Shaker's Cigar Bar Investigation
This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer, one half of Two Halves of a Soul.
Where there is a natural disaster, there is cursed land; where there’s cursed land, there’s a lurking spirit. Located on S 2nd St of Milwaukee, an establishment sits on top of one of the three first non-indigenous cemeteries in Wisconsin. This operating business is known today as Shaker’s Cigar Bar, the only cigar bar in all of Milwaukee.
Shaker’s Cigar Bar wasn’t the first business to own this property after construction. Built in 1894, this establishment ran as a cooperage for the Schlitz Brewing Company. It stayed like this for ten years until it was converted into a coal and oil warehouse in the year of 1905.
When prohibition took effect, Al Capone and his family bought the building to run their own company within its walls. In 1924, the Capone brothers started their own SpeakEasy business and ran a brothel on the second and third floors. Their business was called the “ABC Soda Company,” where they were bottling vodka from Canada transported in beer barrels from Lake Michigan. This continued until 1946.
In 1986, the property was purchased by Bob Weiss, who knew he and his employees were not alone as soon as they started moving things in. Although the cemetery was no longer present, the remains were never removed underneath it. They also discovered bones in the wall of a third floor bedroom during renovations in 2001. This inspired Bob Weiss to conduct further research where he made some interesting revelations.
It appears there was an orchard behind the cemetery that used to sit on S 2nd. There, a little girl had fallen to her death from an apple tree. This little girl’s name is Elizabeth, and she is rumored to haunt the first floor women’s bathroom. She is known to open stall doors, turn sink faucets on, and can be heard whispering and giggling.
Another thing Weiss discovered was a record of a murder in the building back in the 1920s. There was a female prostitute who was said to be murdered by a jealous customer. The bones they uncovered in 2001 were roughly 70 years old, which makes a connection to the female prostitute and the brothel running on the third floor during the 1920s time period. Although the bones were never confirmed to be hers, they call this female spirit Molly, and she is known to awaken the penthouse guests with her activity during the night. Now tell me: if your bones were hiding in a wall for decades, wouldn’t you bother people too?
This isn’t the only activity experienced in this bar though. There is an area out of access (unless scheduled for a tour) and that place is the basement of Shaker’s Bar. There is known to be a sinister energy residing down there that moves an old, heavy safe from its original position. This spirit will also cause the doors to shake randomly and uncontrollably in addition to the sensations of harm you feel when down there.
While you might think that’s the last of it, there is one more entity who may turn up during your visit at this joint and that would be Jeffrey Dahmer. Bob Weiss knew the Wisconsin serial killer personally when he started frequently visiting the bar in the 90s. It is said he would turn up months before he was arrested for the attempted murder of Tracy Edwards. Weiss recollects that he would come in and seem disconnected from reality. He would refuse to be waited on by the female staff, and either Bob or the chef would have to make his gin and tonics.
This bar does offer annual cannibal tours, which includes a walking tour of the path Dahmer walked in the streets of Milwaukee. While Jeffrey’s visits at this bar gave the establishment more recognition, there are still those who find these events distasteful. One of those people displeased is Wesley Lemieux, who did an interview with Fox 6 Milwaukee in 2018. Lemieux stated he introduced his friend (victim Eddie Smith) to Dahmer back in the day, and he still carries the guilt over the loss of his friend. When events like these are advertised, the victims’ families and their well-being hasn’t been considered. The victims’ families have even protested outside of the bar the first year tours began.
The adventurous part about this investigation this time was that we did little to no research before going to Shaker’s Bar. We were supposed to have lunch at the historic Wicked Hop for brunch, but we were unable to find parking when we got there. We decided to eat somewhere else, go to the Milwaukee Public Museum as planned, and come back later for dinner. But we’ll get to that eventually.
We went to the Milwaukee Public Museum to not only check out their constellation show called “Stargazing Wisconsin,” but we wanted to explore the artifacts and see if any spirits were attached to them. Although we didn’t find much for haunted or cursed items, we did get responses from a spirit in “Streets of Old Milwaukee” and an entity by the mummies.
In the “Streets of Old Milwaukee: European Village,” we encountered a spirit by the Fine Sausage Exhibit. We got the words “Tiny” and “Kind” on the iOvilus that made us feel like a child was running around. We got the words “Oh,” “Telepathy,” and “Yes,” that confirmed our thoughts for us. We tried asking a few more questions but were unable to get a response. When we started to walk away, we got the word “Stay,” but no further communication was made after that. We did capture a small orb in our film photos of the Fine Sausage Exhibit though.
When we got up to the Egyptian artifacts, we didn’t get a response from the iOvilus until we got to the mummies. There we got the words “Dirty” and “Threat.” We decided not to attempt communication because they were already items that had been disturbed. We didn’t capture any orbs or apparitions from the mummy cases in our film photos.
After we explored the museum, we made our second attempt to eat at the Wicked Hop. When we got there, the one way street was blocked by an ambulance and fire truck. The EMTs were taking a stretcher into the Wicked Hop, blocking the entrance to getting inside. We took that as a universal sign not to investigate there and started brainstorming for another place to go. That was when we decided on Shaker’s Cigar Bar a few minutes away.
We weren’t able to do any research prior but we had an idea of who we may encounter when we got there. That spirit is Al Capone, and this bar was on our list of places to go. However, it’s not until the same month of the investigation when we do our research. We walked into this one blindly only hoping for some type of spiritual encounter but not quite sure we were going to get one.
Although we didn’t capture or confront any spirits during our visit inside the bar, our time at Shaker’s was magickal all on its own. It felt like a different time period when we sat with a cigar and drink in hand. There was so much going on around us including chatter of the regulars, the popular ghost tours, and a woman doing tarot readings off to the side. We even got asked if we were a part of the ghost tours while we were seated. Though we were not, I don’t find it a coincidence that they asked.
It was decided to conduct the Estes Method session in the car since we didn’t receive any EVPs inside. I didn’t expect us to catch anything with how loud the people and music were. We also performed the session in the car because the temperature drastically dropped outside once the sun went down. Again, we had no idea who we were about to encounter, but I don’t think any of us were prepared to find out.
We began the session asking for Fonz. We were getting a spirit response from Swan, who was wearing the headphones during this session. We asked the spirit if they knew where he was, and the response was “Won’t stop” and “Yeah.” So again, I said “Hey, Fonz!” And finally got a “Yeah” from him.
Once the conversation started with Fonz, we began complimenting his bar and telling him how much we enjoyed our time there. He told us “It is sweet” and disappeared as quickly as he came.
We were interrupted from our session with Fonz by a spirit saying, “That girl - You shaking? I’m freezing!” We got a couple of other responses like that throughout the night and later gathered that these spirits were confused we could communicate with them through our device. They must not have experienced an Estes Method session prior to the one with us.
I tried to revert the conversation back to Fonz by saying “Hey, Fonz!” again, but I was cut off by a spirit saying “No.”
I asked if we were speaking with someone else and we got the response “Cater.” The temp gauge started sounding like a heartbeat shortly thereafter. We aren’t going into the details of this encounter out of respect for the victims. It was later when we received confirmation on who we were actually having a conversation with.
The temp gauge went crazy a few different times before Swan mentioned her chest getting really heavy. I even looked to Nicole at this time and mentioned feeling a shift in people we were speaking with. We tried getting confirmation on who was talking but we got another confused spirit response saying “It’s like she’s dead. I don’t get it.” We did later discover this was a female spirit communicating with us.
I asked her if she could tell us about her time in Milwaukee and her response was “Still here” and “Russian.” When I asked if she was ever associated with Fonz, the temp gauge sounded and the spirit box response was “How’s that? Time out.”
We didn’t initially realize the "Time out" was her way of telling us to wait before asking more questions. This is because the next time we tried to ask her a question, she responded “Someone’s here.” When I asked who was with her she said “Help,” “Jeffrey,” and “To say the enemy.”
When we all made the realization, I asked her if he came into the bar. She responded “Often.” This is also the same moment Swan said she felt cold as the temp gauge sounded. I asked her if she saw anything she shouldn’t have, and her response was “Right in front.” We took that as her saying right in front of her. We asked if she could tell us her name and she said “I don’t know.” We never got confirmation on if this was because she couldn’t remember or if she just didn’t want to tell us.
We weren’t getting much for answers anymore so we decided to thank everyone (except Jeffrey) for their time with us. When we said we were going to give Swan her body back, she said she could hear a female chuckling.
Although we were expecting a longer reunion with Fonz and didn’t anticipate crossing paths with a dead serial killer, we enjoyed the spontaneity of our investigation in Milwaukee. We’re not quite sure why we were directed away from the Wicked Hop, but we know enough to understand that nothing is ever a coincidence. Here’s to all the other surprises our investigations will bring us the rest of this year.
Supporting Links:
Meet the Man Behind the Milwaukee Bar That Al Capone Once Owned (theculturetrip.com)
Shakers Cigar Bar in Milwaukee is America's Most Haunted Bar (hauntedus.com)
Shaker's Cigar Bar's Is One Of The Most Haunted Cigar Bars In Wisconsin (onlyinyourstate.com)
Jeffrey Dahmer would sit on exact same barstool for very specific reason (ladbible.com)
