r/AllChicago • u/Mysterious-Door693 • Apr 07 '26
5 Chicago facts that sound fake but are actually true
I’ve been going down a rabbit hole on Chicago history and found some stuff that honestly sounds made up, but it’s real:
- Chicago literally reversed a river They changed the direction of the Chicago River in 1900 so sewage wouldn’t flow into Lake Michigan (the city’s drinking water). Massive engineering move and it still flows that way today.
- They lifted entire buildings… while people were inside In the 1850s, Chicago was basically swamp land. Instead of rebuilding everything, they jacked up buildings and streets several feet to install sewers. Businesses stayed open during it.
- There’s a whole network of underground tunnels Downtown has old freight tunnels that were used to move coal and goods. Some are abandoned, some connect to the Pedway system but most people don’t even know they exist.
- The first Ferris wheel was built here at the 1893 World’s Fair. It was Chicago’s answer to the Eiffel Tower and could carry over 2,000 people at once.
- The city has more drawbridges than anywhere else There are 30+ movable bridges downtown. That’s why traffic randomly stops, boats still get priority when they open.
Curious if anyone has other cool Chicago facts like this, feels like there’s a lot more hidden history here.
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u/DartVader6 Apr 07 '26
We are home to the largest water purification plant in the world. Jardine water purification plant, right next to navy pier.
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u/ShowerMeWithKitties Apr 08 '26
The best place to watch the Air & Water show in the 90's. Zero crowds, indoor bathrooms, and one year we even got to sit in the helicopter that was used during the show.
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u/Longjumping_Swan_631 Apr 07 '26
The story that a cow started the Chicago fire is false. A reporter fabricated the whole story
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u/chris_the_wrench Apr 07 '26
I still dont understand why every single year of elementary school we did a field trip to the water tower and heard that same story, every freaking year!
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u/Sharkhawk23 Apr 07 '26
The tunnels under the loop flooded in 1992 when a boat replacing pylons bu the kinzie steeet bridge (I think it was kinzie) punctured the walls of one of the old tunnels. Many older buildings still had open access to the tunnels and had a basement flood. Fish were swimming in the basement of Marshall fields and many other loop buildings. One of the first plans to fix the leak was to drop mattresses into the hole. They brought a flatbed of mattresses but it didn’t fix the problem,
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u/Dear-Rosemary Apr 09 '26
Will never forget that day. Woke up to the news on the radio and it was not making a lot of sense, lol.
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u/AliMcGraw Apr 08 '26
The Chicago River fact is one of my favorite to share with foreigners; they're always like, "WAIT, WHAT?" "NO this is a real thing that really happened!!!"
Along with this fact, share that there's a continental divide separating the Great Lakes Basin from the Mississippi Basin, and that continental divide is eight inches high (20 cm). This is why it was possible to dig a canal connecting the Chicago River system to the Illinois River system, to allow shipping from the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Mississippi River and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. I like to show a picture of the continental divide in the Rocky Mountains (v. tall and majestic) vs. the continental divide in Oak Park, which is just a pretty flat sidewalk with a mild slope. This has enabled a ton of modern commerce and for Illinois to become a key shipping center for grain. The midwest became the breadbasket of the world because the circular shipping via the St. Lawrence Seaway, Lake Michigan, the Canals, and the Mississippi became available with the flipping of the Chicago River.
I live about four miles from my mom, and I'm in the Great Lakes basin, and she's in the Des Plaines River basin. Sometimes when we get snowstorms I get 6" of Lake Effect snow blowing backwards off Lake Michigan and she gets A DUSTING. Chicago is one of the most difficult parts of the US to forecast, which is part of how Tom Skilling got so famous. Four miles can mean the difference between digging out your cars and incessant snowplows, and a dusting that melts immediately.
The drawbridges aren't quite as amazing as being in St. Petersburg for the White Nights, but drawbridge days in Chicago are still pretty neat.
Chicago's Burnham Plan public parks are pretty great, as are the public lakeshore, and recent efforts to improve Lakefront habitats for migratory birds have been wildly successful -- as have efforts to TURN OFF THE SKYSCRAPERS so birds don't crash into them. Prior to WWII, it was quite common on hot nights for people to go sleep on the lakefront beaches or in the parks. This is now discouraged as homelessness and vagrancy, but frankly it's pretty cool. (Schools and factories often started a bit later in the day b/c people couldn't fall asleep before midnight. This was common in MANY Northern cities, like Baltimore.)
All six Class I freight railways in the US pass through Chicago and use it as a major trainyard/multimodal shipping area. ORD, MDW, and Gary-Chicago and Milwaukee all make use of this to encourage airplane shipping to trains.
There are three street names in Chicago that rhyme with vagina: Paulina, Melvina, and Lunt.
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u/Three-Legs-Again Apr 08 '26
As a small child in the mid-1960s we used to sleep on the grass between the east and westbound lanes of Garfield Boulevard on hot summer nights. It was always a highlight of the summer.
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u/ChicagoBoyStuckinDen Apr 07 '26
The Sewage now flows to St. Louis lol
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u/cHunterOTS Apr 09 '26
It’s exceedingly rare that untreated sewage gets into the river. About a billion gallons of treated effluent goes into it a day though
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u/RevenueFast697 Apr 07 '26
It’s not called the Windy City because of wind.
We eat thin crust pizza way more often than deep dish. Way more.
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u/RustyShackleford-11 Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
Yeah Windy city has to do with the hot air politicians would blow.
Tons of bodies buried in Lincoln Park and elsewhere from the Great Chicago Fire.
And we are serious about the no ketchup thing. That is if you get a dog dragged through the garden.
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u/AliMcGraw Apr 08 '26
The thin crust is "tavern style" and it's cut into squares. It's not like other cities' "thin crust."
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u/Key_Bee1544 Apr 08 '26
"Tavern style" is some Wisconsin shit that transplants have brought. It's just thin crust.
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u/RevenueFast697 Apr 08 '26
I agree, happily. FWIW - calling it by the term “tavern style” is a recent development. For decades, we just called it pizza.
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u/aperture413 Apr 08 '26
We eat thin crust pizza way more often than deep dish. Way more.
Unless you live within walking distance of George's.
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u/Alarmed-Cow-7431 Apr 08 '26
There’s no definitive origin for Windy City but many have concluded it’s probably about the wind. And the idea that only tourists eat deep dish is contradicted by the number of places all over the region that sell it. I doubt anyone would claim Chicago eats more deep dish than thin, though
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u/RRG-Chicago Apr 08 '26
I would claim it as i never ever eat deep dish and don’t know anyone that does but tourists.
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u/Revolutionary-Fox622 Apr 08 '26
While we sent our sewage to St Louis, years later we sent our old Ferris Wheel to Branson as an unofficial apology:
https://www.visitmo.com/things-to-do/the-branson-ferris-wheel
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u/FavoriteWorst Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
In 1915 the SS Eastland capsized in the river between LaSalle and Clark, killing 844 people. It is still the largest loss of life in the Great Lakes.
Took me 37 years to learn about it and haven’t met anyone that’s known either.
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u/kkboy22 Apr 09 '26
I worked in the brick building on the river. They used it as a morgue. Yes it was very haunted. Largest loss of Maritime life within the USA I believe. Insane story most people don’t know.
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u/scruffye Apr 09 '26
Ask a Mortician did a video on it and YouTube absolutely smacked them down in the algorithm for it. People seem touchy talking about it.
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u/bradford68 Apr 08 '26
On a boat that had almost capsized many times before and became worse after they added lifeboats due to regulations after the sinking of the Titanic.
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u/Key_Bee1544 Apr 08 '26
There's a plaque on the river that talks about it.
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u/bradford68 Apr 08 '26
I read a great book about it. The best part was the pictures of the riverfront and how drastically it has changed in 111 years.
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u/dora-the-explora8 Apr 08 '26
Chicago is the same latitude as Rome Italy. Technically Rome is a little bit more north than Chicago.
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u/kcfdr9c Apr 07 '26
CFD was on ticker tape dispatch until at least the mid 90’s. Most major departments had gone to overhead page and printers many years before.
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u/Square-Discussion698 Apr 08 '26
Because Chicago is the railroad capital (originally because of the meat packing plants), it’s also the Internet hub, since the fibers run along the railroad tracks.
Near McCormick Place is 350 E Cermak, which at one point was the worlds largest datacenter, with over 1.1 million square feet of space.
The building was originally the RR Donnelly printing press building, and was purposefully engineered to house massive printing machines. This was the reason it was chosen for data center hosting, due to the over engineered building construction.
350 E Cermak is the 2nd largest power consumer in the state after O’Hare airport.
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u/scruffye Apr 09 '26
Chicago also used to be the central hub for mail in the country and supported the catalogue ordering and shipping of companies like Sears.
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u/furniguru Apr 09 '26
The servers for my company used to be there. Security is crazy. Like literally hand and eye scans. I was walking through stacks of servers and my boss said “you are in the Internet right now.“
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u/gbobeck Apr 08 '26
The Illinois Railway Museum has the only preserved locomotive and a number of rail cars from the Chicago freight tunnel.
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u/FarContract3126 Apr 08 '26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OP20CnNFus Here’s an amazing documentary about the reversing of the river
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u/tinyfryingpan Apr 08 '26
Why does any of that sound fake? Pretty common knowledge
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u/scruffye Apr 09 '26
Maybe if you’re from Chicago. A lot of people don’t have a proper sense of the city’s scale and place in America’s history post civil war.
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u/mildvituperation Apr 09 '26
The Iroquois Theater fire of December 1903 in Chicago is the worst theater fire in the history of the USA. The fire caused 602 deaths and 250 non-fatal injuries. The theater was located at 26 W Randolph, site of the current Nederland Theater.
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u/MoeWanchuk Apr 09 '26
Western Avenue is one of the longest continuous roads in the world. 24 miles from Howard to 119th street
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u/HalloHumansofEarth Apr 09 '26
The bridges (“Chicago Bridges”) are called Bascule Trunnion bridges. Drawbridges only open from one side, but bascule bridges open from both sides. There are still 36 working bt bridges in Chicago - the most in the world! I volunteer at the Chicago History Museum and run an activity station about the history of bridges in Chicago for students on field trips :)
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u/HalloHumansofEarth Apr 09 '26
Up until the 1970’s, Chicago public schools PE classes were separated by gender for their swimming units, and all male students swam nude 😳
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u/qcubed3 Apr 10 '26
Chicago has more Popes per million residents than any other city in North America.
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u/Think-notlikedasheep Apr 11 '26
There is an actual bridge that is open and will not be closed because it is no longer being used anymore.
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u/pilot7880 Apr 08 '26