You’ve probably heard the legends about the murder hotel in Chicago and the man who built it, H.H. Holmes. Usually, the stories go like this: a maze of soundproof rooms, acid vats in the basement, and trapdoors everywhere. It’s the kind of stuff that makes for great horror movies and even better campfire stories. But if you actually dig into the historical record, the truth is way more complicated—and in some ways, more disturbing—than the myth of a "Death Castle" built for the 1893 World’s Fair.
He was a swindler first.
Herman Webster Mudgett, the man we know as H.H. Holmes, didn't arrive in Chicago with the sole intent of building a kill factory. He was a con artist. A brilliant one. He needed a place that looked impressive enough to secure loans and lure in investors. That’s why the building at 63rd and Wallace Streets in the Englewood neighborhood was so massive. It was a monument to his ego and his ability to separate people from their money.
What the Murder Hotel in Chicago Actually Looked Like
People call it a hotel. It wasn't really a hotel, at least not in the way we think of a Marriott or a Hilton today. It was a mixed-use building. The ground floor had retail space—a drugstore where Holmes worked and eventually owned through shady dealings. The upper floors were meant to be apartments and, yes, hotel rooms for the expected influx of visitors to the World’s Columbian Exposition.
The "castle" nickname came from the neighborhood residents who watched this weird, sprawling structure go up. It had turrets and battlements. It looked out of place.
Adam Selzer, a historian who has spent years debunking the wilder claims about Holmes, points out that the "secret" nature of the building was mostly a byproduct of Holmes constantly firing his contractors. Why? Because he didn't want to pay them. When you switch crews every few weeks, nobody knows the full layout of the building. That’s how you end up with weird hallways that lead nowhere and stairs that hit a ceiling. It wasn't necessarily a master plan for murder; it was a master plan for insurance fraud and wage theft.
That doesn't mean the building wasn't a place of horror. It definitely was.
The Basement and the Bone Smith
When police finally raided the site after Holmes was caught in Philadelphia for a completely different crime (insurance fraud involving the murder of his partner, Benjamin Pitezel), they found a mess. They found a large kiln. They found various surgical tools and remains.
📖 Related: Coach Bag Animal Print: Why These Wild Patterns Actually Work as Neutrals
Holmes had a side hustle.
He was a trained physician. He knew how to articulate skeletons. Back then, medical schools weren't exactly picky about where they got their anatomical specimens. If Holmes could "produce" a skeleton, he could sell it for a couple hundred bucks. That’s a lot of money in the 1890s. This is the part that gets overlooked in the "serial killer" narrative—Holmes was an opportunist. He killed for profit as much as, or perhaps more than, any psychological compulsion.
Separating the Yellow Journalism from the History
If you look at the newspapers from 1895, they are wild. This was the era of "yellow journalism," where Hearst and Pulitzer were fighting for eyeballs. Facts were secondary to a good headline. They called him the "Arch Fiend." They drew diagrams of the murder hotel in Chicago that looked like a dungeon from a fantasy novel.
Many of the most famous features of the castle—the "stretching rack" or the elaborate gas chambers controlled from Holmes's bedroom—likely never existed.
Think about the logistics.
Installing a centralized gas system to suffocate people in specific rooms in 1892 would have required an incredible amount of specialized plumbing and engineering. Holmes was a deadbeat who couldn't even pay his carpenters. It’s much more likely that he used simpler, more brutal methods. We know he killed the Williams sisters. We know he killed Julia Conner and her daughter, Pearl. These were people close to him, people he had entangled in his financial and romantic webs. He didn't need a labyrinth to kill them; he just needed a closed door.
The World's Fair Connection
The idea that he was snatching hundreds of tourists off the streets during the World's Fair is almost certainly an exaggeration. Chicago was a chaotic place in 1893. People went missing all the time. But if 200 people had disappeared from a single boarding house, someone would have noticed.
👉 See also: Bed and Breakfast Wedding Venues: Why Smaller Might Actually Be Better
The actual victim count is likely between nine and twelve.
That is still horrific. It still makes him one of the first documented serial killers in American history. But the "200 victims" number often cited in true crime podcasts comes from Holmes’s own "confession," which he sold to the Hearst newspapers for $7,500. In that confession, he claimed to have killed people who were actually still alive at the time the article was published. He was a liar until the very end. He even claimed he was turning into the devil, saying his face was literally changing shape.
The Physical Legacy of the Englewood Castle
If you go to 63rd and Wallace today, you won't find the castle. It’s gone.
It burned down in 1895, shortly after the investigation began. Some say it was arson to prevent the site from becoming a macabre tourist attraction. Others think it was locals who were sick of the shame brought to their neighborhood. The ruins were eventually cleared, and for a long time, the lot sat empty.
Now, there’s a post office there.
There is no plaque. There is no monument to the victims. Just a quiet, government-owned building and a grassy lot nearby. It’s a strange feeling, standing on a spot where so much darkness occurred, only to see people going about their day, mailing packages and checking P.O. boxes.
Why We Are Still Obsessed
Chicago has a complicated relationship with its crime history. We have the "Untouchables" tours and the Al Capone stuff, but the murder hotel in Chicago feels different. It’s more intimate. It’s about a man who used the city’s rapid growth and the anonymity of the urban sprawl to hide his true nature.
✨ Don't miss: Virgo Love Horoscope for Today and Tomorrow: Why You Need to Stop Fixing People
The story persists because it taps into our fear of the "polite" monster. Holmes wasn't a raving lunatic. He was charming. He was handsome. He was a doctor. He was the kind of person you’d trust with your life, or at least your luggage.
Erik Larson’s book, The Devil in the White City, is largely responsible for the modern resurgence of interest. It’s a great read, but even Larson acknowledges where the history ends and the legends begin. He weaves the beauty of the "White City" (the fairgrounds) with the darkness of the "Black City" (Holmes's neighborhood), creating a perfect literary contrast.
Actionable Insights for the History Seeker
If you’re interested in the real history of the murder hotel in Chicago, don’t just settle for the sensationalized YouTube videos.
- Visit the Chicago History Museum: They have actual artifacts from the World’s Fair and a deep archive on the city's 19th-century crime. It puts Holmes in the context of a city that was growing way too fast for its own good.
- Read the primary sources: Look up the archived New York Times or Chicago Tribune articles from 1894 and 1895. You’ll see the story evolve in real-time. Notice how the descriptions of the building get more and more outlandish as the weeks go by.
- Take a reputable tour: If you want to see the site, look for tours led by historians like Adam Selzer (Mysterious Chicago Tours). He’s one of the few who will tell you what definitely didn't happen alongside the facts of what did.
- Check the basement of the Post Office? No. Don't do that. It’s a federal building, and honestly, the original basement of the castle was largely destroyed during the fire and subsequent construction. There aren't any secret tunnels left.
The story of H.H. Holmes is a reminder that the most dangerous people aren't always hiding in the shadows. Sometimes they are building a three-story castle right on a busy street corner, smiling at you as you walk by, and asking if you’re looking for a room.
Understanding the Holmes case requires looking past the "movie version" of a murder castle. It requires looking at the socio-economics of 1890s Chicago—a place where you could vanish because records were paper, identities were easily forged, and the police were overwhelmed by a city doubling in size every few years.
Holmes was a product of his time. He was a vulture circling a boomtown.
When you strip away the fake trapdoors and the exaggerated body counts, you’re left with a much more grounded, and perhaps more terrifying, reality: a con man who realized that human beings were just another commodity to be used and discarded. He didn't need a magical murder castle to be a monster. He just needed a city that wasn't looking.
To get the most out of your research, start by mapping the actual locations mentioned in the trial transcripts. You'll find that the "castle" was part of a vibrant, working-class community, which makes the crimes feel even more invasive. Look into the lives of the victims, like the Pitezel children, to understand the human cost that gets buried under the "horror fan" excitement. Focus on the forensic evidence presented at his trial in Philadelphia; it’s the most reliable record of his methods and the most chilling part of the entire saga.