History in Chicago

One of Chicago's last seafood smokehouses perfects a dying breed of fishcraft.

A chance to follow in the footsteps of the word's most legendary animator.

A Japanese temple, old German townhouses, and public chess tables offer a peaceful escape from the bustle of the North Side.

In a quiet north Chicago neighborhood rests a stunning relic of the golden age of earthenware design.

One of the few remaining relics of the meatpacking hub that made Chicago the "hog butcher to the world."

One-of-a-kind preserved ruins of an abandoned 1880s church in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

This alley in downtown Chicago held the bodies of over 600 people after the fateful Iroquois Theatre fire.

Chicago's Navy Pier on Lake Michigan was a training hub for aircraft carrier pilots during WWII.

A century-old network of freight tunnels underneath the city's historic business district.

Once at the center of U.S. finance, the historic Trading Room was meticulously recreated piece by piece and rebuilt in the Art Institute.

These chunky stone towers out in Lake Michigan are the key to Chicago’s drinking water.

Chicago was once a major hub of film production, but being silent film you don’t hear much about it.

This historic hotel invented the chocolate brownie.

Built to house a chapter of the Knights Templar, this grandiose building is a relic of Freemasonry in Chicago a century ago.