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

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

Spanking machines, fake goats, and more devices of humiliation are on display in this museum of fraternal initiation devices.

Museum dedicated to the art of cutting and polishing stones.

The 40-year-old machine serves soda quicker than you can catch it for a mere 75 cents a pop.

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

One of the last functioning antique elevators in Chicago.

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

The multinational Burger King chain is banned from operating within 20 miles of a family restaurant filed under the same name.

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

You have to love a museum with a truly dedicated focus. A focus on Superman, for example.

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

The iconic Chicago sculpture hides a beautiful and easily overlooked plaque on the backside.

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

Tour the luxe "glass cage" that inspired and unnerved the architecture world upon its debut.

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

This alley in downtown Chicago held the bodies of over 600 people after the fateful Iroquois Theatre fire.

The world's largest collection of the world's largest objects is in one small Illinois town.

Eclectic collection of rare and beautiful stones in a historic home.

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

A shining sculpture made of 3,115 lights, the number of visible stars in the Northern Hemisphere.

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

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

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