An avant garde art museum at the University of Chicago.

This grave in a ghost town cemetery marks the death of a witch on a day that never happened.

The beloved home to all publications indie, erotic, and punky.

This sprawling mini-golf empire is an impressive testament to a disappearing attraction.

Fragments of architectural wonders from around the globe are embedded in the newspaper building's walls.

The city of Rockford, Illinois is symbolically protected by a quartet of fittingly stony sentinels.

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

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

What may be America's largest classic video game arcade lurks inconspicuously in a Chicago suburb.

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

A little-known subterranean street runs under some of the best-known buildings in Chicago's River North.

These abandoned grain silos and tunnels are an urban exploration dream.

Former hotel turned into haunted playground.

At Chicago's revered Field Museum, visitors are invited to learn about and literally explore DNA.

River pirates, murderous bandits, and serial killers used this Illinois cave as their debauched hideout.

The world's only known button museum.

Chicago's museum dedicated to the history of bondage and fetishism is more textbook than titillation.

Shop of curiosities with a dinosaur museum tucked in its basement.

A once-booming Mississippi River town with a history of racial violence is now eerie and mostly abandoned.

This unauthorized stone mermaid was secretly carved out of public stone before being permanently preserved.

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

This shop for all your super spy needs hides an educational secret.

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

This whimsical Oz-themed park had a wonderful impact on the surrounding neighborhood.