How a Wisconsin Music Venue’s Underground Pool Became Haunted and Full of Autographs

One of Milwaukee's most popular concert venue's has a secret hiding from the thousands of music fans that visit every year.

The Rave/Eagles Club is a spacious live music host with five concert halls throughout one building located in the western portion of the city. But there is one part of this complex that is only open to the musicians playing the venue's stages.

Why Is There A Pool Inside The Rave/Eagles Club?

The Eagles Club officially opened in 1927 as the home of the Milwaukee chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Today, the non-profit group describes itself as an "organization uniting fraternally in the spirit of liberty, truth, justice, and equality, to make human life more desirable by lessening its ills and promoting peace, prosperity, gladness and hope."

READ MORE: Unassuming Wisconsin Home For Sale Has Unique Surprise Waiting In Basement

The Milwaukee chapter would turnout to be a big deal. According to TheRave.com, more than 100,000 people attended a national convention at the building in 1927. By the 1940s, everyone wanted in on the Milwaukee chapter as it became among the largest in the country.

Not only would the size of the chapter be a draw to prospective members, but also the group's home building, the Eagles Club. Amenities at the club included bowling alleys, a two-story gym, a barber and a large underground swimming pool.

While the 75-by-50-foot pool was an attraction for the Eagles Club, it was hardly unique for the city. OnMilwaukee published a list of known underground pools in 2018 that included the Eagles Club pool along with others at the Elks Wonder Lodge and the Milwaukee Athletic club, which reportedly allowed nude swimming up until 2003.

OnMilwaukee reported the Eagles Club was no different as its pool would often be populated with nude bodies.

"The first time I was in there, everyone else – all old men – was naked, as had been the case since the building opened in 1927," Bobby Tanzilo, OnMilwaukee senior editor and writer, shared on the website.

How The Rave/Eagles Club Pool Became Haunted

Today, the pool remains mostly closed off from the public with the exception of special events put on the by venue including Haunted Holidays when guests can pay to get limited access to that area of the building.

There are several groups claiming the area pool is, however, frequented by ghosts. HauntedHouses.com, which charts paranormal activity and its locations, says The Rave/Eagles Club staff have heard the shuffling of footsteps and have also smelled a strong odor of bleach even though the pool was drained several years ago.

"Entity of a little girl roams around the hallways behind the coat-check area in the basement. Her laughter is heard," the website reports.

HauntedHouses.com was unable to determine the girl's identity, but did note that at least two children drown in the pool included a 17-year-old after he suffered a heart attack.

What The Rave/Eagles Club Pool Looks Like Today

Besides the alleged little girl who wanders the halls, the pool is most frequented these days by musicians who play at one of more than 250 shows hosted annual at The Rave/Eagles Club.

It has become tradition for many of them, including Jelly Roll and Olivia Rodrigo, to take a trip down to the pool to scribble their autograph and maybe even a drawing on its walls.

Some even take advantage of the pool's acoustics, singing songs that few will ever hear in person. Musician Laura Jane Grace turned the experience into a song called "The Swimming Pool Song," which was later released on her 2020 album Stay Alive.

"I am a haunted swimming pool. I am emptied out and drained," Grace sings to open the song.

Two years later, she returned to perform "The Swimming Pool Song" in the actual swimming pool.