Two Way Inn

The Two Way Inn has been slinging drinks from the same corner of Mount Elliott and Nevada since 1876, making it Detroit’s oldest bar — and, by local consensus, its most haunted. Founded by Civil War veteran Colonel Philetus Norris (who also happened to be the second superintendent of Yellowstone National Park), the building has done stints as a general store, stagecoach stop, village jail, dance hall, and, during Prohibition, a dentist’s office that conveniently could still “prescribe” whiskey.

The current owners, the Malak/Aganowski family, have run it for nearly 50 years and prefer to say the bar is “spirited” rather than haunted — Norris himself is said to still wander the halls in his signature wide-brimmed hat, alongside a “Lady in White” believed to be one of his daughters. The original Stroh’s-installed back bar, wooden floors, stained glass, and copper pool-room ceiling are all still intact, and the place still runs on an honor-system bell above the bar: ring it, and you owe the room a round.

On our radar as the anchor stop for any Detroit haunted-history crawl, or for a genuinely unfiltered slice of old-school Detroit that doesn’t perform for visitors.