About

The Cedar Falls Ghost Tour is a small, locally- and woman-owned tourism business that blends history, education, and entertainment to showcase the rich heritage of Cedar Falls, Iowa. Founded and authored by Lauren Riensche, the tour has welcomed more than 3,500 visitors from over 80 communities in just five years, and partners with more than 40 local businesses annually—from hotels and restaurants to historic organizations and nonprofits—to create immersive, community-centered experiences. In addition to its popular walking tours, the business offers a variety of other tourism experiences, as well as seasonal history tours in collaboration with Cedar Falls Tourism. The tour also generates additional income opportunities for local businesses, with guests reporting spending an average of $70 downtown. The tour has also garnered over 1.2M media impressions nationally, bringing more attention to the Cedar Falls community. And, at the end of each tour season, a significant portion of proceeds is donated to a variety of area nonprofits, resulting in improvements to public spaces and an increase in partner organization memberships. Rooted in creative placemaking and economic vitality, the Cedar Falls Ghost Tour has quickly become one of the region’s most unique tourism assets and a meaningful driver of community engagement and downtown growth.

Lauren Riensche grew up on her family’s six-generation farm in Jesup, Iowa. She graduated from UChicago in 2015 with honors in Sociology and Economics, where she gave a TEDx Talk on the unique challenges agriculture faces in meeting the needs of a growing global population. From then on, she has worked on helping the industry meet those challenges through her marketing work at the intersection of farming, technology, and sustainability. Over the years, she has curated award-winning go-to-market strategies for leading ag brands—from start-ups to established companies—living and working in New York, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Vienna, and Budapest. In her personal time, Lauren enjoys volunteering, traveling, acting, hiking with her retriever, Polly, and being happily married to her high school sweetheart, Luke Gosse.

Lauren Riensche is an award-winning agricultural GTM strategist, as well as the author and host of the Cedar Falls Ghost Tour.