100 Weird Things We Saw in Illinois

Even though we travel full-time and have explored nearly every corner of the country, Illinois will always be home, and let us tell you, our home state is weird in the best way. Over the years, we’ve found ourselves drawn to the quirky, forgotten, and just plain unexpected corners of Illinois: from strange roadside ruins and abandoned factories to oddly specific plaques, offbeat architecture, and fascinating bits of hidden history. This list is a collection of 100 weird things we’ve personally seen in Illinois, because no matter how far we roam, the Land of Lincoln always keeps us guessing.

1. The Donner Party’s Departure Point

📍Lincoln Square, Springfield

2. The site where Abe Lincoln christened the town of Lincoln, IL by breaking open a watermelon and spilling the juice on the ground

📍101 N Chicago St, Lincoln, IL 62656

3. The ruins of a nursery built just to supply plants for Lincoln Park

📍Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve, Lemont IL

4. The TMNT van, and other lots of movie vehicles

📍Volo Auto Museum, Volo

With everything from vintage cars to movie vehicles to a creepy doll collection, the Volo Auto Museum is a wild ride, and Harvest Hosts members can spend the night right onsite. It’s one of many offbeat places where members can camp for free with a yearly membership.

5. The ruins of what was once the second largest steel mill in the country

📍Joliet Iron Works Historic Site, Joliet

6. Woodland Palace

📍Francis Park, Kewanee

7. The ruins of a 1920s monkey house that was part of the zoo on the grounds of a boy’s home for “neglected, dependent and delinquent youth”

📍Hickory Knolls Discovery Center, St. Charles

8. The shrine of a former seminary hidden in the woods

📍Gunnar Anderson Forest Preserve, Geneva

9. An 1890’s replica of a Viking Ship that actually sailed to the US from Norway for the Chicago World’s Fair

📍Good Templar Park, Geneva

10. A concert on one of the world’s largest pipe organs

11. And the large collection of music machines, antiques, and even a rare 1890 salon carousel that are in someone’s house

📍Sanfilippo Estate, Barrington

12. The site of Babyface Nelson’s last gunfight

📍Langendorf Park, Barrington

13. A prison that operated for 144 years and housed notorious criminals like John Wayne Gacy

📍Old Joliet Prison, Joliet

14. A phone booth on the roof of city hall

📍700 Broadway St, Lincoln, IL 62656

15. Illinois’ Woodhenge

📍Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Fairmont City

16. An unused tomb for “Mr. Accordion,” which he had built out of spite

📍Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield

17. The only geodesic dome home Buckminster Fuller actually lived in

📍Fuller Dome Home, Carbondale

18. A monument to Boomer the 3-legged hero dog

📍Makanda Creekside Park, Makanda

19. A Dungeons and Dragons themed park

📍Boo Castle Park, Carbondale

20. The burial site of the first nuclear reactor

📍Red Gate Woods Forest Preserve, Willow Springs

21. The  largest seven circuit Prairie Labyrinth in the US

📍Lakeview Nature Center, Macomb

22. A scale replica of Cubs Field that anyone can play baseball on

📍Little Cubs Field, Freeport

23. Abandoned army munitions bunkers in a prairie

📍Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Wilmington

24. Popeye’s hometown

📍Popeye Museum and Popeye Character Trail, Chester

25. Superman’s hometown

📍Metropolis

26. The world’s longest trap line

📍World Shooting and Recreational Complex, Sparta

27. A replica of the Italian chapel where St. Francis of Assisi was called to serve the poor

📍Portiuncula Chapel at Mayslake Peabody Estate, Oak Brook

28. A puppet opera show

📍Opera in Focus Theatre, Rolling Meadows

29. The grave of the real-life inspiration for Dorothy of Oz

📍Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington

30. A tiny church in the parking lot of a regular sized church

📍Zion Lutheran Church, Lincoln

31. The World’s Largest Railsplitter Wagon

📍1750 5th St, Lincoln, IL 62656

32. The World’s Largest Square Knot

📍Comlara Park, Hudson

33. A museum dedicated to the history of “muffler men”

📍American Giants Museum, Atlanta

34. A sweet corn circus

📍Sweet Corn Circus, Normal

35. This corn-themed playground

📍Perry Farm Park, Bourbonnais

36. A historic canal boat pulled by a mule

📍I&M Canal Boat, La Salle

37. A cemetery chapel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

📍Pettit Memorial Chapel, Belvidere Cemetery, Belvidere

38. A 44 ft. tall man made waterfall

📍Krape Park, Freeport

39. A uniquely shaped two-room schoolhouse

📍Chana School, Oregon

40. A cypress-tupelo swamp (I still can barely believe this is in Illinois)

📍Section Eight Woods Boardwalk Trail, Karnak

41. A reconstruction of a 1700s French Fort

📍Fort de Chartres State Historic Site, Prairie du Rocher

42. A town often called a ghost town, but where I met a lot of great people trying to save and improve it

📍Cairo

43. A memorial to when a plane flew over a cemetery to drop poppies for Memorial Day and crashed

📍Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington

44. The longest epitaph in granite

📍Richard L. Jones grave, Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington

45. A national laboratory that started as part of the Manhattan Project

📍Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont

46. Topiary Lincoln

📍Macomb City Hall

47. A sign commemorating a group of Lincoln supporters in town… because every Illinois town loves to claim a Lincoln connection

📍Downtown Atlanta, near Xenia Park

48. An octagonal library

📍Atlanta Public Library District, Atlanta

You can camp right next to this adorable and historic octagonal library in a classic Route 66 town- exclusively for Harvest Hosts members!
Harvest Hosts gives RVers access to 5,000+ unique overnight stays at local businesses across the U.S.

49. A dairy farm that’s fully robotic

📍Lenkaitis Holsteins, Campton Hills

50. An authentic working Dutch windmill

📍Fabyan Windmill, Batavia

51. The lowest elevation and southernmost point in the state

📍Fort Defiance State Park, Cairo

52. The “Liberty Bell of the West”

📍Kaskaskia Bell State Memorial, Chester

53. A giant pink elephant

📍Pink Elephant Antique Mall, Livingston

54. A glass house built by a famous architect

📍The Farnsworth House, Plano

55. A 1912 steam locomotive that only runs three weekends a year

📍Silver Creek & Stephenson Railroad & Museum, Freeport

56. More movie cars

📍Historic Auto Attractions, Roscoe

This museum is packed with historic cars, presidential limos, and some of the wildest pop culture memorabilia we’ve ever seen, and Harvest Hosts members can camp right onsite!
Harvest Hosts is a membership program that lets RVers stay overnight at unique places like farms, wineries, museums, and more.

57. The Gemini Giant

Has since been moved

58. A former army depot turned wildlife refuge

📍Savanna Army Depot/Lost Mound National Wildlife Refuge, Savanna

59. An abandoned “earth station” that was used to communicate with satellites for long-distance phone calls

📍Witkowsky State Wildlife Area, Hanover

60. A haunted cemetery statue

📍Inez Clarke Statue, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

61. The Frank Lloyd Wright renovated villa of the man who funded the birthplace of US cryptology in WWI

📍Fabyan Villa Museum, Geneva

62. A park pavilion that used to be a bear cage in a private zoo

📍Fabyan Forest Preserve, Geneva

63. Artifacts from when Bloomington was the World Capital for Aerialists

📍McLean County Museum of History, Bloomington

64. The pyramid shaped tomb of SIU’s first Saluki mascot

📍In front of the entrance to Saluki Stadium, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

65. The state’s highest elevation, accessible to the public only a few days a year

📍Charles Mound, Scales Mound Township

66. The Field Museum’s herbarium where one specimen is so controversial we watched two botanists screaming at each other

📍The Field Museum, Chicago

67. The graves of all 3 barbed wire inventors, in the same cemetery

📍Graves of Joseph Glidden, Isaac Ellwood, and Jacob Haish in Fairview Park Cemetery, DeKalb

68. The remains of a 19th century health spa at the site of the “Great Healing Waters”

📍Dixon Springs State Park, Golconda

69. An observatory built by a watch company that guaranteed time set by the stars

📍U-46 Planetarium, Elgin

70. The inner workings of a pipe organ that was the largest in the country when it was built in 1893

📍First Congregational Church of Elgin, UCC

71. A waterfall you literally drive on top of to get to the parking lot

📍Bork Falls, Ferne Clyffe State Park, Goreville

72. A round barn built for a brain surgeon in 1910

📍Ryan’s Historic Round Barn, Johnson Sauk Trail State Recreation Area, Kewanee

73. A Tudor Revival mansion that was used by the Franciscan Order

📍Mayslake Peabody Estate, Oak Brook

74. The site of the first documented phantom funeral sighting

📍Marker in front of Creole House, Prairie du Rocher

75. A historic swinging pedestrian bridge

📍Belvidere Municipal Swinging Bridge

76. The ruins of a army training camp used during both World Wars

📍Atwood Park, Rockford

77. A haunted Swiss-style cottage

📍Tinker Swiss Cottage Museum and Gardens, Rockford

78. These creepy dolls

📍Silver Creek & Stephenson Railroad & Museum, Freeport

79. Swedish style cottages owned by members of a temperance society

📍Good Templar Park Association, Geneva

80. The site of the first permanent Norwegian settlement in the US

📍Norwegian Settlers State Memorial, Sheridan

81. A memorial “dedicated to all farmers and Ag related business folks that have lived thru the ‘Agricultural Crash’ of the 1980’s”

📍3497 IL-71, Marseilles, IL 61341

82. A statue of one of the Boy Scouts of America founders

📍Ottawa Avenue Cemetery, Ottawa

83. A historic Second Empire mansion built for a zinc magnate

📍Hegeler Carus Foundation, La Salle

84. The bicycling capital of Illinois

📍Vienna City park, Vienna

85. The Trapshooting Hall of Fame

📍World Shooting and Recreational Complex, Sparta

86. The third fastest supercomputer in the world

📍Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont

87. Eternal Silence

📍Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

88. A haunted cemetery with many legends, none of which are connected to true events

📍Bloods Point Rd Cemetery, Belvidere

89. A gravestone shaped like an easy chair

📍Oak Hill Cemetery, Geneva

90. A test loop of highway that was used to development pavement design guides for the whole country and greatly influenced pavement engineering

📍AASHO Road Test Site, Ottawa

91. The Italianate mansion used for filming My Best Friend’s Wedding

📍Cuneo Mansion, Vernon Hills

92. The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle

📍Collinsville, IL

93. A gold pyramid house (I even got to tour inside once!)

📍Gold Pyramid House, Wadsworth

94. A historic covered bridge that’s been hit by vehicles over 60 times in the last 5 years

📍Historic Robert Parker Covered Bridge, Long Grove

95. Mary Todd Lincoln’s sanitorium bed

📍Batavia Depot Museum, Batavia

96. A particle accelerator

📍Fermilab, Batavia

97. A museum devoted to the craft of cutting and shaping stones

📍Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art, Oak Brook

98. Ray Bradbury’s hometown

📍Fantastic Traveler – Ray Bradbury Statue, in front of Waukegan Public Library

99. A 2.9 mile “road to nowhere” that was used to film many famous movies

📍Amstutz Expressway, Waukegan

100. The only remaining open-water quaking bog in the state

📍Volo Bog State Natural Area, Ingleside