Historic Oddity Headline: February 8, 1917 - Finds Hidden Rooms In House Of Mystery
The Wisconsin Weekly Blade
February 8, 1917
“Finds Hidden Rooms In House Of Mystery.”
Carpenter Work on Old Place Reveals Apartments None Knew About.
Chicago. - At 3624 Ellis Park is an old three story frame building that was a home when Ellis park was a woodland. For the last eight or nine years, in a remodeled form, it has been an apartment building.
A few days ago a carpenter, tearing away old planking to build a porch, broke through a wall and made discoveries which made 3624 Ellis Park a house of mystery.
Between the second and third floors he found a hidden apartment, of which not even John Chamales, new owner of the building, knew. Carefully Frank Wilder, the carpenter, entered through the hole he had made in the wall.
He found a complete set of rooms running from the front to the rear of the building. The walls and ceiling were unfinished. There were no windows and no visible means of exit. There was a small table in one corner with a few dishes on it and an old copper lamp. Rush covered, but with a frying pan of ancient days still on it, there was a stove. Some straw in a corner seemed to indicate where the mysterious occupant of the mystery chamber had slept.
A piece of wire between two walls served as a hanger for an old coat. Over everything was a thick layer of dust.
In hunting for an exit Wilder came upon a panel in the wall fastened with a hinge, two big iron hooks and a bar that fitted into iron clasps. It opened upon the staircase and so matched the paneling that it was invisible from the outside.
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