Free Walking Sightseeing Tour #5 in Chicago, United States

Legend

Churches & Art
Nature
Water & Wind
Historical
Heritage & Space
Tourism
Paid Tours & Activities

Tour Facts

Number of sights 20 sights
Distance 8.6 km
Ascend 563 m
Descend 708 m

Explore Chicago in United States with this free self-guided walking tour. The map shows the route of the tour. Below is a list of attractions, including their details.

Individual Sights in Chicago

Sight 1: Coca-Cola Building

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The Coca-Cola Building is a building located at 1322–1336 S. Wabash Ave. in the Near South Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, which once served as the Chicago headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company. The building was designed by Frank Abbott in the Commercial style and built from 1903 to 1904. When it opened, the building was eight stories high; two additional stories were added in 1913. The building features limestone with iron ornaments on its first two stories; a cornice with a terra cotta fretwork pattern at the top separates the second and third floors. The top of the building features a terra cotta frieze and a cornice with decorative patterns. The Coca-Cola Company operated out of the building from 1904 until 1928; the building was the company's second office outside of Atlanta. The building was the only Coca-Cola syrup manufacturing plant in the Midwest until 1915; it is now the only surviving Coca-Cola plant from before World War II outside of Atlanta.

Wikipedia: Coca-Cola Building (Chicago) (EN)

654 meters / 8 minutes

Sight 2: Fairbanks Morse Building

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The Fairbanks, Morse and Company Building is a historic commercial building located at 900 S. Wabash Ave. in the South Loop, Chicago, Illinois. The building served as the national headquarters of Fairbanks, Morse and Company from 1907 to 1937. The company sold a variety of agricultural equipment; while it was originally known for its scales, by 1907 it was best known for producing internal combustion engines. At its peak, the company was one of the largest engine makers in the world, and it was particularly dominant in the diesel engine market. The headquarters building is a seven-story Chicago school building designed by Christian Eckstorm. While the company moved to a larger headquarters at 606 S. Michigan Ave. in 1937, the Wabash Avenue building is the best-preserved remnant of its historic significance and still bears the company's name above the second floor.

Wikipedia: Fairbanks, Morse and Company Building (EN)

159 meters / 2 minutes

Sight 3: Crane Company Building

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The Crane Company Building is a skyscraper located at 836 S. Michigan Ave. in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The twelve-story building was designed by Holabird & Roche and built in 1912. The steel frame skyscraper was designed in the Classical Revival style, and its exterior design is split into three sections. The first and second floors are faced in limestone and feature piers supporting a cornice; the third floor is also covered in limestone. The fourth through eleventh floors are constructed in red brick; windows on these floors feature terra cotta keystones and sills, and the eleventh floor is capped by a terra cotta cornice. The twelfth floor is decorated in terra cotta panels which incorporate Crane Company valves in their design; this floor is also topped by a cornice.

Wikipedia: Crane Company Building (Chicago) (EN)

110 meters / 1 minutes

Sight 4: John Alexander Logan Monument

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John Alexander Logan Monument

General John Logan Memorial, also known as the John Alexander Logan Monument, is an outdoor bronze sculpture commemorating John A. Logan by sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Alexander Phimister Proctor, in a setting by architect Stanford White. Installed in Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois, the statue and pedestal sit atop a memorial mound, with a ceremonial stairway leading to the summit.

Wikipedia: General John Logan Memorial (EN)

466 meters / 6 minutes

Sight 5: Central Station

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Central Station

Central Station was an intercity passenger terminal in downtown Chicago, Illinois, at the southern end of Grant Park near Roosevelt Road and Michigan Avenue. Owned by the Illinois Central Railroad, it also served other companies via trackage rights. It opened in 1893, replacing Great Central Station, and closed in 1972 when Amtrak rerouted services to Union Station. The station building was demolished in 1974. It is now the site of a redevelopment called Central Station, Chicago.

Wikipedia: Central Station (Chicago terminal) (EN)

907 meters / 11 minutes

Sight 6: Field Museum

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The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational and scientific programs, and its extensive scientific specimen and artifact collections. The permanent exhibitions, which attract up to 2 million visitors annually, include fossils, current cultures from around the world, and interactive programming demonstrating today's urgent conservation needs. The museum is named in honor of its first major benefactor, Marshall Field, the department-store magnate. The museum and its collections originated from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and the artifacts displayed at the fair.

Wikipedia: Field Museum of Natural History (EN), Website

1355 meters / 16 minutes

Sight 7: Grant Park

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Grant Park is a large urban park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Located within the city's central business district, the 319-acre (1.29 km2) park's features include Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum Campus.

Wikipedia: Grant Park (Chicago) (EN), Website

121 meters / 1 minutes

Sight 8: Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain

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Clarence Buckingham Memorial FountainH. Michael Miley from Schaumburg, USA / CC BY-SA 2.0

Buckingham Fountain is a Chicago Landmark in the center of Grant Park, between Queen's Landing and Ida B. Wells Drive. Dedicated in 1927 and donated to the city by philanthropist Kate S. Buckingham, it is one of the largest fountains in the world. Built in a rococo wedding cake style and inspired by the Latona Fountain at the Palace of Versailles, its design allegorically represents nearby Lake Michigan. The fountain operates generally from mid-April to mid-October, with regular water shows and evening colored-light shows. During the winter, the fountain is decorated with festival lights.

Wikipedia: Buckingham Fountain (EN), Website

615 meters / 7 minutes

Sight 9: Sir Georg Solti Bust

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The bust of Georg Solti is an outdoor bronze sculpture by Elisabeth Frink, installed in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois.

Wikipedia: Bust of Georg Solti (EN)

555 meters / 7 minutes

Sight 10: Chicago Stock Exchange Arch

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The Chicago Stock Exchange Arch is one of the few surviving fragments from the Chicago Stock Exchange building designed in 1893, installed outside the Art Institute of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The arch was sculpted by Dankmar Adler & Louis Sullivan in 1893 and was preserved when the building was demolished in 1972. It was installed outside the Art Institute of Chicago in 1977.

Wikipedia: Chicago Stock Exchange Arch (EN)

298 meters / 4 minutes

Sight 11: Cubi VII

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Cubi VII is a sculpture by David Smith in the Art Institute of Chicago North Stanley McCormick Memorial Court north of the Art Institute of Chicago Building in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois.

Wikipedia: Cubi VII (EN)

305 meters / 4 minutes

Sight 12: Fountain of the Great Lakes

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Fountain of the Great Lakes, or Spirit of the Great Lakes Fountain, is an allegorical sculpture and fountain by Lorado Taft. The bronze artwork, created between 1907 and 1913, depicts five women arranged so that the fountains waterfall recalls the waterflow through the five Great Lakes of North America. In the Great Lakes, the waterflow begins in Lake Superior at 600 feet (180 m) above sea level and continues eastward through each lake until it reaches Lake Ontario. The Fountain is one of Taft's best known works. It is located in the public South McCormick Memorial Court of the Art Institute of Chicago, in the Chicago Loop.

Wikipedia: Fountain of the Great Lakes (EN), Website

622 meters / 7 minutes

Sight 13: Chicago L

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Chicago LDR04 / Attribution

The Chicago "L" is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs in the U.S. state of Illinois. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), it is the fourth-largest rapid transit system in the United States in terms of total route length, at 102.8 miles (165.4 km) long as of 2014, and the second-busiest rapid transit system in the United States, after the New York City Subway. In 2016, the "L" had 1,492 rail cars, eight different routes, and 145 train stations. In 2023, the system had 117,447,000 rides, or about 373,800 per weekday in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Wikipedia: Chicago "L" (EN)

391 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 14: Fine Arts Building

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The ten-story Fine Arts Building, formerly known as the Studebaker Building, is located at 410 S Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park in Chicago in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. It was built for the Studebaker company in 1884–1885 by Solon Spencer Beman, and extensively remodeled in 1898, when Beman removed the building's eighth (top) story and added three new stories. Studebaker constructed the building as a carriage sales and service operation with manufacturing on upper floors. The two granite columns at the main entrance, 3 feet 8 inches (1.12 m) in diameter and 12 feet 10 inches (3.91 m) high, were said to be the largest polished monolithic shafts in the country. The interior features Art Nouveau motifs and murals by artists such as Martha Susan Baker, Frederic Clay Bartlett, Oliver Dennett Grover, Frank Xavier Leyendecker, and Bertha Sophia Menzler-Peyton dating from the 1898 renovation. In the early 20th century, the Kalo Shop and Wilro Shop, firms owned by women and specializing in Arts and Crafts items, were established in the Fine Arts Building.

Wikipedia: Fine Arts Building (Chicago) (EN)

436 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 15: Fisher Building

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Fisher BuildingJ. Crocker / Attribution

The Fisher Building is 20-story, 275-foot-tall (84 m) neo-Gothic landmark building located at 343 South Dearborn Street in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago. Commissioned by paper magnate Lucius Fisher, the original building was completed in 1896 by D.H. Burnham & Company with an addition later added in 1907.

Wikipedia: Fisher Building (Chicago) (EN)

429 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 16: Ceres

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Ceres Óscar Marín Repoller - User:Oscurecido. Original uploader was Cynwolfe at en.wikipedia / CC BY 3.0

In ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome's so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad, then was paired with her daughter Proserpina in what Romans described as "the Greek rites of Ceres". Her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular Ludi Ceriales. She was also honoured in the May lustration (lustratio) of the fields at the Ambarvalia festival: at harvest-time: and during Roman marriages and funeral rites. She is usually depicted as a mature woman.

Wikipedia: Ceres (mythology) (EN)

121 meters / 1 minutes

Sight 17: Money Museum

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Money Museum

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is one of twelve Federal Reserve Banks that, along with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, make up the Federal Reserve System, the United States' central bank. The Chicago Fed serves the Seventh District, which encompasses the northern portions of Illinois and Indiana, southern Wisconsin, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and the state of Iowa. In addition to participation in the formulation of monetary policy, each Reserve Bank supervises member banks and bank holding companies, provides financial services to depository institutions and the U.S. government, and monitors economic conditions in its District.

Wikipedia: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (EN)

327 meters / 4 minutes

Sight 18: Calder's Flamingo

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Calder's Flamingo

Flamingo, created by noted American artist Alexander Calder, is a 53-foot-tall (16 m) stabile located in the Federal Plaza in front of the Kluczynski Federal Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was commissioned by the United States General Services Administration and was unveiled in 1974, although Calder's signature on the sculpture indicates it was constructed in 1973.

Wikipedia: Flamingo (sculpture) (EN)

526 meters / 6 minutes

Sight 19: CIBC Theatre

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CIBC Theatre is a performing arts theater located at 18 West Monroe Street in the Loop area of downtown Chicago. It is operated by Broadway In Chicago, part of the Nederlander Organization. Opened in 1906 as the Majestic Theatre, it currently seats 1,800 and for many years has presented Broadway shows. In its early years, the theater presented vaudeville celebrity acts.

Wikipedia: CIBC Theatre (EN)

238 meters / 3 minutes

Sight 20: Four Seasons

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Four Seasons is a 1974 mosaic by Marc Chagall that is located in Chase Tower Plaza in the Loop district of Chicago, Illinois. The mosaic was a gift to the City of Chicago by Frederick H. Prince ; it is wrapped around four sides of a 70 feet (21 m) long, 14 feet (4.3 m) high, 10 feet (3.0 m) wide rectangular box, and was dedicated on September 27, 1974. It was renovated in 1994 and a protective glass canopy was installed.

Wikipedia: Four Seasons (Chagall) (EN)

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Disclaimer Please be aware of your surroundings and do not enter private property. We are not liable for any damages that occur during the tours.

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