A notorious Route 66 eatery once frequented by Al Capone.

Combination beer garden and music venue in the heart of Wicker Park.

The world's only known button museum.

This museum celebrating the almighty dollar lets visitors literally stand in the shadow of a million bucks.

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

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

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

Nonprofit art center that promotes outsider, intuitive, and self-taught art.

A gothic church spire sits atop this skyscraper, the tallest church in the world.

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

Former bath house turns gastropub.

Small and slightly hidden, the American Writers Museum is preserving the legacy of America's finest authors.

Where old school Polish Chicago and young hipster Chicago live side by side.

Home to a protest movement, a bombing, and a dramatic change in labor history.

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

An antiquated German apothecary on Chicago's North Side.

A floating museum that was sunk by a flood and left to rot in the tides.

Less a museum than a bizarre fantasy world created by artists and engineers.

This spot in St. Louis, marked with a simple sign, has seen more pro baseball than just about anywhere else in the world.

Famous church recognized for both its unique design and disciplined monks that live according to the Benedictine discipline.

Undone by Prohibition, this abandoned brewery-turned-flour mill is now ready for its third act.

This former small town was destroyed not by the motor oil it sprayed the ground with but by the toxic waste that was added.

If there's another drive-through golf-cart bar in a bat-filled cave on top of a mountain, we don't know about it.

Erosion and time have created a naturally-formed water park.