Better known as the "Body Farm," this unique research facility has been studying how human bodies break down since the 1980s.

A theater sits abandoned on Roosevelt Road, once majestic in splendor, now majestic in decay.

Once known as the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane.

A onetime gangsters' hideaway where you can dine on steaks, fine wines, and cigars just like they once did.

An abandoned meat mecca now serves as an excellent locale for urban exploration.

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

What was once one of the country's largest confectionary plants is now an abandoned ruin, but is still pretty sweet.

The carved remains of a 200-year-old oak tree memorialize the namesake of the iconic "Wizard of Oz" character.

A historic and oft-filmed prison stands in a Chicago suburb.

Built in 1869, this now-retired structure looks more like a medieval fortress than a county lock-up.

The original vault that held the president's remains still stands, empty, not far from where he was finally buried.

This cemetery is all that remains of a school for "wayward" girls.

This tiny historic jail along Route 66 is the perfect fit for exactly one criminal and their partner-in-crime.

This life-size bronze statue remembers the tallest recorded human in his Illinois hometown.

Today this bizarre rooftop phone booth seems like a piece of kitsch but it was once used to spot disastrous storms.

This abandoned 19th century orphanage started as a boarding school for children of Civil War veterans.

A river with some unusual, and occasionally dangerous, habits.

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

The legacy of an unsolved, gruesome murder rests beneath the spans of this historic bridge.

The final resting place of up to 6,000 Confederate soldiers, the largest mass grave in the Western Hemisphere.

The unluckiest U-boat in the entire German fleet is now on display in a Chicago museum.

A replica viking ship from the Chicago World's Fair is still in dry dock in an Illinois park.

When you visit his grave, be sure to rub the Great Emancipator's nose for good luck.

Once one of the world's great cities, Cahokia was a place of religious worship, trade and mass human sacrifice before being mysteriously abandoned.