Rochester’s ‘Trolley of Doom’ Takes You Ghost Hunting at the Most Haunted Places in Town

Most of the time, we talk about ghosts in October... but apparently if you live in Rochester, you can talk about ghosts all the time. When I first came to downtown Rochester a month ago for my interview, I saw this awesome trolley taking people around town. Little did I know the company does haunted trolley tours around Rochester all summer long.

According to the Rochester Trolley & Tours Company website, there's a haunted tour every Friday in July, August, and September and more often as we get closer to Halloween.

So what should you expect? Each tour will take around three hours and kicks off at 7:30 PM. You would think the pickup location would be a secret, but it's not! You'll meet the "Trolley of Doom" at the City-County Government Center Parking lot to kick off a night of fun and scares.

According to the website, each tour has its own "Ghost Host." They are the expert ghost hunters that will teach you their ways of attracting spirits. These folks are also full of knowledge of Rochester and its haunted history. As you go through the night, they will take you to locations that have been known to have ghosts and they will let you explore for some time to see if you can see anything. They encourage you to read the history at each location to clue you in on who you are looking for.

So where will you go? They will take you around to more than a dozen different spooky locations:

• Flooded Nursing Home
• Phantoms of the Theater
• 9/11 Hijacker Visit???
• Eerie Avalon Hotel
• Mayhem at Hilltop House Mansion
• Indian Heights Park
• Unmarked Graves on State Hospital Campus
• Quarry Hill Park & Dead Man’s Bridge
• Infamous Inmates & Federal Medical Prison
• Former State Hospital Sites
• Grave Site of First Man Emancipated by Abraham Lincoln
• Oakwood & Calvary Cemeteries
• Doc Moonlight Graham
• Historic Downtown Buildings, including site of Mortuary/Undertaker
• Kahler Grand Hotel & The Haunted Elevator
• Pedestrian Subway Tunnels of Old Hospital Morgue
• Historic Stoppel Farm
• Pill Hill Haunted Houses and other Possessed Houses in the City

This night of fun will cost you around $30 a person but will be so worth it. If you are interested in going this Friday, they ask that you book in advance, so your spot is saved. Ghost host advises that this is probably not the place for kiddos, so plan accordingly.

Happy ghost hunting friends!