
It was just assumed that they'd moved out of town, gone to a different job.
24 MINS LATER
Corinna HarrodHOST
I mean...
Corinna HarrodHOST
It's frightening to think that's how many times he was arrested and what could have been prevented had someone really looked into it.
Corinna HarrodHOST
So once he's arrested, once they've recovered the bodies and confronted with mounting evidence, Gacy confessed in detail and waived his rights to to to do so in a lengthy statement to detectives delivered by several accounts with an eerie almost business-like calm he described his method of killing then sat down with investigators and drew them a map of his own property marking the approximate locations of buried remains to speed up the recovery On the 9th of April 1979, Robert Pease's body was found in the Des Plaines River.
Corinna HarrodHOST
I didn't know this, though it makes sense.
Ted LeinhartNARRATOR
It is very probable that this name was never seen in English characters until the year 1846, when it was inscribed, by the writer of this, upon an oak tree standing where the town of Rochester now stands in Racine County.
Ted LeinhartNARRATOR
the name was selected by me with the consent of messrs cox and myers all being interested in the location as a name for the future town and it so appears on the sectional maps of those times when the town began to be settled shortly after the name was changed by the inhabitants to rochester because like the rochester of new york it had a water power no further point of resemblance being traceable in eighteen thirty six to thirty seven i was engaged in subdividing the townships now comprising racine county and from some indian boys lodged near my encampments i made additions to my indian vocabulary and with the medium of a fox-skin collar i obtained this name understanding it to be potawatomi for fox which is a favourite name with the natives for all crooked rivers whose course in this respect resembles the eccentric trail of that animal by giving the middle syllable a thin prolonged decided accent and leaving the last syllable but half aspirated you have the original as given to me mekwanigo from mekwanigoik likewise the name of the town mekwan signifies a ladle a bend in each stream known by that name resembling a ladle seems to have given the name that the resemblance may be detected it may be well to remark that the indian ladle is a very crooked utensil with a handle turned quite over the bowl koshkonong or more properly third syllable unaccented signifying the lake we live on was for many weeks the lurking-place of the families of black hawks warriors in the troubles of eighteen thirty two wapiti seape or tooth river a tributary of the wisconsin above grand rapids wapiti full accent on first and half accent on second syllable signifies tooth chippewa probably Des Plaines River in Racine County, or more properly, River Au Plain, named by the French, signifies soft maple.
Ted LeinhartNARRATOR
Oconomowoc, Scoopernong, Pewaukee, Oshkosh, Techida, Wauwatosa, Techora, Kaukulan, and a host of other musical names remain to invite the elucidation of contributors to among whom I hope to see the names of Governor Doty and Mr. Ellis.
Ted LeinhartNARRATOR
Milwaukee, July 10, 1849.
Johnny PutmanHOST
Richard, I know you've talked often about the significance of a body of water being near an area.
Richard CroweGUEST
Right, and of course that's the Des Plaines River out there.
Richard CroweGUEST
So you've got a lot of connections with the Des Plaines.
Johnny PutmanHOST
And you also have the history of the Indians living along the body of water, too.
Richard CroweGUEST
Sadly, we don't have any Indians anymore.
Richard CroweGUEST
So we have
Johnny PutmanHOST
the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River and, of course, Lake Michigan.
Richard CroweGUEST
And I often wondered about, you know, why they wanted to get rid of Chief Lanowick when they ought to just change the name of Illinois.
Richard CroweGUEST
As we've told many times on the radio show before, he was a hero of the Fort Dearborn Massacre, helped out various Americans at the time, hid them out, I should say, from the marauding Indians from Wisconsin that were down here as paid mercenaries for the British during that military action.
Richard CroweGUEST
And after the war was over, he was given a tract of land along the Des Plaines River.
Richard CroweGUEST
And when he died in 1872, was buried there.
Richard CroweGUEST
So it's a traditional Indian burial ground where he and many other family members have been interned.
1 HR 21 MINS LATER
BobAUDIENCE
I just had a few things to ask.
BobAUDIENCE
I'll make them real quick.
BobAUDIENCE
First of all, I heard, Richard, you were on a local cable program where I live, and you were talking about the Des Plaines River and how that had many paranormal events right around there.
speaker_27ADVERTISER
Right.
Richard CroweGUEST
And here in the Chicago area, Archer Avenue An old Indian trail laid out in 1836 as Archer, but a preexisting Indian trail that dates back to prehistory, does seem to have some, some charge, does have something there that, uh, allows the phenomena to occur on it or very nearby.
Richard CroweGUEST
Also, along the Des Plaines River.
Steve KingHOST
Mm-hmm.
Richard CroweGUEST
When I put together my current tour, the supernatural tour, I had no idea when I put it together that there would be this connection, but suddenly it popped out at me when I was looking at a map one day, that most of the sites are along the Des Plaines River.
Richard CroweGUEST
And, uh, even more interesting, they're all on the same side of the river, the east side.
Richard CroweGUEST
When you get to the west side, you don't find this.
2 HRS 12 MINS LATER
speaker_35AUDIENCE
Okay.
speaker_35AUDIENCE
Listen, um, you mentioned before about many ghosts, many sightings being seen east side of the Des Plaines.
Katie RingHOST
When they finished with the crawl space and the rest of the grounds, the count on the property stood at 29.
Katie RingHOST
Four more young men were discovered nearby in the Des Plaines River.
Katie RingHOST
Gacy had run out of room under his house, so started to drive to the bridge and dump the bodies of his victims into the water.
Katie RingHOST
Timothy O'Rourke, 20, had been found downstream in June of 1978.
speaker_1NARRATOR
Hell on your back.
speaker_1NARRATOR
And began dumping dead bodies into the Des Plaines River.
speaker_2SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
He thought about putting bodies in his attic, but thought that would become problematic.
speaker_2SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
So really, as a matter of simply disposing of the bodies, he actually started taking them to the river, throwing them off the bridge.
Katie RingHOST
That picture was the epitome of everything John had spent his life chasing, the status, the connections, and proof that he was somebody who mattered, and it came at the exact moment the whole thing started to crumble.
Katie RingHOST
John had killed so many victims that the crawlspace was getting full, so by 1978, he started driving out to the I-55 bridge over the Des Plaines River and dropping bodies into the water instead.
Katie RingHOST
He was killing faster and faster, but hiding it more carelessly because the caution that had protected him for years was turning into a belief that he was untouchable.
Katie RingHOST
That same spring, John pulled his Oldsmobile up beside a 26-year-old named Jeffrey Rignall near a bar in Chicago and offered him a ride.
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