History & local legend
For people living in Pittsburgh’s Duquesne Heights, the incline offered an easier trip up the hillside than the long wooden stairway. A local story claims its operators found an unusual way to discourage people from choosing the free climb: they hired a ghost to frighten pedestrians at night.
Ruth and David Miller, neighborhood residents who helped save the Duquesne Incline in 1963, repeated the rumor in Rick Sebak’s WQED documentary Stuff That’s Gone. The supposed haunting was a business tactic, with frightened walkers becoming paying passengers.
In Nick Markowitz Jr.’s later telling, the ghost is a hired actor called Mad Mike. He hides along the dark route and hisses at people passing below. The story’s final twist is that his noises can supposedly still be heard along the old trail long after his employment ended.
Sources
- WQED, Rick Sebak’s Stuff That’s Gone, segment interviewing Duquesne Incline preservationists David and Ruth Miller
- Nick Markowitz Jr., Mad Mike, local named version of the story
- Society for the Preservation of the Duquesne Heights Incline, official site
- Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company photograph, date and location
