It's a 4 star if you are into this type of thing...it's not really my thing, which is why it's a 3…read more This is Chicago's oldest house, according to the literature. Pros: The guides are extremely knowledgeable. Our guide was a history major & she knew every little thing about the house & and its history. She also grew up in the neighborhood. One guide was a biology teacher & when we were outside, she told us all about cicadas, more than the generic info you read about in the news. It's really pretty & the interior was filled with old wedding dresses & it's history. Interesting fact I observed... wedding dresses don't seem to go out of style. The wedding dresses were numbered & correspond to a phamlet detailing its history. It's a recommendation of $5-$10, affordable & you do your part on old building restoration. Cons: It's a very small house.

Check out some old Chicago history. If looking for the oldest place in the city then come here for…read morea look. The Noble-Seymour-Crippen House is the oldest structure. Even though it wasn't a part of the city for a long time, it is now and it's older than anything else. Pretty much this is used for banquets and stuff mostly even though it's also a museum but you can make an appointment to visit. Before coming here it should be known this isn't like a museum that a lot of people know about. It's used mostly for events. Things like weddings and that. It has pretty limited hours if just coming to look around. This is open only Saturdays. It's the oldest known structure in the city. The oldest part was built in 1833, and the addition was built in 1868 or so. Among the artifacts are a collection of things found in the ground collected in an archeological dig. There's objects like buttons, guns, toys, and more. Other exhibits show the history of Norwood Park and what it was like. This place is also the home of the Norwood Park Historical Society and is where they have meetings. Good place to check out if you can make the limited hours. It's a must if wanting to learn more about the local history and what it was like back then. This is also pretty popular for those looking to have some big event like a wedding or whatever.

Great place mainly for small kids. There's an area to walk around that has a hawk, turkey vulture,…read moreand an owl (I'll add pictures). There's a play area in front of the building with lots of fun activities for kids. Inside the building - which is a 150-year old former mansion, there are 4 rooms with some exhibits, animals like snakes and turtles, and a good-sized play area. Outside, one can walk around the pond - which took me about 20 minutes. It is tree-lined and also goes along the Des Plaines River.

Quiet, clean and well maintained museum. The building looks really beautiful from the outside and…read morelooks well-kept from the inside. I saw a small play area for small kids in one of the rooms.

There was a time the United States allowed slavery, or at least parts of it did. We're here in…read moreIllinois which was not a slave state. And this marker points to the history where a number of slaves from the south came on their journey to freedom. Slaves fleeing the South before the Civil War followed the Des Plaines River north to Maywood, where abolitionists aided them. The journey was called the "Underground Railroad" and it is believed this was one of those stops. According to historians, the Underground Railroad consisted of "stations," or stopping points, where slaves escaping to free states or Canada hid and rested before returning to the treacherous route. Taking over a small corner of this McDonald's parking lot, you would otherwise miss it. There is a plaque, some benches and a small piece of railroad though no, the railroad is a metaphor for the escaping slaves who would not have traveled on such a mainstream route. [Review 20626 overall - 173 in Illinois - 1607 of 2023.]

My husband and I were in Elmhurst looking for something fun to do and the Elmhurst History Museum…read morefit that bill. This is a really neat museum. While detailing the past, it has some current innovations like a large movie screen where you can select different videos on the village's history to watch. The museum features many artifacts from the permanent collection as well as a timeline of village history. While we were there the rotating exhibits were being changed. For a fun day with history, I highly recommend the Elmhurst History Museum!

Ah memories! This is a fantastic exhibit located in the Elmhurst Museum of History…read more You will discover the evolution of the retail industry and brick and mortar stores going back to the 1800s with artifacts,images and memorabilia . Relive the days when people would get dressed up in their Sundays Best for lunch at the Walnut Room located in Marshall Fields. Look at the Sears or Montgomery Wards Holiday catalogs See a re-creation of a Holiday Window from Marshall Fields. The exhibit is open thru Jan 28,2024. Admission is free.

Come here on a Tuesday afternoon and it's not a very long wait. My car front plates were stolen. I…read morehad to get new ones and need to update my plates on my registration. I was told to come here. Line moves before you get bored.

Stopped in to get some residential parking permits, and came at apparently the perfect time. I'd…read moredriven by the day before and there was a line halfway down the ramp, which didn't just didn't have time to wait through. Happily when I came the following day there were only 3-4 people in front of me and I was here for five minutes total from the time I parked my car until the time I got back in. Yes, they may close a window even if there are people here... but are employees not entitled to breaks, and should a business not comply with the law that requires employees to have specific rest periods? I'm not mad about that. Parking around the area may or may not be metered; I've only been to the Masonic Temple for meetings or this once to the clerk's office. There's parking on the west side of the building and the surrounding streets.

Open on Thursdays from 11-4. As of April 2024, they accept a modest entrance of $2 or canned food…read morefor the food pantry per person.

I visited Chicago this past weekend with some family and friends, and it turned out to be a very…read morearchitecture-heavy trip. We decided to stop by Pleasant Home since we were in Oak Park for a tour of (you guessed it) the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. Pleasant Home was a bit of a disappointment for us, but it was probably partly our fault. I was dragging our group around to look at historic buildings all weekend, and I was a bit worried the two people less interested in architecture were beginning to get bored. When we arrived at Pleasant Home, I saw they offered guided and self-guided tours. Because I was worried a long tour might be the breaking point for two of our group, we opted for the self-guided to keep it a bit shorter. What I didn't realize is that if you do the self-guided tour, you are limited to the bottom floor of the home. You are given a single laminated sheet of paper with the floor plan and some very basic information about the house. On top of that, the bottom floor of the house has no furniture in it (with a couple of exceptions - two tables maybe?). So, while the price for the self-guided tour was reasonable (only $5 per person), you basically have access to five or so rooms with no furniture in them. We were in and out in about 15 minutes. The house is beautiful (although the lighting seemed very low, making the house appear very dark), but I cannot recommend a self-guided tour. If you're interested in the house, pay the extra $5 and arrive on the hour for a guided tour. You'll get to go upstairs and learn more about the house than what is on the laminated floor plan guide. It might be a wonderful guided tour, I can only say that the self-guided tour option is not worth doing.

This tour is located at the house Ernest Hemingway was born in and lived until he was 6 years old…read more The house he moved to afterwards and lived in until he graduated high school is only like a 5 minute walk away, but someone currently lives there so it is not open to the public. This Victorian style house was remodeled to look almost exactly the way it did when Ernest Hemingway lived here. In the 50s it was turned into apartments and the porch was removed. I admire the amazing work they did on the house to get it to look almost exactly how it did before. Idk if I've ever read anything by Ernest Hemingway, but I know how iconic his books and stories are. I never knew he was from Oak Park! I love historical tours, even if I don't exactly know much/care about the person the tour is based around. Even to me, the tour was extremely interesting and the tour guide was amazing and knew a lot! It was $20 and lasted about an hour. We purchased our tickets in person when we got there. The Victorian era is fascinating, and much of the tour talks about life during that time. It also talks about who Ernest Hemingway grew up with and perhaps what inspired a lot of his work. Of course it mostly discusses his childhood because this is where he lived as a young child and how his parents and grandparents raised him. The tour goes through the entire house and upstairs, and there are so many interesting artifacts to see and look at.

The tour was thorough and informative: $20 for adults and $18 for students for a fifty minute tour…read moreof the house where Ernest Hemingway spent the first six years of his life. The house itself is beautiful, and is fitted with objects/decorations from the late Victorian period. Some of the items are in fact originals from the Hall/Hemingway family, and there are a number of original paintings by Hemingway's mother, Grace. The docent was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. She gave an extensive account of Hemingway's immediate and extended family, which provided an insight into how a well-off family of that era lived. I had read only a couple of Hemingway's works at the time, but the tour was interesting enough that I was able to enjoy it without being a major fan. The building is about a twelve minute walk from the Green Line Oak Park CTA Station, and is close to many restaurants, cafés and shops. There is a lovely park between the station and the home, where one can sit and enjoy the weather + occasional live music. Overall, I highly recommend the tour if you are a Chicago resident or otherwise a Hemingway fan from out of town. It's a quick, cute tour and lovely area.

Unity Temple is another Frank Lloyd Wright design. It is walking distance from (only a few blocks…read moreaway) his house and studio. Make a day trip and see both of them. The Temple was part of a group of buildings added UNESCO World Heritage site recently.

Since I had a coupon from Groupon for the Unity Temple, I decided to take the hike out to Oak Park…read more It is defiantly a day trip. I took the Green Line train to Oak Park. From the train, you can walk to the Unity Temple, just follow the street signs to the Unity Temple. In the lobby, you will be given a pamphlet and a brief history about the temple. From there, you have the opportunity to take your time to walk around the temple. You certainly can tell, this masterpiece is from Frank Lloyd Wright. Granted, the temple is going under renovations, I would highly recommend taking a tour of this building.

During Parents' Weekend at the University of Chicago, the university offered tours of the…read moreneighborhood through Chicago Detours. My wife did this tour a couple years ago and highly recommended it, but I wasn't especially interested because I had also gone to school here and figured I knew enough about Hyde Park already. However, she insisted that it would be worth our while and so I agreed to climb on the bus. And it was the absolutely right decision, because the tour was excellent. In fact, it wasn't just a tour of Hyde Park. It included the surrounding neighborhoods of Washington Park, Kenwood, Jackson Park, and Woodlawn. Since this was a UChicago sponsored event much of the information related to the University's investment and involvement in the area. Our tour guide and founder of Chicago Detours, Amanda, is herself a graduate of UChicago and thus she had some additional insight into the relationship with the community. Though the 75-minute tour felt a little slow-going at times, there was much to learn about the vibrant but sometimes troubled history of the area. Amanda has tremendous knowledge and the excursion was both fascinating and entertaining. I can imagine that Chicago Detours would have equally interesting tours of other neighborhoods in this diverse city.

Virtual tours are such a cool thing to do right now. I attended a Yelp Elite event that was a…read morevirtual food tour of Chicago. It was incredibly informative and a good balance of history and current trends. Looking forward to attending more virtual tours, like the World's Fair and the Cruise From Your Couch Boat Tour. I loved seeing the pictures of the in-person tours and can't wait to attend some of those too.