Whenever Lauren Riensche, AB’15, finds herself in a new city, she tries to take a ghost tour. “You get a little deeper insight into the community that you’re visiting,” she says. In 2021 Riensche decided to bring the fun home by creating a ghost tour of Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she’s lived since 2020. (Riensche, who works in marketing for a sustainable agriculture company, grew up on her family’s farm in nearby Jesup.) The tour recounts spooky tales gathered from fellow locals and archival research. Riensche’s comments have been condensed and edited.

What inspired you to create a ghost tour?

During the pandemic I moved from Boston back home to Iowa, and I fell into the work-from-home routine where where you get up, you walk over to your laptop, you work all day, and then you go sit on your couch and look at a different screen for a while and before going to bed. After a few months of this, I thought, “Man, I really need a new hobby.” I realized I’d been on enough ghost tours that I could take a stab at making one, and that could be a new hobby.

Now, it’s become much more than a hobby. It’s an opportunity for me to get to know people in my community and learn about the history of where I live and share that with other people.

Do you lead your tours in character?

Just as myself. I mention that I’m a Cedar Falls local who has an interest in history and hauntings. I really lean into the history behind the stories. I don’t want these stories to just be about someone’s worst day or one moment from their lifetime. They were people too, and I want to give tour goers that context and honor the fullness of the lives of the people I’m talking about.

Do you believe in ghosts, or do you just like ghost stories as a way of engaging people?

I tell people at the beginning of the tour that I’m not there to convince them whether ghosts exist or not. If you believe in them, great. If not, I hope you find the spooky stories entertaining.

I think that we don’t have everything all figured out. There are a lot of tall tales out there about ghosts and paranormal hauntings, but there have also been a few instances, even in my own life, where I haven’t quite been able to find an explanation. It’s the unknown element that keeps me, and my tour goers, fascinated.

What was the research process like?

I started doing the research almost a year in advance of the first tour I gave. I combed through archives at the library and online, looked at fiche film of old newspapers, and read every history book about the community I could get my hands on. I also spent a lot of time at my local historical society. I still donate a portion of all proceeds from the ghost tour to the historical society every year, because I find that work to be so important.

What’s your favorite story from the tour?

There’s a story about a man who lived in the community between 1915 and 1984, and he passed away just a few months after his 100th birthday. His name was Eddie Bowles, and he was a beloved citizen here in Cedar Falls. He was a talented musician who played in the same circles as Louis Armstrong in New Orleans, and he taught music in the community while he lived here. The story goes that some of the people who work in one of the buildings near where he lived have heard unexplained blues music playing from somewhere on the premises from time to time. I like to think that he used his musical talents to give back to the community his whole life—and now, he continues to give back in the afterlife.

What reactions have you gotten from attendees?

I’m really lucky that not only have I gotten a lot of positive feedback on the tour but also that word of mouth has spread. I’ve been able to draw people from over 20 communities in the past year alone. I’ve given tours to locals and to people from Los Angeles, and many places in between. Every year I’ve been able to sell out the tour. This past year, all tickets sold out in 20 minutes. I’m very grateful that I have such support from the community. I believe that support stems from the goodwill I worked to build, as I was very intentional when I was building the tour, making sure I got permission from people to use their stories and that I represented them accurately.

Do you look at your community differently now?

I always joke that, since doing this research, I haven’t known a moment of peace walking around downtown—because now I know where there are a lot spooky (or tragic) stories. But in reality, I don’t mind it at all. I really love knowing a community’s history deeply. In addition, it’s fun to be spotted out and about downtown. People say, “You do the ghost tours, right?” “That’s me!”

The opportunities from this one idea have been exponential. I’ve done private tours and talked about my research at a variety of venues, and I’ve gotten opportunities to be a volunteer in other places in my community simply because of the connections that I’ve made. Notably, the tours have led to my involvement in Community Main Street, which is the nonprofit supporting the downtown community economy here in Cedar Falls.

You must get a lot of people telling you about their paranormal experiences now.

I love it when people feel open enough to share with me. The way that I started collecting stories for this tour was that I created a little flyer with my email address on it that said, “Got ghosts?” And I just walked up and down Main Street and talked to all of the shop owners and asked if they’d ever experienced anything unexplained in their businesses. Lots of people had stories for me, or they were just very supportive. I’ve also gotten into the habit of carrying around ghost tour business cards with me everywhere. So when people say, “I’ve got a great story,” I hand them a card and say, “Please tell me more.”

Are you aware of any UChicago ghosts?

Surprisingly, I never heard any consistent UChicago ghost stories. I think UChicago’s more fascinating macabre stories are related to real-life historical figures, including the Lipstick Killer, Leopold and Loeb, and H. H. Holmes.

Your full-time job is in agribusiness. Do your colleagues know about the ghost tour?

I finally added the tour to my LinkedIn a few months ago. It’s gotten big enough now where I’ve been featured on some podcasts and some radio shows, so I figured I’d just go ahead and add it.

I have given the tour to a few of my colleagues, and the reactions are similar to those of most any tour group. Some people aren’t believers but think the stories are interesting, and some are completely enraptured and share their own stories with me. And I love learning that about my colleagues.

Are you, in general, a big Halloween person?

I do love the season. I am the sixth generation from my family farm, so there’s already that special feeling that comes with the harvest season.

When you’re out there and you see the harvest moon—my husband and I like to joke that there’s nothing creepier than when you’re harvesting around an abandoned old farmhouse at night. When you finally get out of the combine and you shut everything off and it’s dead silent and the wind is just blowing through the dry corn—that is a spooky place to be, and it feels very October.