Paranormal record / 1897
Midnight at the Thirteenth Precinct Police Station at Grand Crossing. Sgt. William Clancy was reading at the desk when a shadowy figure brushed his cheek. He looked up. An old man, dimly outlined, was climbing the stairs without a sound. Then he was gone. For nearly a year the visitor kept coming back. Always, the paper said, between the 1st and 5th of the month. Patrolmen felt bony hands on their faces. A telephone rang when no one had called. A rider on a white horse vanished with a taunting laugh. In February 1898 the Chicago Tribune told the whole story. Many officers would no longer sleep in the squadroom.
Grand Crossing had been part of Chicago only since 1889. Its police station housed the Thirteenth Precinct. Two direct telephone lines ran from the station, one to Hyde Park and one to South Chicago. In the stables behind it lived Old Jim, the station mastiff. On 28 February 1898 the Chicago Tribune opened its report with one line. "The Thirteenth Precinct Police Station at Grand Crossing has a ghost."