Hey Chicago!
We write about this city every single week (we’re the only real estate team that is committed to weekly articles), and honestly, it’s easy because there is always something new or interesting to cover about Chicago.
This week, we put together some of our favorite Chicago facts that don’t usually make the standard tourist guides. A few of these might surprise you even if you’ve lived here for years.
If this is your first time here, we’re the Ben Lalez Team, and we’ve been helping people buy and sell homes in Chicago for over a decade. Every week, we publish an article about something interesting or useful about the city. Subscribe to our newsletter if you want these sent to your inbox.
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Now, onto the facts!
There Was A 60-Mile Railroad Under Downtown That Almost Nobody Knew About
About 40 feet below the streets of the Loop, there’s a forgotten network of freight tunnels that once stretched for roughly 60 miles under most of downtown.
Built starting in 1900, they were large enough to run a railroad that delivered coal, mail, and merchandise straight into the sub-basements of major buildings. The Board of Trade, City Hall, Marshall Field’s, and the Federal Reserve Bank were all connected to this.
The system ran from 1904 to 1959, and because it operated below the city’s own sewers and utility lines, most Chicagoans had no idea it was there when it was in active use.
One of the stranger details about it: the company vented the tunnels’ natural cool air up into hotels and theaters and sold it as an early version of air-conditioning. When the company went under in 1959, the little locomotives were sold for scrap, and the tunnels were sealed up and basically forgotten.
The reason most people eventually heard about them is a good story as well. In 1992, a crew driving piles near the Kinzie Street Bridge accidentally punched through one of these old tunnels right under the Chicago River. Water rushed in and spread through the whole network, flooding the basements of 24 downtown buildings and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
You Can Walk Across A Big Section Of Downtown Without Going Outside
This one is for people who haven’t been to Chicago yet.
Just above those freight tunnels and below street level, there’s the Chicago Pedway, a five-mile network of tunnels, underground concourses, and skybridges connecting more than 50 buildings in the Loop, along with CTA and Metra stations, hotels, and government offices. The first section opened in 1951, and it grew piece by piece over the next few decades as different buildings added their own links. That’s why it feels a bit like patchwork rather than a single uniform design.
In the winter, it’s useful to get across downtown to avoid the cold. But it’s poorly signed, easy to get turned around in, and a lot of Chicagoans have never walked the whole thing, even though it’s been there for 70 years.
Wacker Drive Goes In All Four Directions
Downtown Chicago has a system of double and sometimes triple-decked streets built along the river to separate different kinds of traffic. Wacker Drive is the best example.
There’s an upper level for riverfront traffic and building entrances, a lower level for trucks and through traffic, and in one section, a third level below that for towing and utility work.
Because Wacker follows the river’s bend, it’s the only street in Chicago with addresses assigned in all four directions at different points. North Wacker, South Wacker, East Wacker, West Wacker. That trips people up when they’re navigating downtown for the first time.
The multilevel streets are actually a later version of something the city did even earlier. Starting in the mid-1850’s, Chicago lifted whole blocks of buildings four to seven feet using thousands of screw jacks while people were still inside going about their day, all so engineers could install a sewer system underneath.
Some older buildings still have what look like half-buried basement doors at street level because of it.
Lincoln Park Is Built On Top Of Thousands Of People
This one surprises people, and it’s a bit morbid. Lincoln Park started as Chicago’s main municipal cemetery in the 1840’s. Tens of thousands of people were buried there, including cholera victims and a large potter’s field for the poor.
When the city eventually decided to convert the land and ordered remains relocated to cemeteries farther out, the whole process was rushed and inconsistently documented. A lot of graves were never moved.
It’s estimated that between 6,000 and 12,000 bodies likely still lie beneath parts of the park, including baseball fields. The only visible remnant of the old City Cemetery is the Couch Mausoleum, a stone tomb sitting in the middle of the park near the Chicago History Museum.
Grant Park Was Built On Fire Debris
Before it was a park, the area east of Michigan Avenue was an open, polluted area. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, rubble from burned buildings was dumped into it and over time, that garbage became new land.
Later lakefill projects continued to push the shoreline further east. In some parts of downtown, the current shoreline sits nearly a half-mile east of where it was when settlers first arrived. Millennium Park is actually sitting on an open lake from the 19th century.
A mail-order businessman named Aaron Montgomery Ward then spent about twenty years suing the city, and winning four separate Illinois Supreme Court cases, to enforce old map language that said the lakefront east of Michigan Avenue had to remain forever open and free of buildings.
Without those lawsuits, Grant Park would likely be all warehouses and office towers.
Chicago Has 1,900 Miles Of Alleys
Chicago started as a city of alleys. The original 1830 town plat required 18 ft. wide alleys on every block, and that requirement continued for new subdivisions.
Today, the city has more than 1,900 miles of alleyways, which is the largest alley system in the country. They handle garbage pickup, deliveries, utility lines, and garage access from the back, which is partly why Chicago’s main streets generally look less cluttered than in other dense cities.
Locals call the narrow walkway between two houses a gangway, so if you’re new to Chicago, that’s what they mean when you hear the word.
More Movable Bridges Than Any Other City In The World
Because Chicago is located where river, lake, and rail networks all converge, the city became a committed builder of movable bridges. It currently maintains 37 of them, most of which are bascule drawbridges on the Chicago and Calumet Rivers. We’re described as having more movable bridges than any other city in the world.
You’ll see them during the seasonal bridge lift runs in spring and fall, when boats move to and from storage and traffic stops while the bridges go up. You can check out the bridge machinery up close at the McCormick Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum. It’s worth a visit if you’ve never been.
There Are Wild Parrots Living On The South Side
Hyde Park and Jackson Park have feral colonies of monk parakeets, small green parrots from South America, that have been there since at least the late 1970’s.
They arrived through the exotic pet trade, either escaped or were released. Jackson Park now has one of the largest monk parakeet populations in the region.
The River Flows The Wrong Direction On Purpose
Early Chicago dumped sewage into the Chicago River, which originally flowed into Lake Michigan, the same lake the city was drinking out of. Cholera and typhoid followed. Around 1900, engineers reversed the river’s flow entirely through a system of canals and locks, redirecting it toward the Mississippi River basin instead of the lake. It’s considered one of the more significant civil engineering projects of its time and is still in operation today.
Three Things You’ve Probably Eaten That Were Invented Here
The chocolate brownie was invented at the Palmer House Hotel in 1893. They still serve them today using the original recipe.
Twinkies were invented in 1930 in a suburb just outside Chicago. The original filling was banana cream, switched to vanilla during World War II when bananas became scarce. Local media eventually called Chicago the Twinkie Capital of the World.
The first commercially successful automatic dishwasher was invented by an Illinois socialite, who patented the machine in 1886 and debuted it at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. It won an award for mechanical design. Her company eventually became part of KitchenAid.
The Post Office You Can Drive Through
The Old Main Post Office at 433 W. Van Buren Street was built with the Eisenhower Expressway running directly through its base. It’s one of the only major postal facilities in the world that straddles a highway.
It was a mid 20th-century compromise between needing a massive mail-sorting facility and needing to complete the interstate connection into downtown. If you’ve ever driven the Eisenhower and looked up at just the right moment, you’ve been through it.
Final Thoughts
Chicago has enough official history to fill several libraries, but the stuff we covered here is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more fun facts and cool things that have happened in the past. We’ve previously written about 15 Chicago inventions, so make sure to check out that article.
In the meantime, we’ll be roaming every neighborhood helping buyers and sellers move in and out of the city. If you’re thinking about making a move anywhere in Chicago and want to talk about which neighborhood might be the right fit, give us a shout. We’re always happy to talk.
Until next week!
