Ashmore Estates

This building traces back to the Coles County Poor Farm, established in 1857 to house the area's poor, elderly, and mentally ill; the current structure was built in 1916 as the farm's second almshouse. Over its history more than a hundred residents are estimated to have died there, and a pauper cemetery south of Route 16 holds between sixty and a hundred graves. The property later became Ashmore Estates, a private care facility, before closing in 1986 amid financial difficulties in the changing healthcare industry — not, as an old rumor claimed, because patients were abandoned there to starve. The building sat vacant until 2006, when new owners opened it as a commercial haunted house; a 2013 storm with winds up to 100 mph tore off its roof, and owners since 2014 have worked on structural preservation while running paranormal tours and overnight investigations. Visitors report unexplained voices and loud banging, and some have described their car's trunk denting as though being struck from inside while driving away.