This observatory comes complete with three separate telescopes and a dedicated community of amateur and expert astronomers.

The park is home to the United States's only still-operating Dutch windmill.

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

The mysterious white squirrels of this Illinois city are treated like sacred cows.

The only surviving prototype for Buckminster Fuller's house of the future.

One of the few working locomotive roundhouses in the United States.

Half-sized replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa built to honor Galileo.

The 80-foot tire that looms over Michigan's I-94 was once a Ferris wheel in the New York World Fair.

The oldest house in Chicago certainly doesn't look the part and there are some who say it doesn't deserve its title either.

A historic beacon built in the aftermath of the worst maritime disaster on the Great Lakes.

This 19th-century former train station’s unusual roof shape earned it a rather witchy name.

A favorite of Amelia Earhart, ranking among those rare bridges that can be crossed without changing sides of the river.

The 10-foot-tall vegetables belong to Michigan’s first food rescue program.

A circle of giant painted vases in the former pottery capital of the United States.

A science teacher's dream.

Beautiful waterfalls grace a canyon visibly torn by a violent tornado.

Chicago's North Park Village was once the largest municipal sanatorium in the country.

An ever-evolving wall of graffiti art off East Liberty Street.

This morbid, delightful curiosity shop offers everything from animal bones to human teeth.

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

A century-old hotspot for jazz, frequented by everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Al Capone.

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

Take a drunken tour inside the world's largest known geode.

This small, but long-running hobby club has built one of the largest model rail lines in the US.