H.H. Holmes' Wilmette Haunt Inspires Local Urban Legends

WILMETTE, IL — While notorious serial killer H.H. Holmes spent little time at his Wilmette house, the "Devil in the White City" subject nonetheless inspired several local legends after his grisly crimes were first revealed in 1894.

Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, born Herman Webster Mudgett, moved to Wilmette in 1886 after marrying Myrta Belknap, daughter of North Shore businessman John Belknap. The marriage lasted only a few years and produced a single daughter, Lucy Holmes.

Holmes spent much of that period on Chicago's South Side, where he would build a three-story structure at the corner of West 63rd Street and South Wallace Avenue that came to be known as the "Murder Castle," and which falsely was said to have been built as a hotel for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

His Wilmette house was a duplex in the Queen Anne style and originally painted dark red, according to the Wilmette Historical Society. At the time, its street address was 38 N. John St., although the street was renamed and the house's address became 726 11th St.

After Holmes' 1895 arrest, reporters converged on the house in an attempt to interview Mrs. Holmes "with little success," according to the society.

For decades, the house operated as an apartment building known as the Wilmette Inn before it was demolished in 1997, according to the library. The current owners of the house on the site are Gina and Paul Sally, New Trier High School superintendent.

Historian and tour guide Adam Selzer, author of "H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil," said there were several stories in Wilmette about Holmes' possible involvement in North Shore crimes, including the brutal murder of a neighbor, Mrs. Kron.

"There was a brief craze in 1895 for saying Holmes had been involved in the Kron murder in Wilmette, but it wasn’t his style," Selzer told Patch. "A police inspector at the time said 'You might as well just blame him for the Jack the Ripper horrors in London as that one.' (With no idea that people would start to accuse Holmes of that a century later, despite a complete lack of evidence)."

A story of bones found buried near Holmes' Wilmette home was reprinted several times by newspapers, Selzer said, even after it turned out to be a horse skeleton.

An account from longtime village resident Esther Bower, the first woman to serve on the Wilmette Village Board, recalled the suspicions that surrounded Holmes during her childhood.

"Mr. Holmes was supposed to be a travelling man, which accounted for his frequent absences from home. I would see him once in a while, and later view those occasions with considerable awe," Bower said.

Bower explained a theory that Holmes may have been involved in a fatal murder and arson on what is now Elmwood Avenue, although some suspected the victim's son-in-law, who later moved to Colorado.

"Largely, I suppose, because of former accusations, when Mr. Wheeler's mother-in-law was murdered, suspicion was attached to Mr. Holmes, who seemed to be constantly getting into deeper water," she said in a 1947 interview.

"The police developed the fact that some person or persons had run through the alleys from the Wheeler home to the Holmes house," she said. "As I remember it, there was evidence that Holmes had been in Wilmette about that time, but he was never indicated for that crime."

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Bower also recalled it was "said to be pretty well established" that Holmes had stolen much of the lumber used to build his Wilmette house from across the street, where the Gates family was building another home.

Selzer, an expert at sorting the truth about Holmes from the myths that surround him — promoted first by unscrupulous newspapermen and later by disreputable websites — said theft was much more in keeping with Homes' character, and most likely the main criminal activity he would have been involved in on the North Shore.

"The main mischief was just swindling the Weber and Le Bahn brick company out of building materials, which eventually left his wife, daughter and mother-in-law to be thrown out of the house after his death," Selzer said. "He wasn’t around in there much."

Selzer is hosting an interactive virtual lecture on Oct. 22, where attendees can learn more about Holmes' life and separate fact from fiction.