Fodor's Expert Review Chicago History Museum
Seeking to bring Chicago's often complicated history to life, this museum has several strong permanent exhibits, including "Chicago: Crossroads of America," which celebrates homegrown cultural contributions from urban blues to the skyscraper and demystifies tragedies like the Haymarket Affair, in which a bomb thrown during a labor rally in 1884 led to eight anarchists being convicted of conspiracy. In "Sensing Chicago," kids can feel what the city was once like—they can catch a fly ball at Comiskey Park (now U.S. Cellular Field), dress up like a Chicago-style hot dog, and take a spin on a penny-farthing bicycle. “City on Fire: Chicago 1871” immerses visitors in the destruction and aftermath of the notorious inferno that displaced one-third of the city’s residents in just two days.
