The Rave/Eagles Club: Milwaukee's Ghostly Tradition



In the winter tradition of telling ghost stories during the longest nights of the year, The Rave/Eagles Club in Milwaukee offered "Haunted Holidays" self-guided tours on Saturday, December 17th, 2022. The festive lights of Christmas combined with the creepiest and tallest animatronic figures available were spectacular, but I was there to see the storied haunts of some of Milwaukee's most famous ghost stories.   

The Rave and the Eagles Ballroom have been popular Milwaukee music venues since the early 1980s. The building housing them was originally called the Eagles Club. Erected to serve as a meeting place for the Milwaukee chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a humanitarian organization credited with the founding of Mothers’ Day, The Eagles Club opened to the public on April 17, 1927. The massive 5-story headquarters offered many amenities including a bowling alley, a 75'x 50' pool, and the largest ballroom in the state, at that time, which became a popular dance hall.

Over the years rumored paranormal activity has been attributed to the mostly apocryphal stories of a variety of deaths in the building. I was told by one employee on Saturday that at least 9 deaths have taken place on-site. Documentation was not forthcoming. The grisly origin stories -- the bride who flipped over the balcony backward, falling to her death, or the evil caretaker who tortured the homeless in the boiler room -- although dripping with drama, apparently didn't make the papers. Most searches of newspaper archives turned up blank. Add to that the scores of giggling boys from bands who have made "paranormal investigation" videos and you quickly discover this place is rife with trope-y ghostlore.



Years ago some said the haunting was due to musician Buddy Holly’s death. On Jan. 23, 1959, Buddy Holly kicked off his Winter Dance Party tour at the venue, when it was then known as George Devine’s Million Dollar Ballroom. However, although it’s often misreported as such, this wasn’t Buddy Holly’s final performance. He was killed in a plane crash several shows and more than a week later in Clear Lake, Iowa. Today, since most of the young people working there have no idea who Buddy Holly was, the explanation has lost relevance.

The Tragic Drowning in the Basement Pool



The more likely cause of the alleged haunting is a drowning that occurred only months after the social club’s public opening. Said to be the most haunted area of the building, the disused basement pool was once a celebrated gem. Called a “daylight pool” because it was illuminated by special submerged lights, this showpiece tiled in blues and greens is now drained and neglected and locked up behind closed doors.

The freak accident took place on a Saturday afternoon, September 10, 1927. Francis Wren, the West Division High School swim team companion, was considered an expert diver. However, just days before his 16th birthday, he was found drowned at the bottom of the pool. How his drowning could go totally unnoticed in a well-lighted pool with 40-some other swimmers present was never adequately explained. However, his family declined to pursue legal action. Francis Wren wasn't discovered until a diver struck his body at the depth of 9-1/2 feet. Although firefighters tried for an hour, they were unable to revive him.

Francis Wren's death was also part of a much larger phenomenon in 1927. The number of drownings in Milwaukee County had spiked that year and his drowning in early September was the 40th such accident. To put this number in perspective, 65 drowning deaths per year was the average for all of Wisconsin as of 2022, according to the CDC. Drownings were much more common in the 1920s, however, with 200 recorded statewide in 1926.

Today visiting musicians are often granted access to gawk at this hidden pool room and scrawl graffiti on its walls. The venue's deluxe dressing rooms are located just off of the pool area.

The Boiler Room

A few performers have even been allowed to tour the boiler room below the pool, although it was off-limits for Saturday's tour. Their horror-film-inspired imaginings are laughable, but their footage of the sub-basement uploaded to YouTube is compelling and eerie.

Today paranormal claims remain persistent. Employees, musicians, and patrons have described orbs of light, strange voices, and cold spots. Others say they have been touched by unseen hands or glimpsed a hazy apparition. An overwhelming chlorine smell in the pool area, shuffling footsteps, and a shadowy figure seen skulking around the basement are also frequently reported. However, many of the ghost stories don’t seem to match the facts of the 1927 drowning.

Two witnesses in 2005 were preparing to shoot a music video in the boiler room and claimed to hear a baby crying in the middle of the night. They searched the entire basement, but couldn’t find the source of these strange cries. Some band members claim to have been touched by unseen hands. Even Rob Zombie, musician and shock horror connoisseur claimed to be creeped out by disembodied whispering in his dressing room. The members of another band reportedly observed a mislaid chair in the boiler room begin moving on its own. Other musicians can’t shake the feeling that they are being watched during rehearsals by an unseen presence.

Employees report hearing the voices of young girls bouncing off the walls in the empty ballroom. When they search for the source of the sounds all they find is a cold breeze that quickly brushes past. Perhaps these are echoes of the teeny boppers who once danced here when it was George Devine’s Million Dollar Ballroom. Other workers claim to have seen or heard children running and playing in the hallways, a little girl poking around the coat room, or a bride wandering the upper ballroom near the pizza bar. Security has even been called to investigate reports from neighbors of objects hurled from the roof only to find no one had access to that area nor any evidence of the supposed projectiles littering the ground below.

One concert goer was standing at the top of the staircase leading to the basement with her back turned to the stairs when she felt as if something tugged on the back of her shirt. It seemed to her that this invisible something wanted her to come downstairs. She resisted and was enveloped by a fleeting gust of frigid wind. You can't blame a lonely ghost for trying.

Adding to these tales I've collected over the years are some more recent ones from Saturday. One employee told me that during another public event in 2020 when the pool area was decorated for Halloween, employees saw a blue orb glowing above the pool area. At first, they thought it was another awesome decoration, but upon inquiry discovered it wasn't.

Another worker provided even more current tales from the last few weeks. He claimed that one morning all the garbage cans collected from the building the night before were missing. He had made sure they were all together and ready to be redistributed for the next day. When he came in that morning, however, he found that all the trash barrels where strewn across the ballroom floor.

The Rave/Eagles Ballroom is a beautiful historic place and its ghost stories have elevated it to legendary status. The dark hallways behind-the-scenes and the subterranean depths of the building are creepy enough to inspire tales for decades to come. If the spirit of Francis Wren does haunt this trendy venue, hopefully, his afterlife isn't so bad. Any given day inside this magnificent structure affords the opportunity to bathe in the razzle-dazzle of the stage lights, the booming bass, and the hypnotic gyration of young bodies on the dance floor. It's difficult to imagine a more exciting place for a teenage ghost.

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