A tribute to one granddaughter's old apartment which now represents the whims of each visitor.

This family driveway also serves as the highest point in Illinois.

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

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

It was originally part of a "terrible lizards" collection at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

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

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

While he no longer has an eatery to give him context, this off-brand Paul Bunyan still holds his giant hot dog with pride.

Arguably the best example of an authentic Dutch windmill in the United States, rivaling its counterparts in the Netherlands.

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

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

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

Recognized the world over as the home of the McCallisters in the 1990 movie "Home Alone."

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

An enormous park-like oasis, full of famous Chicagoans' graves.

The first plantation museum in the United States to focus on the lives of enslaved people.

Bat house that has only ever housed bat for one night; they all flew away and never came back.

Hundreds of skulls and bones at the largest skeleton museum in the country.

Get up close with some alligators at this roadside farm attraction.

Electrical pylon in the shape of Disney's beloved mouse.

A lion given to the prime minister somehow got stuffed and sent to Florida.

This phone booth-sized municipal building has been a piece of police property for more than half a century.

A thriving Black community was destroyed by an angry white mob at this site in 1923.

The walls of America's oldest masonry fort famously "swallowed" cannonballs.