Chase Saint Paul's Gangster and Ghost Stories From City Hall
A self-guided hunt on the Let's Roam app: about 90 minutes and 1.44 miles of trivia and photo challenges past Landmark Center, the Fitzgerald Theater and the Saint Paul Hotel.
No guide meets you for this one. The Let's Roam app leads your group through downtown Saint Paul and asks questions you can only answer in person, from plaques, statues and public art. Each player also gets photo challenges by text. The best photos earn points, and the hunt keeps a leaderboard. The listing says you can start at any time you wish.
Each ticket gives one player a role with their own challenges, and the operator says up to four roles can share one phone. Buy a ticket for everyone who wants a part to play.
Booking sends you a voucher. Download the Let's Roam app, sign in with Facebook, Google or a text message, tap 3rd Party Vouchers, enter your voucher number and choose the Saint Paul ghost tour. One booking takes up to six people, and an adult must make the booking.
An Epic Gangster and Ghost Hunt in Saint PaulSelf-guided ghost hunt on the Let's Roam app through downtown Saint Paul, starting at City Hall. Up to 6 per booking; full refund up to 24 hours before.www.viator.comCity Hall, Landmark Center and the Fitzgerald Theater
The hunt starts at St. Paul City Hall and Courthouse. From there the operator's Saint Paul page names the Fitzgerald Theater, the Osborn Building, the Fitzpatrick Building, Landmark Center, the George Latimer Central Library and the Saint Paul Hotel, and it lists the Church of the Assumption among the photo stops. The city's own project pages now call the Osborn Building Osborn370, and the plaza in front of it has been rebuilt and renamed Wabasha Park.
The operator puts the walk at 1.44 miles and an hour and a half, and its FAQ says most groups finish in 60 to 90 minutes. The listing allows 1.5 to 2 hours.
Felons, Footsteps and a Balcony Locals Avoid
The operator's page teases the stories without telling them. At the Fitzgerald Theater it points to a ghostly resident and says locals avoid the balcony after hours. At Landmark Center it says the building once held notorious felons and that a judge's footsteps echo after dusk. It gives the Saint Paul Hotel echoes of bygone guests and the Central Library shadowy figures.
The felons part is on record. Landmark Center began as the federal courthouse and post office for the Upper Midwest, and its own site says many of the era's gangsters were held in its third-floor Detention Room and tried in Courtroom 317. The Minnesota Historical Society records Doc Barker and four other gang members going on trial at the St. Paul federal court in 1935 for kidnapping banker Edward Bremer, and J. Edgar Hoover bringing Alvin Karpis to trial in St. Paul in 1936. Landmark Center is open to the public weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays 10 to 5 and Sundays noon to 5, apart from major holidays. Going in is optional, though: Let's Roam's help pages say the hunt does not require entering any public or private building.
The Saint Paul Hotel's history page says Leon Gleckman, known as the "Al Capone of St. Paul," kept his business headquarters in a suite there in the 1920s and '30s; it says nothing about ghosts. At the Fitzgerald, a 2024 WCCO-TV report tells of a stagehand known as Ben who retired half a century ago, and says employees have reported seeing his ghost in the second balcony when the theater is closed.
The operator's FAQ promises stories of gangsters, urban legends and supernatural encounters, and says you need no Saint Paul history to play. The app supplies the facts and the trivia.
Your Phone Is the Guide, the Map and the Scorekeeper
Everything runs through the app: turn-by-turn directions between stops, the trivia questions and the photo challenges. No reservation is needed. The listing counts digital copies of your team's photos in the price, and Let's Roam lists a support phone line and email for trouble during play.
You can pause the hunt and pick it up later the same day or on another day, according to the operator's help pages. That leaves room for a break or a second day.
Kids, Wheelchairs and the Refund Window
Kids are welcome, and the app has a Youngster character for them. The operator's FAQ suggests a ticket for each child over 5 in one answer and over 6 in another; the booking page sells child tickets from age 5.
Service animals are allowed. The listing marks the route as wheelchair and stroller accessible while asking for at least a moderate level of fitness, and it does not recommend the walk for pregnant travelers or anyone with spinal injuries or poor cardiovascular health. The operator's help pages say every hunt is designed to be done in a wheelchair, and that you can skip a question or a stop if construction blocks the way.
The listing does not cancel for bad weather, and a cancellation at least 24 hours ahead gets a full refund; inside 24 hours there is no refund. Let's Roam's help pages say it cannot process refunds on vouchers bought from another seller, so refund requests go to the site you booked on. Dress for the forecast.
Start outside St. Paul City Hall and Courthouse at 15 Kellogg Boulevard West, open the app with your crew, and let the first clue lead the way into downtown's gangster and ghost stories.