Chicago's story, told in places you can still visit

Chicago is a young city by world standards, but it has packed a great deal into less than two centuries: a frontier post, a fire that leveled its center, a building boom that taught the world to build tall, and neighborhoods that carried the hopes of new arrivals from every direction. The good news for anyone curious is that so much of that story is still standing, open to visitors and kept alive by traditions Chicagoans repeat every year.

The first people and the founding

Long before there was a city, this low, marshy ground where a river met Lake Michigan sat on trade routes used by the Potawatomi, Ottawa and Chippewa nations. The city's very name comes from shikaakwa, the Miami-Illinois word for the wild leek that grew here, recorded by French explorers in the late 1600s.

In the late 1700s Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable and his Potawatomi wife, Kitihawa, ran a trading post near what is now Pioneer Court on Michigan Avenue, and the City Council recognized DuSable as Chicago's founder in 2006. Fort Dearborn followed; it is honored today by one of the four stars on the city flag. Chicago became a city on March 4, 1837, with about 4,000 residents. This fall, the story came full circle: on October 27, 2026, the Chicago Park District broke ground on a park honoring DuSable where the river meets the lake, with public art highlighting Native voices, planned to open in summer 2028.

Landmarks that tell the story

The Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 destroyed some 17,500 buildings and left about 90,000 people homeless, and the city's rebuilding with brick, stone and steel set the stage for the skyscraper. The places below show what came next.

Pullman National Historical Park, on the far South Side, preserves the planned factory town George Pullman built around his sleeping-car works in the 1880s. Its Victorian rowhouses, the Hotel Florence and the clock tower on Lake Vista recall both a bold experiment in town planning and the Pullman Strike of 1894, a turning point in American labor history. The A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum tells the story of the Black porters who staffed Pullman's cars. In 2015 Pullman became the first National Park Service site in Chicago.

Glessner House, at 1800 S. Prairie Ave., was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson and finished in 1887, when Prairie Avenue was known as Millionaires' Row. Its fortress-like stone front was a statement about city living in the decade after the fire, and the museum runs docent-led house tours.

The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, at 740 E. 56th Pl., is marking 65 years and calls itself the nation's first independent Black history museum, a fitting place to learn about the people who built Bronzeville and the South Side.

The Berghoff, at 17 W. Adams St. in the Loop, is a landmark of a tastier kind. Herman Berghoff sold beer near the 1893 World's Fair and opened the restaurant in 1898. After Prohibition he obtained the city's first liquor license, and the city still issues the restaurant the first license each year. Its bar served only men until 1969, when Gloria Steinem and members of the National Organization for Women demanded to be served. The fourth generation of the family runs it today.

Traditions that carry the past forward

Some of Chicago's history is best experienced on a calendar. The Maxwell Street Market marked its 114th year in 2026 with six Sunday market days on Maxwell Street. The Bud Billiken Parade, a back-to-school celebration held every summer since 1929, marches down King Drive in Bronzeville on the second Saturday in August. Each October, Open House Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Center's free festival, opens the doors of buildings across the city; this year's ran October 17 and 18.

The holidays bring their own rituals. Glessner House offers Christmas Candlelight Tours on December 12, 13, 19 and 20, and the Swedish American Museum in Andersonville keeps the neighborhood's Scandinavian traditions in view through the season.

Where to learn more

The Chicago History Museum at 1601 N. Clark St. in Lincoln Park is the natural first stop. Its current exhibitions include US at 250: Civic Action in Chicago and Threads of a Nation, which opened October 24, 2026, and its Abakanowicz Research Center offers free access to archives, manuscripts and photographs. The Chicago Architecture Center at 111 E. Wacker Dr. leads walking tours year-round, including holiday tours of historic hotel lobbies this season. Pullman's visitor center is at 610 E. 111th St., and the Harold Washington Library Center at 400 S. State St. hosts history programs throughout the year.

History here is not behind glass. It is the brick under your feet in Pullman, the bar stool at The Berghoff and the parade route on King Drive, waiting for the next generation of Chicagoans to show up.