Photo: Maia Harms

Built in 1896, the Humboldt Park Stables and Receptory once housed the horses of visitors and park police—and in later years, rumored witches. The building at Division Street and Humboldt Boulevard, designed by Chicago architects Frommann and Jebsen, also had offices—one in which landscape architect Jens Jensen developed his Prairie style in the 1890s. But when homicides and other crimes in the park surged in the late 1950s, the building was abandoned; reports of occult meetings at the “witch house” followed. But Ken Melvoin-Berg, co-owner of Weird Chicago Tours, says there has been no documented activity. “Many of these stories came from old wives’ tales, mothers who told these stories to children to keep kids away,” he says. During the Satanic Panic (the cult scares of the 1980s), there were rumors that followers of Palo Mayombe—an Afro-Cuban religion similar to voodoo—held meetings there; after a review by the FBI, that story was disproved. In 1991, the building—a mix of Queen Anne and German-style country-house architecture—was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Chicago Park District began restoring its exterior. In 2002, the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture reached a lease agreement with the Park District to use the building as a cultural arts space. Interior construction is under way, and IPRAC expects to open the facility next summer. It will feature a gallery, a theater and a museum dedicated to the preservation of Puerto Rican culture.