Places Avalon Wants to Go

This small-town park in southern Illinois has a 1,000,000-gallon swimming pool and a 100,000-barrel oil well.

The house is an iconic pilgrimage site for fans of the Illinois-based emo band.

This unassuming city park is home to three different types of Native American mounds.

One of two identical monuments marking the sites of military training encampments in Peoria, Illinois.

The oldest house in Galena, Illinois, now is a reminder of when this city was the world's lead mining capital.

Grand opera on a miniature scale.

Pumpkin-like gargoyles and grotesques peer down from the rooftop of this unassuming apartment building in Illinois.

Where a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel, and a recluse met one Saturday and changed their lives forever.

A mini Wrigley Field for mini baseball players.

The study has wall paneling from a 17th century ship.

This historic store hides a museum exhibiting a shoe-sizing x-ray machine and a pair of kicks that once belonged to the world's tallest man.

One of the largest carillons in the world, this giant instrument has 67 cast-iron bells played by a keyboard.

The faint remains of a Polish news empire still linger.

Landmark Chicago building narrowly avoided destruction.

Abraham Lincoln's likeness rests at the top of this giant totem pole.

Now nearly abandoned, Kaskaskia was once the capital of Illinois and one of the most important towns on the upper Mississippi.

An Art Deco gem that held together the artistic heart of an agricultural community for 92 years.

With 8,000 pipes this giant instrument is the most versatile theatre pipe organ ever built.

Odd, decrepit fountain honors Chicago author who had mixed feelings about his hometown.

This simple gravestone remembers a pig who single-hoofedly raised $19,000,000 for the Navy.

The park that the Chicago Stockyards built.

This odd stone memorial remembers a loyal dog who offended the rail barons with his speed and saved his master with his pee.

The last masonry skyscraper ever built reveals a transitional moment in architectural history.

The famous Beatle secretly visited this Illinois town several times to visit his sister.