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yoderkc · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 399 Location: Wyandotte City, KS

Actually any of Troy's Books are great check them out!

Amanda · Site Admin Joined: 15 Mar 2007 Posts: 1141 Location: KC

I have heard a lot about this Troy person...who he be??

yoderkc · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 399 Location: Wyandotte City, KS

Troy Taylor is the author of nearly 50 books about history, hauntings and the unexplained in America, including "Haunted Illinois", "The Ghost Hunter’s Guidebook", "Weird Illinois" and many others. He is the founder and president of the “American Ghost Society”, a national network of ghost hunters that collects stories of ghost sightings and haunted houses and uses investigative techniques to track down evidence of the supernatural.

Taylor was born on September 24 in Decatur, Illinois, a midwestern city that is steeped in legend and lore. Even the hospital in which he was born is allegedly haunted by a phantom nun! He grew up fascinated with “things that go bump in the night” and in school, Taylor was well-known for his interest in the paranormal and often took friends on informal ghost tours of haunted places all over downstate Illinois. He would later turn this interest into his full-time career.

In 1989, Taylor started working in a bookstore and a few years later, he wrote his first book on ghosts. It was called "Haunted Decatur" and delved into the ghosts and hauntings of the city where he grew up. He also created a tour that took guests to places that he had written about in the book. Much to his surprise, the book and tour became an immediate success. The Haunted Decatur Tours remain in operation today as the third longest running ghost tour in the state of Illinois.

In 1996, Taylor organized a group of ghost enthusiasts into an investigation team and the American Ghost Society was launched, gained over 600 members in the years that followed. The organization continues today as one of America’s largest and most honored research groups.

In 1998, Taylor moved his operations, which now included the "American Ghost Society", a history and hauntings bookstore and a publishing company called Whitechapel Press, to Alton, Illinois, near St. Louis. In Alton, Taylor started his second tour company, Alton Hauntings, which also took guests to local haunted places in the small Mississippi River town. He would go on to put the place on the map as “one of the most haunted small towns in America.”

Taylor remained in Alton until 2005, when he returned to Decatur. By then, he had also established a tour company that arranges overnight stays in haunted places called American Hauntings and had helped to organize a ghost tour in Springfield (Springfield Hauntings Tours). All of the tours, including those in Decatur & Alton, were organized under the heading of the "Illinois Hauntings Ghost Tours". Taylor also continued the operation of Whitechapel Press, which specializes in ghost-related titles and has more than a dozen authors working under its banner. In 2006, Taylor the Weird Chicago Tours with his friends Ken Berg and Adam Selzer. The Weird Chicago Tours are based on Troy's book "Weird Illinois", which was published by Barnes & Noble Press. In that same year, the Illinois Hauntings Tours expanded to include ghost tours in Jacksonville and Lebanon.

In 2007, Taylor incorporated as Dark Haven Entertainment, Inc., a parent company for Whitechapel Press, the Illinois Hauntings Tours and for the Ghosts of the Prairie Website and Magazine. The new company also handles the film rights to Troy's ghost books and stories. Currently, there are three of his works optioned for possible film and television production.

Along with writing about the unusual and hosting tours, Taylor is also a public speaker on the subject of ghosts and hauntings and has spoken to literally hundreds of private and public groups on a variety of paranormal subjects. He has appeared in newspaper and magazine articles about ghosts and has also been fortunate enough to be interviewed hundreds of times for radio and television broadcasts about the supernatural. He has also appeared in a number of documentary films, several television series and in one feature film about the paranormal.

He currently resides in Central Illinois with his wife, Haven, in a decidedly non-haunted house.

Troy Taylor's Published Books:

HAUNTED ILLINOIS BOOKS
Haunted Illinois (1999 / 2001 / 2004)
Haunted Decatur (1995)
More Haunted Decatur (1996)
Ghosts of Millikin (1996 / 2001)
Where the Dead Walk (1997 / 2002)
Dark Harvest (1997)
Ghosts of Springfield (1997)
Haunted Decatur Revisited (2000)
Flickering Images (2001)
Haunted Decatur: 13th Anniversary Edition (2006)
Haunted Alton (2000 / 2003)
Haunted Chicago (2003)
The Haunted President (2005)
Mysterious Illinois (2006)
Dead Men Do Tell Tales: Bloody Chicago (2006)
Resurrection Mary (2007)

HAUNTED FIELD GUIDE BOOKS
The Ghost Hunter's Guidebook (1997/ 1999 / 2001/ 2004)
Confessions of a Ghost Hunter (2002)
Field Guide to Haunted Graveyards (2003)
Ghosts on Film (2005)
So, There I Was... (With Len Adams) (2006)

HISTORY & HAUNTINGS SERIES
The Haunting of America (2001)
Into the Shadows (2002)
Down in the Darkness (2003)
Out Past the Campfire Light (2004)
Ghosts by Gaslight (2007)

OTHER GHOSTLY TITLES
Spirits of the Civil War (1999)
Season of the Witch (1999/ 2002)
Haunted New Orleans (2000)
Beyond the Grave (2001)
No Rest for the Wicked (2001)
Haunted St. Louis (2002)
The Devil Came to St. Louis (2006)

BARNES & NOBLE PRESS TITLES
Weird U.S. (Co-Author with Mark Moran & Mark Scuerman) (2004)
Weird Illinois (Barnes & Noble Press) (2005)
Haunting of America (2006)
Spirits of the Civil War (2007)

This is from his my space and it explains it all. His bookstore has so much info for anyone interested in the paranormal. Some of the books in the store are his but the majority is his.

www.myspace.com/illinoishauntings is his my space page.

Amanda · Site Admin Joined: 15 Mar 2007 Posts: 1141 Location: KC

Cowabunga dude! Man that dude has writen bunches and oodles of books. Looks like nother sylvia browne. I have indeed heard of this 'Troy" you speak of. Thank you for the information!

yoderkc · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 399 Location: Wyandotte City, KS

they don't call me the most extensic=ve researcher for nothing!

rejectme · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 677 Location: Fulton, Missouri

very facinating
_________________
People fear what they do not understand, so i say let them not understand me but fear me.~jessy~

pacer · Joined: 06 Jul 2007 Posts: 22 Location: Alton,IL

I just picked up Haunted St. Louis and Haunted Alton today!
Great reads! Ive read the Alton one before but I finally made it a part of my library. Fasinating history.

_________________
Im not right in the head!

http://www.myspace.com/rpis

yoderkc · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 399 Location: Wyandotte City, KS

I think if you are ever in any of these areas read the book s about them an dtake them along with you. I highly recommend it with the trip to the lemp mansion. There is so much more to see than the lemp also. Great ghost huinters travel guide.

pacer · Joined: 06 Jul 2007 Posts: 22 Location: Alton,IL

yoderkc · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 399 Location: Wyandotte City, KS

make sure and take it with you . plus go chcek out the cemetaries there most excellent an dfacinating!