The first Chicago Auto Show in 1901 had ten cars, steered with tillers, and an indoor test track. It's been at McCormick Place since 1961 and calls itself the largest auto show…
The Air and Water Show started in 1959 as a park district family day with an $88 budget. Now it's the largest free air show of its kind in the country. How…
The first Taste of Chicago was one day, July 4, 1980, on three blocks of Michigan Avenue. Organizers expected 100,000 people. More than 250,000 came. Here's how it grew.
Sixteen stages, two weeks, about 100,000 people a day on Navy Pier. ChicagoFest was the summer party of the late '70s and early '80s, until politics and a boycott ended it.
Steve Dahl and Garry Meier, Johnny B., Kevin Matthews, Mancow: for two decades Chicago radio was the loudest in America, and much of it ran through one station, The Loop.
The Loop's morning madman ruled Chicago radio in the '80s and '90s. From Fond du Lac to the Radio Hall of Fame: Jonathon Brandmeier's career, and what he's doing now.
From 1910 to 1920, and again in 1933, some of the fastest cars in America raced on closed country roads west of Elgin. The story of the Elgin National Road Races.
Lincoln Mall opened in 1973 with Carson's, Wards, Wieboldt's and JCPenney. Four decades later a judge ordered it closed for safety violations. The rise and fall of a south suburban mall.
In 1975, Bolingbrook opened what was billed as the world's first indoor amusement park, with roller coasters under a dome and shops all around. Five years later, the rides were gone.
From 1983 to 2017, the McDonald's at Clark and Ontario was part museum, part tourist stop: '50s cars, jukeboxes and memorabilia. Its history, its rebuild, and what's there now.
Lunch under the Great Tree at Marshall Field's was a Chicago Christmas ritual for generations. How the tradition started in 1907, how they got a real 45-foot tree up there, and the…
The 35th Magnificent Mile Lights Festival is Saturday, November 21, 2026. How a 1949 Christmas tree and some Saks Fifth Avenue lights turned into one of Chicago's biggest holiday nights.
