Virtual Tour Of Illinois History

0: Limestone Quarry

What is now the city of Chicago lies in a broad plain which, hundreds of millions of years ago, was a great interior basin covered by warm, shallow seas. These seas divided North America, from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Evidence of these seas are found in the fossils of coral, such as those unearthed in Illinois quarries Reference

1: Mazon Creek (Fossils)

The Mazon Creek fossils are conservation lagerstätten found near Chicago, Illinois. The fossils are found in ironstone concretions formed approximately 300 mya in the mid-Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous. These concretions frequently preserve both hard and soft tissues of animal and plant materials, as well as many soft-bodied organisms that do not normally fossilize. The quality, quantity, and diversity of fossils, known since the mid-nineteenth century, make the Mazon Creek lagerstätte important to paleontologists in attempting to reconstruct the paleoecology of the sites. Reference

2: Glaciers

Moraine View State Recreation Area is located atop a moraine, a low, rolling ridge located where a vanished ice sheet dumped ground rock and till while melting. Moraines are common post-glacial geological features, and can be found throughout the U.S. Midwest. This moraine was produced by the Wisconsin glaciation, about 70,000 to 10,000 years before present. Reference

3: WIldlife Prairie State Park

Discover the animals that called Illinois home during the pioneer days. This unique 2,000 acre zoological park is home to wolves, bison, waterfowl, black bear, elk, cougar, otter and much more. Reference

4: Cahokia

Cahokia is the site of an ancient Native American city near Collinsville, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri in the American Bottom floodplain. The site is composed of a series of man-made earthen mounds. Cahokia is the largest archaeological site related to the Mississippian culture, and the term "Cahokian" is sometimes used to describe that culture. The Mississippians developed advanced societies in eastern North America before the arrival of Europeans. Reference

5: Marquette and Joliet (1673)

in 1673, Marquette was joined by Louis Joliet, a French Canadian explorer. They departed from St. Ignace on May 17, with two canoes and five other voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry. They followed Lake Michigan to the Bay of Green Bay and up the Fox River. From here, they portaged to the Wisconsin River, which they were told led to the river they sought. On June 17, they entered the Mississippi near Prairie du Chien, becoming the first Europeans to enter the river. The Joliet-Marquette expedition travelled to within 435 miles (700 km) of the Gulf of Mexico, but turned back at the mouth of the Arkansas River. By this point they had encountered a number of natives carrying European trinkets, and they feared an encounter with explorers or colonists from Spain. They followed the Mississippi back to the mouth of the Illinois River, which they learned from local natives was a shorter route back to the Great Lakes. They returned to Lake Michigan at the point of modern-day Chicago. Marquette stopped at the mission of St. Francis Xavier in Green Bay in September, while Joliet returned to Quebec to relate the good news of their discoveries. Marquette and his party returned to the Illinois Territory in late 1674, becoming the first Europeans to winter in what would become the city of Chicago. In the spring of 1675, the missionary again paddled westward, and celebrated a public Mass at the Grand Village of the Illinois near Starved Rock. A bout of dysentery picked up during the Mississippi expedition, however, had sapped his health. On the return trip to St. Ignace, he died near the modern town of Ludington, Michigan, although the precise date and location are unknown. Reference

6: Chicago Portage (1673)

The Chicago Portage connects the watersheds (BrE: drainage basin) and the navigable waterways of the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. It crosses the continental divide that separates the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean watersheds from the Gulf of Mexico watershed. The St. Lawrence Seaway Divide runs less than a mile from the shores of Lake Michigan, and is at places only 17 feet higher than the water level in the lake. A breach of the ridge could potentially cause the Great Lakes to flow southwards to the Gulf of Mexico. The portage was discovered in 1673 by Europeans when the French Canadian explorers, Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette were canoeing upstream on the Mississippi River. They received some navigational tips from native Indians and continued along the Illinois and Des Plaines Rivers. There, according to Joliet, a canal of "half a league'' (about 2 miles, 3 km) across the Chicago Portage would allow easy navigation from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico. The city of Chicago grew up on the portage. In 1848 Illinois and Michigan Canal was opened, breaching the water divide and enabling navigation between the two waterways. In 1900 it was replaced by the larger Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. After the Chicago River was diverted to the new canal, the Mississippi watershed is now separated from the Great Lakes by only a few downtown Chicago locks. The quantity of water allowed to pass (and thus diverted from the St. Lawrence River) is regulated under international treaty between the U.S. and Canada. http://www.answers.com/topic/chicago-portage

7: Kaskaskia (1703)

In 1673, French explorers canoed down the Mississippi River, the western boundary of what is now Illinois and eventually northward on the Illinois River. Other expeditions followed and in 1675, Father Jacques Marquette founded a mission at the Kaskaskia Indian Village near present-day Ottawa. Cahokia, the first permanent settlement in Illinois, was a fur-trading post established in 1699. A few years later, the town of Kaskaskia was founded. In 1717, France placed Illinois into the Louisiana Colony. The end of the French and Indian War gave all land east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain in 1763. Many of the French settlers in Illinois moved across the river into Iowa. Only missionaries, fur traders, a few settlers, and English soldiers remained in the Illinois region. During the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), George Rogers Clark of Virginia and a group called the “Big Knives” raided English forts in Illinois. They captured Kaskaskia and Cahokia and made Illinois part of the county of Virginia. The land was given to the U.S. government and later named part of the Northwest Territory in 1787. The current Capitol of Illinois is the sixth such capitol in the history of the state. The first was located in Kaskaskia, Illinois, a city on the Mississippi River founded by the French in 1709. Kaskaskia had served as the territorial capital of Illinois since 1809, so it was deemed an appropriate location for the capital of the fledgling state. The first capitol building was rented by the state and was by all accounts a non-descript two story building which the state leased for $4.00 a day. Wishing to site the capital of the state in the interior, the first General Assembly petitioned Congress for a grant of land in the interior. It was decided to use a location on the Kaskaskia River around eighty miles Northeast of Kaskaskia. This location, which would be named Vandalia, Illinois, was selected in part with the hopes of encouraging settlers to move to other parts of the state which were still uninhabited. In 1820, with the completion of the new capitol, Vandalia, Illinois became the capital of the state. (In 1881 this decision to move the capital became wise in hindsight, as Kaskaskia was destroyed by a sudden change in the course of the Mississippi River.) The first capitol in Vandalia was also a simple two story house, and only used for a short time as a fire destroyed it in 1824. A third capitol was soon erected for a cost of $15,000. Soon after its erection, calls began to echo around the state to move the capitol to a location nearer the center of the state Reference

8: Fort DeChartres (1720)

For more than a century beginning in 1673, France claimed the Illinois Country, an undefined area that extended from lakes Michigan and Superior to the Ohio and Missouri rivers. French leaders hoped that the Illinois Country, which was governed from distant Canada, would be a rich source of furs and precious metals. To better exploit those riches, the French in 1718 reorganized the administration of their American possessions. The Illinois Country was removed from Canadian jurisdiction and made a part of Louisiana. Government of the vast territory was turned over to the Company of the Indies, a commercial enterprise chartered by King Louis XV. The company's power was considerable; it was granted a trade monopoly, given jurisdiction over all forts, posts, and garrisons and empowered to appoint all officials. In December 1718 the newly organized government at New Orleans sent a contingent of army officers, government officials, company employees, mining engineers, workmen, and soldiers to establish civil government in the Illinois Country. French leaders also hoped that a military presence would pacify the Fox Indians, whose frequent attacks put great pressure on French villages. Workmen soon began constructing a wooden fort on the Mississippi River eighteen miles north of Kaskaskia. Two Wooden Stockades French officials named their stockade Fort de Chartres in honor of Louis duc de Chartres, son of the regent of France. The fort was completed in 1720. Located "about a musket shot" from the Mississippi River, the fort consisted of a palisade of squared logs surrounded by a dry moat. Bastions built at diagonally opposite corners provided cover fire for each of the walls. Several buildings occupied the fort's interior, including a storehouse and countinghouse used by the Indies Company. Another building probably served the Provincial Council, which conducted the affairs of the king and the company. The fort, subject to frequent flooding, deteriorated rapidly. Work on a new fort began about 1725. Built inland from the Mississippi, the new log stockade was about 160 feet square and had bastions at each corner. Four buildings were located inside the fort, at least one of which was used by the Indies Company. The bastions contained other structures, among them a powder magazine, a prison, and a stable. Outside the fort stood a small chapel and a few private residences. Reference

9: Starved Rock Park (1760)

The rock derives its name from a story that a band of Illiniwek was trapped in the 1760s on the rock by a band of Potawatomi trying to avenge the death of the Ottawa Chief Pontiac. The Illiniwek then scrambled to the top of the rock, where the Ottawa and allied Potawatomi laid siege until the Illiniwek starved to death. However, the authenticity of the story has never been verified, and the story is now considered to be more legend than truth. Reference

10: Blackhawk (Revolution and Wars-1780)

Black Hawk was inhabited from 1730 to 1830 by the Sauk and Mesquakie (Fox) Indian Nations. Saukenak was one of the largest Indian centers in North America and home of the famous Sauk warrior-leader, Black Hawk. In the late 1820's, white settlers began to move into the area, and by 1831 all Indians were forced to cross the Mississippi River. Black Hawk returned in 1832 with fifteen hundred followers in an unsuccessful attempt to regain their homeland. The Hauberg Indian Museum depicts the daily life and seasonal activities of the Sauk and Mesquakie tribes through life-size dioramas, traditional bark-covered summer and winter houses, and material culture artifacts. The Black Hawk site was first occupied by Indians as long as 12,000 years ago, and it was continuously inhabited through the Hopewell period, ca. 100 B.C. to A.D. 250. Villagers lived within the bounds of the present historic site, and they built burial mounds along the bluffs above the river. Unfortunately, the mounds have been destroyed. For nearly a century beginning about 1730 the Sauk and Mesquakie Indians made their home here. Saukenak, the capital of the Sauk nation and one of the largest Indian centers in North America, stood adjacent to the site. The Sauk and the Mesquakie farmed the land along the river and relied upon the fur trade for their livelihood. At the height of their power they controlled parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri and all of Iowa. Saukenak was the site of the westernmost battle of the Revolutionary War. Americans destroyed the village in 1780 because some of the Sauk had given military support to the British. In 1804 several chiefs of the tribe ceded the village land to the United States government. The Sauk warrior Black Hawk (he was not a chief) headed the pro-British faction that refused to recognize the cession as legal. During the War of 1812, the pro-British Indians remained at Saukenak, defeating the Americans in two Mississippi River battles- Campbell's Island and Credit Island. Reference

11: Northwest Territory (Chawneetown 1783)

After the Revolution, Shawneetown served as an important United States government administrative center for the Northwest Territory. Shawneetown and Washington, D.C., share the distinction of being the only towns chartered by the United States government. In early November 1803, Lewis and Clark are believed to have stopped at Old Shawneetown on their way to Fort Massac, just down the Ohio River. Old Shawneetown is the site of the first bank in Illinois, constructed in 1812. Now known as the John Marshall House, it is third oldest brick building in Illinois. Local legend states that the Shawneetown Bank refused to buy the first bonds issued by the city of Chicago on the grounds that no city located that far from Shawneetown could survive. Reference

12: Fort Massac (1794)

In 1757, in order to protect their communication lines and supply routes to forts on the upper Ohio, the French ordered a party to scout the area adjacent to the mouth of the Tennessee River and to build a suitable fortification. Under the authority of Captain Charles Phillipe Aubry the French erected a fort and named it Fort Ascension. The fort was strengthened in 1759 and renamed Fort Massiac in honor of a minister of the French Marine. The French held the fort until 1765 when it was surrendered to the British under the terms of the treaty of 1763. While the British had plans to occupy the fort this was not carried out, and on June 28, 1778, George Rogers Clark, the older brother of William Clark, came with a command of 160 men, and landed at the mouth of Massac Creek a few hundred yards east of the fort. Clark and his men were on their way to capture the British garrison at Vincennes. In 1794 President George Washington ordered General "Mad" Anthony Wayne to fortify and rebuild Fort Massiac. A detail of men under Captain Thomas Doyle arrived at Fort Massiac on June 12, 1794, and by October 20, 1794, they had erected a fort, which was named Massac, an anglicized version of Massiac. By 1797 Fort Massac became a major port of entry for settlers coming down the Ohio and entering the Illinois country. Fort Massac was placed under direct control of Alexander Hamilton in 1799. Plans to garrison 1,000 men at the fort as a response to a French threat were abandoned in favor of a new fort down river at Grand Chain. In 1802 a garrison was established under the command of Captain Daniel Bissell. In 1804, a detachment of troops from Fort Massac occupied New Madrid in present-day Missouri. Reference

13: Fort Dearborn (1803)

Fort Dearborn, named in honor of Henry Dearborn, was a United States fort built on the Chicago River in 1803 by troops under Captain John Whistler. It was on the site of the present-day city of Chicago. In 1810, when Whistler was recalled to Detroit, Michigan, he was succeeded by Captain Nathan Heald. During the War of 1812, General William Hull ordered the evacuation of Fort Dearborn in August of 1812. Heald oversaw the evacuation, but on August 15 the evacuees were ambushed by about 500 Potawatomi Indians in the Fort Dearborn Massacre. The Potawatomi captured Heald and his wife, Rebekah, and ransomed them to the British. Of the 148 soldiers, women and children who evacuated the fort, 86 were killed in the ambush. The Potawatomi burned the fort to the ground the next day. Following the war, a second Fort Dearborn was built in 1816. This fort consisted of a double wall of wooden palisade, officer and enlisted barracks, a garden, and other buildings. The American forces garrisoned the fort until 1823, when peace with the Indians led the garrison to be deemed redundant. This temporary abandonment lasted until 1828, when it was regarrisoned following the outbreak of war with the Winnebago Indians. Closed briefly before the Black Hawk War of 1832, part of the fort was demolished to make way for a new channel for the Chicago River. By 1837, the fort was being used by the Superintendent of Harbor Works. In 1857, a fire destroyed nearly all the remaining buildings in the fort. The blockhouse and the few surviving outbuildings were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Reference

14: Indian Boundary Line (1816)

In the early 1800s, the need for improved land and water transportation prompted the Congress to consider internal improvements. Traders wanted to be able to travel unmolested between Chicago and the navigation headwaters of the Illinois River at Ottawa. In 1807, the Senate instructed Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin to report on the subject of roads and canals. The Gallatin Report mentioned the Chicago Portage, a low divide between the waters of Lake Michigan and the Des Plaines River that the Indians used as a carrying passage. The marshy nature of this passage had been recorded by the French explorers Joliet and Marquette in 1673. A canal to connect Lake Michigan to the Illinois River via this passage was urged for the consideration of Congress. But the War of 1812 postponed questions of internal improvements until some years later. As of 1816, the United States had acquired from the Indians the greater part of what is now Illinois but not the lands adjacent to Lake Michigan including the Chicago Portage. The Indian Commissioners were instructed to negotiate for a tract of land which would connect the shores of Lake Michigan with the Illinois Purchase. On August 24, 1816, the United States concluded a treaty with the United Tribes of the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi. The tribes ceded to the United States a twenty mile wide tract of land through which white men were supposed to be able to travel safely. The "safe passage" runs diagonally from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan westward to the Mississippi. The southern of the two boundary lines begins at the mouth of the Calumet River and goes straight southwest to the Kankakee River. The northern boundary line begins in the center of Rogers Avenue in Chicago at Lake Michigan and angles southwest. This northern Indian Boundary Line runs through Bolingbrook. Reference

15: New Salem (1830)

New Salem was founded in 1828, when James Rutledge and John Camron built a gristmill on the Sangamon River. Over the first few years of its existence, the town grew rapidly, but after the county seat was located in nearby Petersburg, the village began to shrink and by 1840, it was abandoned. Lincoln arrived in New Salem via flatboat at age 22, and he remained in the village for about 6 years. During his stay, Lincoln earned a living as a shopkeeper, soldier in the Black Hawk War, general store owner, postmaster, land surveyor, rail splitter, as well as doing odd jobs around the village. As far as historians know, Lincoln never owned a home in the village (most single men did not own homes at this time) however he would often sleep in the tavern or his general store and board (take his meals) with a nearby family. Reference

16: Geneva Mills (1830)

In 1837, brothers Julius and Edward Alexander arrived in Geneva where they planned to build a blacksmith shop from where they would forge the tools and plows to farm the rich soil of Kane County. Julius Alexander wrote in his memoirs: We moved to Geneva, arriving there about July I, 1837...came with wagon and oxen, bringing tools and a little iron and steel. They chose the east bank of the river to build their blacksmith shop. A dam had been planned to furnish power for a small grist mill built by the Bennett brothers. Water was diverted from the river through a narrow channel to turn the mill wheels. This was called the mill race. Reference

17: Vandalia- National Road (1836)

The home of the Vandalia State House State Historic Site (1836), and was a terminus of the National Road. In 1819, it was decided to move the state capital from Kaskaskia here. Since 1839, Springfield has been the capital. The National Road or Cumberland Road was one of the first major improved highways in the United States, built by the Federal Government. Construction began in 1811 at Cumberland, Maryland on the Potomac River, and the road reached Wheeling, West Virginia on the Ohio River in 1818. Plans were made to continue through St. Louis, Missouri on the Mississippi River to Jefferson City, Missouri, but funding ran out and construction stopped at Vandalia, Illinois in 1839. Reference

18: John Deere Historical Site (Grand Detour-1836)

In 1836, John Deere, a blacksmith recently transplanted from Vermont, set up shop in the small Rock River town of Grand Detour, Illinois. Deere, who was enterprising and innovative, met many disheartened farmers who were discouraged by their efforts to cultivate the sticky Midwestern soil. Deere was convinced that the soil would shed itself from a plow that was highly polished and properly shaped. In 1837, using a discarded saw blade, he forged such a plow. His "self-polishing" plow grew in popularity, and as it did, so did the company that bears his name. Reference

19: Lincoln Offices / Old Capital (1837)

A bill introduced in 1833 calling for a state wide vote to move the capital to determine a new location from a list of central choices including Alton, Jacksonville, Peoria, Springfield, Vandalia, and the state's actual geographic center. While Alton emerged as the victor the legislature determined the slim margin too small to be conclusive and the vote was aborted. In 1836, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln began to push the notion of moving the capitol to Springfield, Illinois along with other colleagues of his in the legal profession. That summer the third capitol was torn down and replaced with the fourth capitol (built at a cost of $16,000) in an effort to keep the capitol in Vandalia. Although the new brick structure was extravagant, the General Assembly ignored the gesture and sided with Lincoln voting to move the Capitol to Springfield on February 25, 1837. The Illinois CapitolOn July 4, 1837, the first brick was laid for Illinois' fifth capitol. In 1853, the capitol was completed for a total sum of $260,000 almost twenty times the cost of any previous structure. The building was designed in the Greek Revival style from stone quarried six miles from the site. For many years it was the largest and most extravagant capitol of the western frontier of the United States. The fifth capitol is considered by many to be Lincoln's capitol as it was here that he argued cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, here that he served in the state legislature, here that he first confronted Stephen Douglas, and here where he delivered his famous "A House Divided" speech. Reference

20: Mormons at Navou (1839)

In early 1839, Latter Day Saints were forced to flee Missouri as a result of the 1838 Mormon War and a legal proclamation known as the Extermination Order issued by Governor Lilburn W. Boggs. They regrouped in Quincy, whose non-Mormon citizens were shocked by the harsh treatment given them in Missouri and opened their homes to the refugees. Joseph Smith, Jr., president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, remained imprisoned in Missouri, but his chief counselor in the First Presidency, Sidney Rigdon, had been released and had rejoined the main body of the church in Quincy. Church member Israel Barlow fled Missouri and entered Illinois further north than the main group of Latter-day Saints. After learning from Isaac Galland, a land agent, that a large amount of land was for sale in the Commerce area, he contacted church leaders. Reference

21: Galena (1840)

The town is named for galena, an ore of lead, lead sulfide. The Native Americans mined the ore here, at least for use as body paint. The French mined lead here as early as 1690. Americans were working the mines prior to 1818. Because of the lead deposits, Galena was settled early on by Americans, even though its location, in the far northwest corner of the state, was remote from the early settlers, who generally came from the southeast. But in the 1840s, at the height of Galena's prosperity, the town's population was larger than Chicago's. As the use of lead declined, so did Galena's fortunes. But the beautiful architecture of the city remained, and much has been preserved for today's generations to enjoy. Ulysses S. Grant, the future American Civil War general and 18th U.S. President, lived in Galena for several years working as an assistant in his father and brother's leather shop. Today the home he lived in Galena for several years after the Civil War is a popular tourist attraction. His political mentor was Elihu B. Washburne, a Galena attorney who served in Congress and later as Grant's own Secretary of State. Reference

22: Swedish (Bishop HIll 1846)

The village was founded in 1846 by Swedish immigrants affiliated with the Pietist movement, led by Erik Jansson, seeking a haven from religious persecution. Villagers lived as a collective religious colony in 1846-1861; as the Civil War broke out, the congregation dissolved. The Janssonist emigrants were the first significant group of men and women to move from Sweden to the United States. Letters home from Janssonists to their friends and family, telling of the fertile agricultural land in the interior of North America, stimulated substantial migration for several decades and the formation of the Swedish-American ethnic community of the American Midwest. Reference

23: Illinois and Michigan Canal (1848)

The Illinois and Michigan Canal ran 96 miles (155 km) from the Bridgeport neighborhood in Chicago on the Chicago River to LaSalle, Illinois on the Illinois River. It was finished in 1848 and allowed boat transportation from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The canal enabled navigation across the Chicago Portage and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, opening before railroads were laid in the area. Reference

24: Bridgeport (Irish 1848)

Bridgeport is a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is one of 77 official community areas of Chicago. Historically and still today, a large section of the neighborhood has served as an enclave of the Irish-American community in Chicago, as large numbers of immigrants from Ireland settled in this working class neighborhood beginning in the 1830s. Many of the same Irish immigrants who helped build the Erie Canal later came to Chicago to work on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Because of inadequate funding for the project, the State of Illinois began issuing "Land Scrip" to the workers rather than paying them with money. A large number of those Irish-Americans who received the scrip used the scrip to purchase canal-owned land to settle at the northern end of the canal, at its junction with the south branch of the Chicago River which is near the original Bridgeport village Reference

25: Chicago Board of Trade (1848)

In 1848, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the world's first futures exchange, was formed. Trading was originally in forward contracts; the first contract (on corn) being written on March 13, 1851. In 1865, standardized futures contracts were introduced. The Chicago Produce Exchange was established in 1874, renamed in 1898 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). In 1972 the International Monetary Market (IMM), a division of the CME, was formed to offer futures contracts in foreign currencies: British pound, Canadian dollar, German mark, Japanese yen, Mexican peso, and Swiss franc. Later in the 1970s saw the development of the financial futures contracts, which allowed trading in the future value of interest rates. These (in particular the 90-day Eurodollar contract introduced in 1981) had an enormous impact on the development of the interest rate swap market. Today, the futures markets have far outgrown their agricultural origins. With the addition of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) the trading and hedging of financial products using futures dwarfs the traditional commodity markets, and plays a major role in the global financial system, trading over 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars per day in 2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Board_of_Trade

26: Wyatt Earp (1848)

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929), was a teamster, sometime buffalo hunter, officer of the law in various Western frontier towns, gambler, and saloon-keeper in the Wild West and the U.S. mining frontier from California to Alaska. He is best known for his participation in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, along with Doc Holliday, Virgil Earp, and Morgan Earp. Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois, USA to Nicholas Porter Earp , a cooper and farmer, and his second wife Virginia Ann Cooksey . Reference

27: Naper Settlement (Underground rr 1850)

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret passages by which African slaves in the 19th century United States attempted to escape to free states, or as far north as Canada, with the aid of abolitionists. Other routes led to Mexico or overseas. At its height between 1810 and 1850, an estimated 30,000 to 100,000 people escaped enslavement via the Underground Railroad, though census figures only account for 6,000. The Underground Railroad has captured public imagination as a symbol of freedom, and it figures prominently in Black American history. Reference

28: Mark Twain's Mississippi River (Near Hannibal 1850)

Across from Hannibal Missouri, the setting of his The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and "Huckleberry Finn". Historical sites related to Mark Twain and sites depicted in his fiction have become an important part of the town's legacy. Reference

29: Canadians (1850)

Sometime around 1825 a French-Canadian fur trader, Francis Bourbonnais, arrived in Illinois. He married a Pottawatomie squaw who had been given 640 acres as a reservation along the Kankakee River. As a result of the marriage, the town of Bourbonnais was founded. Noel LeVasseur, a voyageur who had set up a trading post among the Pottawatomie Indians, settled at Bourbonnais in 1832. Sometime after 1837, LeVasseur returned to Canada to encourage the emigration of his compatriots to Illinois. Several families came in 1844, and more in 1848 and 1849. The new arrivals settled in Bourbonnais, buying or renting from fifteen to forty acres of farmland, some of which they purchased from LeVasseur. Reference

30: Lincoln-Douglas Debates Knox College (1858)

The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas for an Illinois seat in the United States Senate. At that time, the state legislature elected Senators. Thus Lincoln and Douglas were campaigning for their respective parties to win control of the legislature. The debates presaged the issues that Lincoln faced in the 1860 presidential campaign and are remembered partially for the eloquence of both sides. Practically the only issue discussed was slavery. The debates were held in seven towns in the state of Illinois: Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton. Each debate had this format: one candidate spoke for an hour and a half, then the other candidate spoke for two hours, and then the first candidate spoke for a half hour. The candidates alternated going first. Reference

31: Fort Defiance (1860)

Fort Defiance, known as Camp Defiance during the American Civil War, is a former military fortification located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers near Cairo in Alexander County, Illinois. The strategic significance of the site has been known since prehistoric times with archaeological evidence of warfare dating to the Mississippian era. It is the southernmost point in the state of Illinois. Cairo was founded in 1837 by the Cairo City and Canal Company, after an earlier effort (1818) had failed, and incorporated as a city in 1858. For fifteen years the town grew slowly, but the sale of lots, which commenced in 1853, and the completion of the Illinois Central Railroad attracted settlers, with the result that by 1860 the population exceeded 2,000. It was an important steamboat port in the nineteenth century; Cairo even had its own Customs House, which has since been converted into a museum. This important structure was designed by Alfred B Mullet, the U.S. Supervising Architect during Reconstruction, and is one of only seven of his structures remaining. During the American Civil War Cairo was of great strategic importance and for several months both Grant and Foote had headquarters there. The town has a number of fine examples of prosperous nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century architecture, included Magnolia Manor and Riverlore Mansion. Much of the city, even in some areas of decay, is listed on the Nation Register of Historic Places. The population of Cairo has declined from a 1920 high of 15,203 to 3,632 in 2000. There is a movement to stop this slow abandonment, and restore Cairo's architectural gems, develop tourism focusing on its rich history and bringing new opportunities back to the community. Reference

32: Camp Douglas (1861)

In 1861, a tract of land at 31st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago was provided by the estate of Stephen A. Douglas for a Union Army training post. The first Confederate prisoners of war—more than 7,000 from the capture of Fort Donelson in Tennessee—arrived in February, 1862. Eventually, over 18,000 Confederate soldiers passed through the prison camp, which eventually came to be known as the North's "Andersonville" for its inhumane conditions. It is estimated that from 1862–1865, more than 6,000 Confederate prisoners died from disease, starvation, and the bitter cold winters Reference

33: Beginning of Great Chicago Fire (1871)

The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday October 8 to early Tuesday October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about four square miles in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S. disasters of the 19th century, the rebuilding that began almost immediately spurred Chicago's development into one of the most populous and economically important American cities. Reference

34: Barbed Wire (1874)

Joseph Farwell Glidden (January 18, 1813–1906) was an American farmer who patented barbed wire, a product that forever altered the development of the American West. He created barbed wire by using a coffee mill to create the barbs. Glidden placed the barbs along a wire and then twisted another wire around it to keep the barbs in place. He received the patent for barbed wire in 1874 and was quickly embroiled in a legal battle over whether he actually invented it. He eventually won and created the Barb Fence Company in DeKalb, Illinois. His invention made him extremely rich. By the time of his death in 1906, he was one of the richest men in America. Reference

35: Coal Mining (1875)

The town of Braidwood, Illinois was developed during the coal mining boom from 1870 to 1910. The Braidwood coal mines peaked between 1870-1880. The town was named for James Braidwood, a civil engineer and pioneer coal mine operator. The first coal in this area was accidentally discovered in Braidwood in 1864 by William Hennebry, who was contracted by the Thomas Byron farm to drill a water well. The town was incorporated in 1873. Reference

36: Location of First Skyscraper (1885)

The Home Insurance Building, erected at the northeast corner of LaSalle and Adams streets (on the site now occupied by the west portion of the Field building), is called the first skyscraper. Nine stories and one basement were completed in 1885. Two stories were added in 1891. The architect, Major William Le Baron Jenney, created the first load-carrying structural frame, the development of which led to the "Chicago skeleton" form of construction and the big skyscrapers of later years. In this building, a steel frame supported the entire weight of the walls instead of the walls themselves carrying the weight of the building which was the usual method. After Jenney's accomplishment the sky was truly the limit so far as building was concerned. His first skyscraper revolutionized urban life because with higher buildings larger numbers of people could live and work in limited areas. Reference

37: McCormick Reaper Works (1886)

This was the site of the McCormick Reaper Works (1873), and the International Harvester Plant (1902-1969). It is now home to an industrial and office park, developed by the Pyramidwest Development Corporation. The McCormick plant was at the center of the struggle for the eight-hour day that led to the Haymarket Massacre on May 4, 1886. In addition, in 1952, the recently merged Farm Equipment Workers and United Electrical Workers unions shut down the plant when International Harvester began to close the McCormick Works Twine Mill. The 1952 strike grew into a crucial battle in International Harvester's effort to oust the more radical FE-UE Union, and replace it with the more moderate United Auto Workers Union. The accompanying photographs show striking workers at the McCormick Works in 1952, and the factory as it looked in 1908. Reference

38: Hull House- Jane Addams (1889)

Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) won the Nobel Peace Prize and was a founder of the U.S. Settlement House Movement. Addams was educated in the United States and Europe, graduating from the Rockford Female Seminary (now Rockford College) in Rockford, Illinois. While in London, she was influenced by Andrew Mearn's essay, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, which highlighted slum conditions.[3] She visit to Europe when she was 27 years old, visiting Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in the East End of London.[3] Settlement houses provided welfare for a neighborhood's poor and a center for social reform. In 1889 she and Ellen Gates Starr co-founded Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, one of the first settlement houses in the United States. At its height, Hull House was visited each week by around two thousand people. Its facilities included a night school for adults; kindergarten classes; clubs for older children; a public kitchen; an art gallery; a coffeehouse; a gymnasium; a girls club; a swimming pool; a book bindery; a music school; a drama group; a library; and labor-related divisions. Reference

39: Kline Creek Farm (1890)

Kline Creek Farm, sitting within the 1,102-acre Timber Ridge Forest Preserve in Winfield, is a living-history farm depicting farm life as it was on this site and hundreds of others like it in 1890s DuPage County. Its purpose is to explore what life was like here over a century ago. Toward that end, the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County has combined original structures, authentic re-creations, livestock and historically accurate activities into a realistic 1890s DuPage County working farm. Kline Creek Farm began as a log cabin homestead in the early 1830s. It continued to be a working family farm through the 1960s until it was purchased by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. The farm first opened to the public in 1984 for special events and opened for year-round operation in July of 1989. Reference

40: Columbian Exposition (World's Fair 1893)

The World's Columbian Exposition (also called The Chicago World's Fair), a World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. The Exposition covered over 600 acres, featuring nearly 200 new buildings of European architecture, canals and lagoons, and people and cultures from around the world. Over 27 million people (about half the U.S. population) attended the Exposition over the six months it was open. It scale and grandeur far exceeded the world fairs of the time, and became a symbol of then-emerging American Exceptionalism, much in the same way that the The Great Exhibition became a symbol of Victorian era England. Reference

41: Pullman Strikes (1894)

The Pullman Strike occurred when 50,000 Pullman Palace Car Company workers reacted to a 28% wage cut by going on a wildcat strike in Illinois on May 11, 1894, bringing traffic west of Chicago to a halt.[1] The owner of the company, George Pullman was a "welfare capitalist." Firmly believing that labor unrest was caused by the unavailability of decent pay and living conditions, he paid unprecedented wages and built a company town by Lake Calumet (Pullman, Chicago) in what is now the southern part of the city. Instead of living in utilitarian tenements as did many other industrial workers of the day, Pullman workers lived in attractive company-owned houses, complete with indoor plumbing, gas, and sewer systems, in a beautifully landscaped little town with free education through eighth grade and a free public library stocked with an initial gift of 5,000 volumes from Pullman's own personal library. While the company town did make a high-quality life possible, the system of interrelated corporations that owned and operated it all did presuppose that workers would live within their means and practice basic budgetary prudence. Some workers did find themselves locked into a kind of "debt slavery" (one form of truck system), owing more than they earned to the company stores and to the independent sister company that owned and operated the town of Pullman. Money owed was automatically deducted from workers' paychecks, and a worker who had overspent himself might never see his earnings at all. Reference

42: Chicago Stockyards (1900)

The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards operated on the south side of Chicago for 106 years, beginning on Christmas Day in 1865 and closing in 1971 after several decades of decline brought on by the decentralization of the meat packing industry. The stockyards made Chicago the center of the American meat packing industry for decades; in the early 1900s, more meat was processed here than in any other place in the world. Timothy B. Blackstone was one of the incorporators and the first president of the Union Stock Yards and Transit Company. The size and scale of the stockyards, along with technological advancements in railcar refrigeration, allowed for the creation of some of America's first truly global companies led by entrepreneurs such as Gustavus Franklin Swift and Philip Danforth Armour. The mechanized process with its killing wheel and conveyors helped inspire the automobile assembly line. Reference

43: Reversal of Chicago River (1900)

By 1887, it was decided to reverse the flow of the Chicago River through civil engineering. Engineer Isham Randolph noted that a ridge about 12 miles from the lake shore divided the Mississippi River drainage system from the Great Lakes drainage system. A plan soon emerged to cut through that ridge and carry waste water away from the lake, through the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers, to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The canal, linking the south branch of the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River at Lockport, was completed in 1900. Construction of the Ship and Sanitary Canal was the largest earth-moving operation that had been undertaken in North America up to that time. Reference

44: WIlliam Jennings Bryan (1900)

Bryan was born in Salem, Illinois, in the Little Egypt region of southern Illinois, on March 19, 1860, the son of Silas and Mariah Bryan. William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, statesman, and politician. He was a three-time Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States. One of the most popular speakers in American history, he was noted for his deep, commanding voice. Bryan was a devout Presbyterian, a strong proponent of popular democracy, an outspoken critic of banks and railroads, a leader of the silverite movement in the 1890s, a dominant figure in the Democratic Party, a peace advocate, a prohibitionist, an opponent of Darwinism, and one of the most prominent leaders of the Progressive Movement. He was called "The Great Commoner" because of his total faith in the goodness and rightness of the common people. He was defeated by William McKinley in the intensely fought 1896 election and 1900 election, but retained control of the Democratic Party. Bryan was one of the most energetic campaigners in American history, inventing the national stumping tour for presidential candidates. In his three failed presidential bids, he promoted Free Silver in 1896, anti-imperialism in 1900, and trust-busting in 1908, calling on all Democrats to renounce conservatism, fight the trusts and big banks, and embrace progressive ideas. Reference

45: Polish (1900)

The traditional Polish community in Chicago, an organization-rich ethnic settlement that developed in the years after the Civil War, reached maturity and almost complete institutional self-sufficiency before World War I. Polish Chicago, sometimes referred to as “Polonia,” has been shaped by at least three distinct immigration waves. The first and largest lasted from the 1850s to the early 1920s, and was driven primarily by economic and structural change in Poland. This immigration is often referred to as Za Ch?ebem (For Bread). Primarily a peasant migration, it drew first from the German Polish partition, and then from the Russian partition and Austrian Polish partition. Although restrictions during World War I and in the 1920s cut off this immigration, by 1930 Polish immigrants and their children had replaced Germans as the largest ethnic group in Chicago. A second wave brought hundreds of thousands of Poles, displaced by World War II and then by the Communist takeover of Poland. Reference

46: Frank Lloyd Wright (House 1901)

Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867—April 9, 1959) was one of the most prominent and influential architects during the first half of the 20th century. He developed a series of highly individual styles over his extraordinarily long architectural career (spanning the years 1887-1959) and influenced stripping the entire course of American architecture and building. To this day, he remains probably America's most famous architect. Reference

47: Field Museum (1905)

The Field Museum was incorporated in the State of Illinois on September 16, 1893 as the Columbian Museum of Chicago with its purpose the "accumulation and dissemination of knowledge, and the preservation and exhibition of objects illustrating art, archaeology, science and history." In 1905, the Museum's name was changed to Field Museum of Natural History to honor the Museum's first major benefactor, Marshall Field, and to better reflect its focus on the natural sciences. In 1921 the Museum moved from its original location in Jackson Park to its present site on Chicago Park District property near downtown where it is part of a lakefront Museum Campus that includes the John G. Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. These three institutions are regarded as among the finest of their kind in the world and together attract more visits annually than any comparable site in Chicago. Reference

48: Ernest Hemingway (1913)

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Cicero, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago (during his early life, the area in which Hemingway was born split from Cicero and became Oak Park) in 1902. Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His distinctive writing style is characterized by economy and understatement and had a significant influence on the development of twentieth century fiction writing. Hemingway's protagonists are typically stoics, men who must show "grace under pressure." Many of his works are considered classics in the canon of American literature. Hemingway, nicknamed "Papa", was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, as described in his memoir A Moveable Feast, and was known as part of "the Lost Generation", a name he popularized. Reference

49: Cantigny- Robert McCormick (1915)

Robert Rutherford McCormick (July 30, 1880 – April 1, 1955) was a Chicago newspaper baron and owner of the Chicago Tribune. His grandfather was Tribune-founder and former Chicago mayor Joseph Medill, and his great-uncle was the inventor and businessman Cyrus McCormick. McCormick was born in Chicago. From 1889 through 1893, he lived with his parents in London where his father Robert Sanderson McCormick was a staff secretary to Robert Todd Lincoln. In 1899, McCormick went to Yale College; he received a law degree from Northwestern University. In 1908, he co-founded the law firm that became Kirkland & Ellis. In 1911, he became the president of the Chicago Tribune. During World War I, footage of McCormick meeting with Tsar Nicholas became the first newsreel footage. On this trip, McCormick also began collecting pieces of historically significant buildings which would eventually find their way into the structure of the Tribune Tower. Politically McCormick was a leading Progressive during the Progressive Era, but he turned against the New Deal and as a conservative was an America First isolationist who strongly opposed entering World War II to rescue the the British Empire. As a publisher he was very innovative. McCormick bought a radio station in 1924 and was the first to broadcast the Indianapolis 500, the World Series, and the Kentucky Derby. Reference

50: Reagan Boyhood Home (Dixon- 1920)

Reagan's family lived in several small Illinois towns and, briefly, Chicago during Reagan's earliest years. In 1920, when Reagan was nine years old, the Reagan family settled in the small town of Dixon, Illinois. The midwestern "small universe" made a lasting impression on Reagan "where I learned standards and values that would guide me the rest of my life", Reagan recounted in his autobiography. "I learned that hard work is an essential part of life - that by and large, you don't get something for nothing - and that America was a place that offered unlimited opportunity to those who did work hard. I learned to admire risk takers and entrepreneurs, be they farmers or small merchants, who went to work and took risks to build something for themselves and their children, pushing at the boundaries of their lives to make them better. I have always wondered at this American marvel." Reference

51: Soldier's Field 1927

The Long Count Fight, the second heavyweight championship bout between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, was held at Soldier Field on September 25, 1927. Reference

52: Carl Sandberg (1928)

Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, historian, novelist, balladeer, and folklorist. He was born in Galesburg, Illinois of Swedish parents and died at his home, named Connemara, in Flat Rock, North Carolina. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat." He was a successful journalist, poet, historian, biographer, and autobiographer. During the course of his career, Sandburg won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The War Years) and one for his collection The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg. Much of Carl Sandburg's poetry, such as "Chicago", focused on Chicago, Illinois, where he spent time as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and the Day Book. His most famous description of the city is as "Hog Butcher for the World/Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat/Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler,/Stormy, Husky, Brawling, City of the Big Shoulders." Reference

53: St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1929)

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is the name given to the shooting of seven people (six of them gangsters) as part of a Prohibition Era conflict between two powerful criminal gangs in Chicago, Illinois in the winter of 1929: the South Side Italian gang led by Al "Scarface" Capone and the North Side Irish/German gang led by George "Bugs" Moran. The Purple Gang was also suspected to play a large role in the St. Valentine's Day massacre, assisting Al Capone Reference

54: Maxwell St / Blues (1930)

The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois by adding electrically amplified guitar, drums, piano, bass guitar and sometimes saxophone to the basic guitar/harmonica Delta blues. The music developed mainly as a result of the "Great Migration" of poor black workers from the South into the industrial cities of the North such as Chicago in particular, in the first half of the twentieth century. Chicago Blues has a more extended of pallete of notes than the standard 6 note blues scale, often notes from the major scale are added which gives the music a more "jazz feel" whilst still being in the confines of the blues genre. This is not however as prominent as texas blues which contains many other notes such as major 3rd and major 6th. Reference

55: Nation Of Islam (Farrakhan 1930)

The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and socio-political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930 with an aim of resurrecting the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of the black men and women of America and the rest of the world. Minister Louis Farrakhan is currently the leader of a reconstituted Nation of Islam, the original organization having been renamed and eventually dissolved by Warith Deen Muhammad. The Nation of Islam's National Center and headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois and houses its flagship Mosque No. 2, Mosque Maryam in dedication to Mary, mother of Jesus. Reference

56: Grain Elevator (1930)

Grain elevators are buildings or complexes of buildings for storage and shipment of grain. They were invented in 1842 in Buffalo, New York by Joseph Dart, who first developed a steam-powered mechanism, called a marine leg, for scooping grain out of the hulls of ships directly into storage silos. Older grain elevators and bins often were constructed of framed or cribbed wood and were prone to fire. Grain elevator bins, tanks and silos are now usually constructed of steel or reinforced concrete. Bucket elevators are used to lift grain to a distributor or consignor where it flows by gravity through spouts or conveyors and into one of a number of bins, silos or tanks in a facility. When desired, the elevator's silos, bins and tanks are then emptied by gravity flow, sweep augers and conveyors. As grain is emptied from the elevator's bins, tanks and silos it is conveyed, blended and weighted into trucks, railroad cars, or barges and shipped to end users of grains (mills, ethanol plants, etc.) Prior to the advent of the grain elevator, grain was handled in bags rather than in bulk. Grain elevators are a common sight in the grain-growing areas of the world, such as the North American prairies. Larger terminal elevators are found at distribution centers, such as Chicago and Thunder Bay, Ontario, where grain is sent for processing, or loaded aboard trains or ships to go further afield. Reference

57: Babe Ruth Called Shot (1932)

Babe Ruth's Called Shot was the home run hit by Babe Ruth in the fifth inning of game 3 in Chicago at Wrigley Field on October 1, 1932. During the at-bat, Ruth made a pointing gesture. Although this is not confirmed, the story goes that Ruth pointed to the center field bleachers during the at-bat. It was supposedly a declaration that he would hit a home run to this part of the park. On the next pitch, Ruth hit a home run to center field. One reporter later wrote that Ruth had "called his shot", and thus the legend was born Reference

58: GM Electromotive Division (1935)

Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. (formerly General Motors Electro-Motive Division) is currently the world's second largest builder of railroad locomotives in terms of overall sales. General Electric is the largest, overtaking EMD in the mid-1980s, and between them they have built the overwhelming majority of the locomotives in service in North America and a large proportion of those in the rest of the world as well. EMD is the only diesel-electric locomotive manufacturer to have produced more than 70,000 engines and has the largest installed base of diesel-electric locomotives in both North America and internationally. Additionally, EMD can lay claim to being the company that ended the dominion of the steam locomotive on the world's railroads, by both producing high-quality, reliable locomotives, and just as importantly (maybe more so) knowing how to sell them. That the victory of the diesel locomotive over the steam locomotive was, outwardly, such an easy and rapid one is thanks to the marketing and sales skill of EMD, backed by its aggressive and confident corporate parent. Reference

59: First Radio Telescope (1938)

Grote Reber (December 22, 1911 – December 20, 2002) was one of the pioneers of radio astronomy. He was instrumental in repeating Karl Jansky's pioneering but somewhat simple work, and conducted the first sky survey in the radio frequencies. Reber was born and raised in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and graduated from Armour Institute of Technology (later Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1933 with a degree in radio engineering. He was an amateur radio operator, and worked for various radio manufacturers in Chicago from 1933 to 1947. When he learned of Jansky's work in 1933, he decided this was the field he wanted to work in, and applied to Bell Labs where Jansky was now working. However this was during the height of the Great Depression and there were no jobs available. Instead Reber decided to build his own radio telescope in his back yard in Wheaton. His design was considerably more advanced than Jansky's, consisting of a parabolic sheet metal mirror 9 meters in diameter, focusing to a radio receiver 8 meters above the mirror. The entire assembly was mounted on a tilting stand allowing it to be pointed in various directions, although not turned. The telescope was completed in 1937. Reference

60: RIchard Wright (Great Migration 1940)

Wright first gained attention for his collection of (originally) four short stories, Uncle Tom's Children (1937), which earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship. In this work he fictionalised the incidents of lynching in the Deep South. He followed with a novel Native Son (1940), which was the first Book of the Month Club recommendation by an African American author. Here the lead character, Bigger Thomas, was intended by Wright to be a representation of the limitations that society placed on African Americans, that Thomas could only gain his own agency and self-knowledge through the heinous acts that he commits. Wright was much criticized for both works' concentration on violence, and, in the case of Native Son, for a portrayal of a black person which might be seen as confirming whites' worst fears. Wright is also renowned for the autobiographical Black Boy (1945), which describes his early life from Roxie through his move to Chicago, his clashes with his Seventh-day Adventist family, his difficulties with white employers and social isolation. American Hunger, (published posthumously in 1977) was originally intended as the second book of Black Boy and is restored to this form in the Library of America edition. This details his involvement with the John Reed Clubs and then (ambivalently) the Communist Party, which he left in 1942, though the book implies that it was earlier, and the fact was not made public until 1944. In its restored form, its diptych structure mirrors the certainties and intolerance of organised communism, (the "bourgeois" books and condemned members) with similar qualities in fundamentalist organized religion. During McCarthyism, his membership in the Communist Party resulted in him and his works being blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s. Reference

61: Great Lakes Naval Training Center (1942)

Naval Station Great Lakes is the United States Navy's Headquarters Command for training issues, located in North Chicago, Illinois. Important tenant commands include the Recruit Training Center (Basic Training), the Naval Hospital, and the Naval District Headquarters. It is also the home for Marine Air Control Group 48, and its subordinate commands, Marine Tactical Air Command Squadron 48 & Marine Communications Squadron 48, all components of the 4th Marine Division. Founded in 1911, it has trained and sent to the fleet more than two million new sailors through its Recruit Training Command and nearly an equal number from its technical schools. Reference

62: First Reactor Pile (1942)

Chicago Pile-1, a massive "atomic pile" of graphite bricks and uranium fuel which went critical on December 2, 1942, built in a squash court under Stagg Field, the football stadium at the University of Chicago. Due to a mistranslation, Soviet reports on Enrico Fermi claimed that his work was performed in a converted "pumpkin field" instead of a "squash court" [1]. This experiment was a landmark in the quest for energy, and it was typical of Fermi's brilliance. Every step had been carefully planned, every calculation meticulously done by him. When man achieved the first self sustained nuclear chain reaction, a coded phone call was made to one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project, James Conant: 'The Italian navigator has landed in the new world... The natives were very friendly'. The chain-reacting pile was important not only for its help in assessing the properties of fission — needed for understanding the internal workings of an atomic bomb — but because it would serve as a pilot plant for the massive reactors which would be created in Hanford, Washington, which would then be used to produce the plutonium needed for the bombs used at the Trinity test and Nagasaki. Eventually Fermi and Szilárd's reactor work was folded into the Manhattan Project. Reference

63: Argonne National Laboratory (1950)

Argonne National Laboratory is one of the United States Department of Energy's oldest and largest science and engineering research national laboratories. Argonne has four major mission areas, each of which fulfills important governmental and Department of Energy responsibilities, as well as provides important benefits to society at large. They are: Conducting basic scientific research to further our understanding of the world we live in. Argonne conducts basic experimental and theoretical scientific research in the physical, life, and environmental sciences. Operating national scientific facilities to help advance America's scientific leadership. Argonne operates world-class research facilities like the Advanced Photon Source. Enhancing the nation's energy resources to ensure America's energy future. Argonne is working to develop and evaluate advanced energy technologies. Developing better ways to manage environmental problems. Argonne is at the forefront in developing new ways to manage and solve the nation's environmental problems and to promote environmental stewardship. Reference

64: Percy Julian (1953)

Percy Lavon Julian (April 11, 1899 – April 19, 1975) was an American research chemist and a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants. He was the first to synthesize the natural product physostigmine. While at Glidden, his chemical synthesis of human steroids from plant steroid precursors would lay the foundation for the birth control pill and cortisone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Lavon_Julian

65: Bahai Temple (1953)

A Bahá'í House of Worship, sometimes referred to by its Arabic name of Mashriqu'l-Adhkár (Arabic: ???? ???????), is the designation of a place of worship, or temple, of the Bahá'í Faith. The teachings of the religion envision Houses of Worship being surrounded by a number of dependencies dedicated to social, humanitarian, educational, and scientific pursuits, although none have yet been built to such an extent. Designed by Louis Bourgeois, the Bahá'í Temple in Wilmette, Illinois, was completed in 1953; the Wilmette House of worship is the largest and the oldest surviving Bahá'í Temple. The Mother Temple of the United States, it stands in north suburban Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan. The cladding is made out of white portland cement concrete with both clear and white crystalline quartz aggregate. It has received numerous design awards, and is a prominent Chicago-area landmark. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. Reference

66: Zenith Electronics (1956)

Zenith Electronics Corporation is an American manufacturer of televisions headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois. It was the inventor of the modern remote control, and it introduced HDTV in North America. Zenith is a member of the South Korean conglomerate LG Group by way of LG Electronics, which acquired a controlling share of Zenith in 1995 and the rest in 1999. The company began in Chicago, Illinois in 1918 as a small producer of amateur radio equipment. The name "Zenith" came from its founders' call sign, 9ZN, and Zenith Radio Company was formally incorporated in 1923. Zenith introduced the first portable radio not long after this, and would eventually go on to invent such things as the wireless remote control, FM multiplex stereo, high-contrast and flat-face picture tubes, and the MTS stereo system used on analog television broadcasts in the US and Canada. Zenith was also one of the first companies to introduce a digital HDTV system implementation, parts of which were included in the ATSC standard starting with the 1993 Grand Alliance. Reference

67: Pritzker (Hyatt -1957)

Abram Nicholas Pritzker (January 6, 1896 – February 8, 1986) was an American businessman who founded the Hyatt hotel chain. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he graduated from Harvard Law School and worked for a time in the family's firm, Pritzker & Pritzker, before beginning with his brother Jack a business career that would launch a family empire. They invested in real estate and small companies, mostly around Chicago and amassing a considerable fortune. They shrewdly shielded their earnings from taxes through a series of trusts, which enabled them to distribute the money as they chose. Abram's philanthropic endeavors include funding the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. Abram's sons, Jay, Robert, and Donald, continued to grow the family business, eventually buying the Hyatt House hotel in Los Angeles in 1957 and forming the cornerstone of their hotel chain. The business became known as the Marmon Group, and was diversified to include manufacturing concerns ranging from lumber to railroad box cars, and travel industry staples Braniff Airlines (owned 1983–88) and Royal Caribbean Cruises. As of 2006 the Pritzker family is one of the wealthiest families in the United States Reference

68: Steel Plants (1960)

Gary's fortunes have risen and fallen with those of the steel industry. In the 1960s, like many other American urban centers, Gary entered a downward spiral of decline. Gary's decline was brought on by drugs, crime, and layoffs at the steel plants. US Steel continues to be a major steel producer, but with only a fraction of its former level of employment. While Gary has failed to re-establish its manufacturing base since its population peak, two casinos opened along the Gary lakeshore in the 1990s. Today, Gary faces numerous difficulties, including unemployment, major economic problems, and a high rate of crime, though the city has made some progress in addressing these issues since the 1990s. Reference

69: Nuclear Pwoer (1960)

Grundy County, Ill., is the location of the first privately financed nuclear power plant built in the United States. Dresden 1 was activated in 1960 and retired in 1978. Operating since 1970 are Dresden units 2 and 3, two General Electric boiling water reactors. Dresden Station is located on a 953 acre (3.9 km²) site in Grundy County, Illinois, slightly north of Coal City, Illinois. It serves Chicago and the northern quarter of the State of Illinois, capable of producing 871 megawatts of electricity from each of its two reactors, enough to power over one million average American homes. Dresden was the first nuclear power plant to be built with private funds. Reference

70: Robert Taylor Homes (1962)

Robert Taylor Homes is a housing project in the Bronzeville neighborhood of the South Side of Chicago, alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway on State Street between 39th and 54th streets. It was completed in 1962 and named for Robert Rochon Taylor, the son of the first African-American architect accredited in the United States. At one time, this was the largest housing project in the world. It was composed of 28 high-rise buildings of 16 stories, mostly arranged in U-shaped clusters of three, stretching for two miles. As of April 2006, 27 of the buildings were demolished and only one remains standing. The Chicago Housing Authority plans to move out all residents by the end of 2006. A mixed-income redevelopment will occupy the site of the Robert Taylor Homes in the future. Reference

71: Adlai Stevenson (1962)

Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (February 5, 1900 – July 14, 1965) was an American politician, noted for intellectual demeanor and advocacy of liberal causes in the Democratic party. He served one term as governor of Illinois and lost, by landslides, in two races for president against Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. He was Ambassador to the United Nations, 1961-65. Reference

72: Operation PUSH (Jesse Jackson-1966

Jesse Jackson formed two non-profit organizations, Operation PUSH (People United To Serve Humanity) and the National Rainbow Coalition. The origins of Operation PUSH can be traced to a factional split in Operation Breadbasket, an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr., the head of the SCLC, appointed Jackson to head the Chicago chapter of Operation Breadbasket. After 1968, however, Jackson increasingly clashed with King's successor at SCLC, Rev. Ralph Abernathy. The break became complete in December 1971 when Abernathy suspended Jackson for “administrative improprieties and repeated acts of violation of organizational policy.” Jackson resigned from Operation Breadbasket, called together his allies, and Operation PUSH was born. Reference

73: 1968 Democratic Convention

The 1968 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968, for the purposes of choosing the Democratic nominee for the 1968 U.S. presidential election.[1] 1968 already had been a tumultuous year for the United States, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y. (Democratic senator from New York), and widespread protests of the Vietnam War. The convention achieved notoriety due to clashes between protesters and police, and due to the generally chaotic atmosphere of the event. The turmoil was widely publicized by the mass media on-hand for the convention, resulting in a nationwide debate about the convention and leading to a flood of articles and books about the event. Reference

74: Apollo (Cernan 1972)

Eugene Andrew Cernan (born March 14, 1934) is a former American astronaut. He has been into space three times: as co-pilot of Gemini 9A in June 1966; as lunar module pilot of Apollo 10 in May 1969; and as commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972. In that final lunar landing mission, Cernan became "the last man on the moon" since he was the last to re-enter the Apollo Lunar Module during its third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA). He was also a reserve crew member for the Gemini 12, Apollo 7 and Apollo 14 missions. A native of Chicago, Illinois, a son of a Czech mother and a Slovak father, received his father's name which was originally spelled as Ondrej ?er?an (read Ondrey Chernyan, IPA: [?ondr?j ?t??r?an]). Cernan grew up in the towns of Bellwood and Maywood. He graduated from Proviso East High School in Maywood, Illinois and Purdue University, where he became a member of Phi Gamma Delta, in 1956, with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He was commissioned into the US Navy through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps at Purdue, and became a Naval Aviator flying jets. He also holds a M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. In 1976, Cernan retired both from the Navy (as a Captain) and from NASA, and went into private business. Reference

75: Sears Tower (1974)

The Sears Tower is a skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois, and the tallest building in the United States, by the measurement from the ground to its roof. By the measurement to the top of the antenna/spire, One World Trade Center passed it by 58 cm (1.9 ft) until only days before it was destroyed on September 11th, 2001, a short extension being installed on one of Sears' antennas in early September of that year. Commissioned by Sears, Roebuck and Company, it was designed by chief architect Bruce Graham and structural engineers Srinivasa "Hal" Iyengar and Fazlur Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Reference

76: Deep Tunnel (1975)

The Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (abbreviated TARP and more commonly known as the Deep Tunnel Project or the Chicago Deep Tunnel) is one of the largest civil engineering projects ever undertaken in terms of scope, money and timeframe. The goal of the Deep Tunnel Project is to reduce flooding in the metropolitan Chicago area, and to reduce the harmful effects of flushing raw sewage into Lake Michigan by diverting storm and sewage water into temporary holding reservoirs. The project is managed by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. The project was commissioned in the mid 1970s. Full completion of the system is not anticipated until 2019, but substantial portions of the system have already opened and are currently operational. Across 30 years of construction, over $3 billion has been spent on the project Reference

77: Amusement Park (1976)

Six Flags Great America is a large U.S. theme park located in Gurnee, Illinois, which opened in 1976 as Marriott's Great America. Six Flags, Inc purchased the park from the Marriott Corporation in 1984 making it the seventh park in the chain. Today, the park boasts eight themed sections, a 13-acre water park, two specially themed children's areas, and various other forms of entertainment Reference

78: Styx Band ( 1976)

Styx is an American arena rock band that saw its greatest success in the 1970s and 1980s, penning such hits as "Come Sail Away," "Babe," "Lady," "Mr. Roboto," and "Renegade." They were the first musical act to have four consecutive multi-platinum albums. The group originally formed in the Chicago, Illinois, area in 1961 as "The Tradewinds" and played local bars while attending Chicago State University. This earliest line-up of the group included brothers Chuck and John Panozzo on bass guitar and drums, respectively; and vocalist, pianist, keyboardist, and accordion player Dennis DeYoung Reference

79: Gacy (1978)

John Wayne Gacy, (March 17, 1942[1] – May 10, 1994[2]) was an American serial killer[3]. He was convicted and later executed for the rape and murder of 33 boys and young men, 28 of whom he buried in the crawl space under his house, between 1972 and his arrest in December 1978[4]. He became notorious as the "Killer Clown" because of the many block parties he attended, entertaining children in a clown suit and makeup. Reference

80: O'Hare (Crash 1979)

American Airlines Flight 191, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft, crashed on May 25, 1979, killing all 271 on board and two on the ground. Flight 191 was the deadliest airplane accident on U.S. soil Reference

81: Industrial Recovery (1980)

Rockford's 20th Century industry revolved around machine tools, heavy machinery, automotive, aerospace, fastener and cabinet hardware products, and packaging devices and concepts. The city's industrial background has produced many important and interesting inventions, among them the Nelson knitting machine, airbrush, electric brake, electric garage door opener, dollar bill changer, and electronic dartboard. In the 1990s Rockford had the ignominious honour of being listed as one of America's ten worst cities by the Rand McNally corporation. This may have been due to the lack of jobs and high number of outdated or closed factories. Crime on the west side of town was endemic, with huge areas of old established neighborhoods in extreme blight. The homicide rate in these areas was quite high. Many houses were vacant with no one wishing to buy them. The city government has developed many programs to attempt to address these problems and has seen some success. In 2005 Rockford received top honors in the America in Bloom contest with the award being 4 Blooms Tidiness. Reference

82: Tylenol Scare (1982)

The Tylenol crisis occurred in the autumn of 1982, when seven people in the Chicago area in the United States died after ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol medicine capsules which had been laced with cyanide poison. This incident was the first known case of death caused by deliberate product tampering. The perpetrator has never been caught, but the incident led to reforms in the packaging of over-the-counter substance and federal anti-tampering laws. Reference

83: Intermodal Facility (1984)

Intermodal transport involves more than one mode of transport. For example, passenger stations which provide transfers between buses and trains are described as intermodal (see: intermodal passenger transport). This article describes intermodal as applied to the transportation of freight in a container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation (rail, ocean vessel, and truck), without any handling of the freight itself when changing modes. The advantage of utilizing this method is that it reduces cargo handling, and so improves security, reduces damages and loss, and allows freight to be transported faster. Reference

84: Harpo Studios (Oprah Winfrey -1984)

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest rated talk show in television history.[1] She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century,[2] the most philanthropic African American of all time,[3] and the world's only Black billionaire for three straight years.[4][5][6][7] She is also, according to several assessments, the most influential woman in the world Reference

85: Quality (Motorola 1986)

The Six Sigma quality system was developed at Motorola even though it became best known through its use by General Electric. It was created by engineer Bill Smith, under the direction of Bob Galvin (son of founder Paul Galvin) when he was running the company. Motorola University is one of many places that provides Six Sigma training. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is an American multinational communications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Reference

86: Economists (Univ of Chicago 1990)

The University of Chicago's economics department is particularly well-known. In fact, an entire school of thought (the Chicago School of Economics) bears its name. Led by Nobel Prize laureates such as Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, George Stigler, Gary Becker, Robert Lucas, James Heckman, and Robert Fogel, the university's economics department has played an important role in shaping ideas about the free market. The Chicago School of Economics is also famous for applying economic principles to every aspect of human life, as famously demonstrated by University of Chicago Professor Steven Levitt in his best-selling book, Freakonomics. Reference

87: Hispanic Chicago (1992)

Luís Vicente Gutiérrez (born December 10, 1953), American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1993, representing Illinois's 4th congressional district (map). Gutiérrez was born in Chicago, was educated at Northeastern Illinois University, and was a teacher, cab driver, social worker with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and a member of the Chicago Board of Aldermen before entering the House. Of Puerto Rican descent, he is a supporter of Puerto Rican independence, the Vieques movement, and other progressive causes. He is a member of the US Congressional Progressive Caucus. Gutiérrez has assembled support from a broad section of Chicagoans, including Mexican Americans, whites, African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Reference

88: Web Browser (1993)

Mosaic was the first popular World Wide Web browser and Gopher client. It was reliable and easy to install, which opened the Web up to the general public.[1] Mosaic was the first browser to actually implement images embedded in the text, rather than displayed in a separate window. Mosaic was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) beginning in late 1992. NCSA released the browser in 1993, and officially discontinued development and support on January 7, 1997.[2] However, it can still be downloaded from NCSA Reference

89: Michael Jordan and the Bulls (1993)

Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963) is a retired American professional basketball player. Widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, he became one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was instrumental in popularizing the NBA (National Basketball Association) around the world in the 1980s and 1990s. After a standout career at the University of North Carolina, Jordan joined the NBA's Chicago Bulls in 1984. He quickly emerged as one of the stars of the league, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring. His leaping ability, illustrated by performing slam dunks from the foul line at Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness." He also gained a reputation as one of the best defensive players in basketball. In 1991, he won his first NBA championship with the Bulls, and followed that with titles in 1992 and 1993, securing a "three-peat". Reference

90: Center for Green Technology (1999)

The Chicago Center for Green Technology is: 1 A model for the nation.Chicago Green Tech is only the third building in the United States to be designed according to the LEED rating system using the highest standards of green technology available. It is the only one of the three that is a renovation of an existing building and the only one accessible by public transportation. 2 Home to organizations and businesses committed to the environment. Tenants who occupy Chicago Green Tech provide environmental products and services. Greencorps Chicago, the city's community gardening and job training program and WRD Environmental, an urban landscape company, all have offices at Chicago Green Tech. 3 A place to learn. Chicago Green Tech's building and campus are open for visitors to explore and to learn how green buildings are people and good for the environment. Visitors leave knowing how to incorporate environmentally friendly, cost saving features into their home or business. http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/portalContentItemAction.do?BV_SessionID=@@@@1976834271.1174846441@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdaddkhjddddlcefecelldffhdfhg.0&contentOID=536929699&contenTypeName=COC_EDITORIAL&topChannelName=SubAgency&entityName=Chicago Center for Green Technology&deptMainCategoryOID=-536894561&blockName=Environment/Chicago Center for Green Technology/Content&context=dept

91: Millenium Park -Bean (2000)

Millennium Park is a prominent new civic center of the City of Chicago in Illinois and an important landmark of the city's lakefront. A redeveloped section of Grant Park, the 24.5 acre (101,000 m²) landmark is bounded by Michigan Avenue, East Randolph Street, Columbus Drive and East Monroe Drive. It was Mayor of Chicago Richard M. Daley's ambitious idea to realize that which was originally designed as part of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago, a plan for the future of Chicago created in 1909. Reference

92: Archers Daniels Midland (GM Foods 2000)

Archer Daniels Midland Company is one of the largest agricultural processors in the world. Serving as a vital link between farmers and consumers, we take crops and process them to make food ingredients, animal feed ingredients, renewable fuels and naturally derived alternatives to industrial chemicals. Reference

93: Arthur Anderson (2002)

Arthur Andersen LLP, based in Chicago, later named Andersen, was once one of the Big Five accounting firms, performing auditing, tax, and consulting services for large corporations. In 2002 the firm voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the U.S. pending the result of prosecution by the Department of Justice over the firm's handling of the auditing of Enron, the energy corporation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen

94: Northwestern University (2003)

On January 11, 2003, in a speech at Northwestern School of Law's Lincoln Hall, Governor of Illinois George Ryan announced that he would commute the sentences of more than 150 death row inmates. Ryan said, "it is fitting that we are gathered here today at Northwestern University with the students, teachers, lawyers and investigators who first shed light on the sorrowful conditions of Illinois’ death penalty system." [6] In the late 1990s, Northwestern student journalists uncovered information that exonerated Illinois death row inmate Anthony Porter two days before his scheduled execution. Reference

95: Arryx Nanotechnology (2003)

Arryx, Inc. develops tools and technology for manipulation and measurement on the micro and nano lengthscales. Arryx's technology and products center around optical trapping. They specialize in holographic optical trapping, a technique for creating and moving many optical traps at once. Their technology is commercialized in the form of a flagship research tool, the BioRyx 200 optical trapping system. Arryx has investigated the application of the technique to an array of problems in different fields including telecommunications, agriculture, healthcare, basic research, and forensics. Arryx was founded in the fall of 2000, based on technology invented at the University of Chicago by Professor David Grier and his student Eric Dufresne a couple years earlier. Their BioRyx 200 system was released in early 2002 and won the R&D 100 award later that year. An IR version of the system was released in 2004 for broader application to biological systems, with support of additional imaging methods including fluorescent microscopy. In July 2006, Arryx was acquired by Haemonetics, with whom they had an ongoing partnership. Their announcement states that Arryx personnel and operations will remain in Chicago. They continue to support and expand their product line of research instruments, based around the BioRyx 200, as they pursue development of the underlying holographic optical trapping technologies and applications of that technology in various markets. Reference

96: Chicago Climate Exchange (2006)

The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is North America’s only, and the world’s first, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission registry, reduction and trading system for all six greenhouse gases (GHGs). CCX is a self-regulatory, rules based exchange designed and governed by CCX Members. Members make a voluntary but legally binding commitment to reduce GHG emissions. By the end of Phase I (December, 2006) all Members will have reduced direct emissions 4% below a baseline period of 1998-2001.Phase II, which extends the CCX reduction program through 2010, will require all Members to reduce GHG emissions 6% below baseline. Reference

97: FermiLab (2007)

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia near Chicago, Illinois, (Google Sat Map) is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics, operated for the Department of Energy by the Universities Research Association (URA). URA is a consortium of 90 leading research oriented universities primarily in the United States, with members also in Canada, Japan, and Italy. It is a part of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor. Fermilab's Tevatron is a landmark particle accelerator; in fact, at 6.28 kilometers in circumference, it is the world's highest energy particle accelerator. In 1995, both the CDF and D0 (detectors which utilize the Tevatron) experiments announced the discovery of the top quark. In addition to high energy collider physics, Fermilab is also host to a number of smaller fixed target experiments and neutrino experiments, such as MiniBooNE (Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment) and MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search). The MiniBooNE detector is a 40-foot (12-meter) diameter sphere which contains 800 tons of mineral oil lined with 1520 individual phototube detectors. An estimated 1 million neutrino events are recorded each year. The MINOS experiment uses Fermilab's NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam, which is an intense beam of neutrinos that travels 735km through the Earth to the Soudan Mine in Minnesota. Reference