New book scaring up plenty of ghost stories coming out of Baraboo

BARABOO, Wis. (WMTV) - A new book is scaring up plenty of ghost stories coming out of Baraboo.

“Writing this book was the highlight of 2020 for me,” said co-author Gwen Herrewig. “I had such a good time getting to know Baraboo through the haunted stories of the residents,”

The book is called Haunted Baraboo. Herrewig and her co-author Shelley Mordini researched dozens of tall tales that people have been sharing for decades.

“We interviewed over 45 people for the book, and it was important for both of us to have firsthand experiences of these hauntings because haunted stories, much like fish stories, tend to get bigger and bigger the more they are told,” said Herrewig.

The authors checked out downtown businesses, the Al Ringling mansion, even private homes.

“Al Ringling’s mansion on Broadway Street is a big castle-looking building downtown and tends to have a lot of activity inside,” said Herrewig.

One of the spookiest stories they came across is the legend of the Highway 12 Hitchhiker.

“The most famous ghost we have in baraboo is the highway 12 hitchhiker What happens is when people are driving along Highway 12, they come upon a man walking along the side of the road. And he’s walking with traffic so his back to them,” said Herrewig. “And then they go past him and a mile down the road they see him again. The same army greens, the backpack walking down the side of the road,”

Herrewig also noted the old Baraboo Inn is particularly spooky.

“The old Baraboo Inn is notoriously known as one of the most haunted places in Wisconsin,” she said. “The basement is pretty spooky, it has a dirt floor, it’s old, you can tell it has a lot of history in it,”

You can find Haunted Baraboo at bookstores like Barnes & Noble. You can also purchase it on Amazon.

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