World's second largest particle accelerator, where nature reveals its secrets.

Once known as the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane.

The remnants of Peoria's proud baseball past stand slightly abandoned, but not forgotten.

This rare female version of the Muffler Man has its clothes removed each summer to signal the start of pool season.

The world's third-largest scale model of the planets.

Orthodox church partially financed by Tsar Nicolas II.

A lush green oasis in the middle of Chicago.

The famous author's birthplace is preserved in a town that he once described as narrow-minded.

This historic store hides a museum exhibiting a shoe-sizing x-ray machine and a pair of kicks that once belonged to the world's tallest man.

The final resting place of the world's first nuclear reactor.

Chicago’s incendiary role in the labor movement.

A plaque marks a former safe house on the secret route, now hidden next to a McDonald's.

Julia Buccola Petta's body was peculiarly well-preserved when it was exhumed six years after her death.

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

The face of a woman pushes its way through the earth.

This overgrown Illinois water park offers a whole new type of adventure.

This elaborate Hindu temple is located in a Chicago suburb, but looks like it was transported directly from India.

People escaping slavery passed through the oldest house in Lombard, Illinois on their northbound journey to freedom.

This botanical garden outside Chicago boasts an array of more than 300 varieties of lilacs.

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

A hidden grotto on the grounds of the Kane County Government Center.

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

This house renovated by Frank Lloyd Wright was the centerpiece of a lavish 20th-century estate.

An exhibit of items from the mental institution where Mary Todd Lincoln lived after her son conspired to have her committed.