21 Mind-Blowing Illinois Local Oddities That Explain the Prairie State

Uncovering the Mysteries of Illinois

From civil engineering marvels to ancient earthen pyramids, explore Illinois's rarest secrets.

To prevent sewage from contaminating Lake Michigan’s clean drinking water, engineers constructed the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, permanently forcing the river to flow backward toward the Mississippi River.

This massive feat of civil engineering remains one of the largest altered watercourses in human history.

Located near Collinsville, Cahokia was the pre-Columbian center of the Mississippian culture, housing over 20,000 residents and featuring Monks Mound—a massive 100-foot-tall hand-built earthen pyramid.

It was the largest urban city in North America north of Mexico prior to European contact.

After Enrico Fermi achieved the first controlled nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago in 1942, the dismantled reactor (Chicago Pile-1) was buried in the Red Gate Woods forest preserve in Cook County.

In 1972, DC Comics officially declared Metropolis, Illinois, as the official hometown of Superman. The city features a 15-foot bronze statue of the superhero and holds an annual Superman Celebration.

Constructed in the early 1900s, an extensive network of narrow-gauge underground tunnels operated electric locomotives beneath downtown Chicago to deliver coal and merchandise directly to building basements.

The town of Olney hosts an estimated population of several hundred albino white squirrels. Local laws give white squirrels the right-of-way on all streets, with heavy fines for harming them.

Due to severe muddy swamp conditions and cholera outbreaks, engineers used thousands of hydraulic jacks to lift entire brick buildings and city blocks upward to install modern sewer lines.

This small town features massive oversized functional items built to revitalized local tourism, including the world’s largest rocking chair, wind chime, mailbox, and golf tee.

Built in 1934 in Niles, Illinois, this 94-foot tilting replica was originally constructed to conceal cooling towers for a public employee recreational swimming park.

Thanks to ideal soil conditions, Illinois grows around 80% of all processed canned pumpkins in the United States, with Morton, Illinois, acting as the self-proclaimed "Pumpkin Capital of the World."

The historic Chicago Water Tower, constructed from Joliet limestone, is one of the few surviving public structures that weathered the catastrophic 1871 fire storm.

Located in Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, massive sculpted sandstone bluffs were carved by over 320 million years of rain and wind erosion into dramatic hoodoos.

Standing 170 feet tall, this iconic 1949 roadside landmark water tower was constructed in the distinct shape of a bottle of Brooks Brooks Catsup.

The legendary "Mother Road" starting point marker sits on Adams Street in Chicago, leading travelers across 300 miles of historic roadside attractions throughout Illinois.

Since 1962, the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union releases a secret eco-friendly vegetable-based powder dye that turns the Chicago River vivid green for several hours.

Nauvoo, situated along the Mississippi River, rapidly grew to rival Chicago in size during the 1840s as early Latter-day Saint pioneers established an autonomous city before migrating west.

Outside the Superman Museum in Metropolis, visitors can examine a glowing chunk of "Kryptonite" rescued from the set of early comic book film adaptations.

Located along the Illinois River, massive glacial outburst floods carved deep vertical sandstone canyons containing cascading seasonal waterfalls.

At Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Abraham Lincoln’s tomb features a bronze bust whose nose shines bright gold after decades of visitors rubbing it for luck.

Constructed in Wadsworth in 1977, this 6-story gold-plated pyramid home was built surrounded by a moat to test sacred Egyptian geometry theories.

Fermilab, one of the world's premier particle physics laboratories, maintains a wild herd of American bison on its 6,800-acre prairie grounds to symbolize frontier research.

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