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Photo: Chris Rycroft, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Built in 1836, this unassuming little white house is the oldest surviving structure in Chicago. Tours are available through the Glessner House, but it's free to walk around the lovely Women's Park & Gardens that surround it.
The Henry B. and Caroline Clarke/Bishop Louis Henry and Margaret Ford House is a Greek Revival-style house museum in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Built around 1836, it is considered the oldest existing house built in Chicago. Henry Brown Clarke was a native of New York State who had come to Chicago in 1833 with his wife, Caroline Palmer Clarke, and his family. He was in the hardware business with William Jones and Byram King, establishing King, Jones and Company, and provided building materials to the growing Chicago populace. The house was built by a local contractor, probably John C. Rue, who later married the Clarkes' housemaid, Elizabeth (Betsy) Saunders.
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A collection of over 500 evocative pieces of art, created by artists who served in Vietnam. The museum also holds exhibitions on the Iraq war.
A stately Arts & Crafts mansion from 1887, now fully restored and refurnished to its original Gilded Age atmosphere. The staff are knowledgeable and enthusiastic.
U.S. Soccer House
A stately Châteauesque mansion from 1892 across the street from the Glessner House, often cited as one of the country's most important examples of this architectural style. No tours are offered, as the property is home to the United States Soccer Federation.
No tours are offered, as this long-derelict property has been rehabbed and divided into condos. This was the site of one of the great scandals of the Gilded Age. It was built by Marshall Field, the richest and most powerful man in Chicago, for his son. In 1905, the younger Field was found dead in his home under mysterious circumstances from a bullet wound. After two days, the family made the announcement that the bullet had been fired by accident during preparation for a hunting trip. According to rumors, though, he had been shot in a brothel in the notorious Levee. The elder Field died the next year, and the end of the Prairie Avenue era had begun.
Windows designed by Louis Tiffany and other stained-glass masters for a proudly diverse congregation.
Chess Records Studio
A major blues hotspot where Muddy Waters, Ahmad Jamal, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Bo Diddley, Etta James, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Ramsey Lewis, and many other greats recorded during Chicago's bluesiest period. The Rolling Stones also recorded here, paying tribute in their instrumental "2120 S Michigan Avenue." Public tours.