Illinois A - Z

Brief thoughts and observations on villages, cities and townships in the state of Illinois, in alphabetical order. Ongoing project

A

Addison. Referred to as the Village of Friendship. I drove through it once looking for a gas station. I found a BP. I had to pay in cash at the counter but the service building was mysteriously closed and locked. There was a woman inside at the counter. I knocked twice quick at the window. She looked up at me for several seconds and looked back down. I knocked again, once. She didn’t look up. I left to look for another gas station.  I found a Mobil. I don’t remember my time there so I assume there was nothing problematic or notable about it. Addison has a lot of strip malls. 

Algonquin. The downtown area has one of those silly stone clock towers that was likely erected in the 2000s. I drove there to pick up a craigslist purchase: a German transistor radio that I also happened to be eyeballing on eBay. I don’t remember anything but the clock tower, really. 

Alma. Drove through it, modest cemetery, one man hovering over a tombstone and a woman near him with a dog. Small handful of houses. 

Alpha. Population of about six hundred. Named such as the founder, Anson Calkins, believed it to be the beginnings of a truly great city. Was nearby and drove through to look for an interesting train station before reading the train station had been demolished. 

Alsip. A Cook county suburb south of Chicago. Had a smoggy thick way about the air. Being there felt like being in a hometown, like if you stuck around too long you would not be able to get out. In 2010, four individuals who worked at Burr Oak cemetery in Alsip dug up 200 graves, dumped the bodies into unmarked mass graves, and resold the empty plots to unsuspecting members of the public. I would not go back to Alsip. 

Alton. It’s on the Mississippi River. Beautiful and a little depressing in the way some river towns are. Mass Confederate grave marked with a memorial, massive flooding in 1993. When I drove through there was a big riverboat peddling under the bridge. 

Alto Pass. Stopped there when visiting the Bald Knob Cross (a big cross). I don’t remember it much. Bald Knob Cross was not worth the drive - if you want to see a giant cross for some reason, go to Effingham. 

Anchor. So small. Not even 200 people. Drove through it to get someplace else. Somebody tailgated me half the length of the town. 

Antioch. Soft, rolling landscape. Lakes. Halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago. I don’t remember it too well other than that.

Arlington. Small. Near the Cherry Mine, a mine that had a fire a long time ago. It was sealed to contain the fire, which killed hundreds of men and boys. The fire birthed the concept of worker’s comp. I don’t remember anything about it other than that. I couldn’t find the remnants of the mine. 

Arlington Heights. Aggressively depressing and boring, but home to a Japanese grocery store with a terrific food court. Before the particular restaurant closed, I would get a truly excellent wasabi burger and wasabi fries and a big bubble tea, then walk over to the grocery store and buy all kinds of candies and snacks. My favorite snack to buy is a chocolate called Apollo. They’re shaped like tiny satellites and are milk and strawberry chocolate striped. Outstanding to look at and even better to eat. 

Ashkum, near Clifton, where I was headed for a reason I do not recall in my early twenties. Ashkum is tiny and has a grain mill. At least, that is what I think it was. 

Astoria. Had a building marked “TIPPEY’S CEMENT POTTERY” with statues littering the lawn, mostly of animals, some painted in a gaudy way. A man who looked like a coal miner loitered around outside. When he raised his head up to look at my car his glasses slid off of his face and into the grass. 

Aurora. I grew up very close by. Has a museum called SciTech that I really enjoyed and went to as recently as a few years ago. Has (or had) the strangest basement which I believe has since been refashioned into something else… it barely had any people in it any time I went and smelled a bit like mildew and pages of a book. There are no pictures of the basement anywhere so it may really be a thing that is lost to time. Only memories. 

B

Barrington. I never went there myself, but in 2010 the parents of a former classmate complained about how they were stuck at a railroad crossing for an hour and a half. 

Barrington Hills. A horse running amok in a park: learned it was because there was a horse farm nearby, probably. 

Barton. Home to the E.D. Edwards Power Plant, decommissioned due to an environmental group asserting that it released an illegal amount of pollution and was outliving its usefulness. I have been to nearby Peoria many times and have visited Barton a few. On one occasion, I went to look at the power plant. It had big red towers. 

Batavia, home to FermiLab, my favorite place in the world other than The Chapel Of The Chimes in Oakland, California. Prairie and some strip malls, with the tremendous laboratory and its grounds in the center. I have spent hours and hours at FermiLab. I have taken two boyfriends and many friends. I went for runs there, picnics with family and fishing. I walked around the neighborhood that the scientists housing is in, orange and blue identical houses surrounded by trees. You’re not technically allowed there but I have never seen anybody who lived there around, and have never been escorted off the premises by security. I will probably think of FermiLab at some point in the days preceding my death. 

Bath, Illinois. I don’t remember why I was there exactly, but I do remember that Abraham Lincoln is on the sign welcoming you into the town. I just looked up why, and it is because he surveyed it in some year in the 1800s, which I suppose is the town’s sole claim to fame. 

Beardstown. I went to look at the Beardstown Grand Opera House and ate a terrific sandwich in my car. 

Bedford Park. I don’t understand why a suburb of Chicago would have such a low population. I remember it feeling like it had stunted growth, and figured it had to do with some city planning quirk that is likely beyond my comprehension. 

Beecher City. Near Effingham. I was going to Effingham to look at their giant cross statue and ended up in the proximity. Nothing I can remember there. 

Belle Rive. Drove through on my way through Missouri. A failed railroad town. Not too interesting. 

Belvidere. Home to the strangest shopping mall in have ever been to. Only a couple of active stores and a disproportionally large Mexican restaurant. I walked around with a Video8 camera and got some pretty good footage of a man kicking a Coke machine. 

Berwyn, where my aunt would drop me off at the train after spending time with my cousins in Oak Park. I had Italian food with my uncle near the train once. I don’t know where he is now - I’m not sure anyone does. Also home to the World’s Largest Laundromat, one of my favorite places. If you don’t have any laundry it’s a nice place for a free cup of coffee. Sometimes there is a clown there named Mary Macaroni who entertains children. We are friends on Facebook and made plans to see a concert once but they fell through. 

Bloomingdale. I went there on accident thinking I was going towards Bloomington.

Bloomington. The Beer Nuts factory is there, a modest zoo with a big tiger and the Prairie Aviation Museum. I drove there because I wanted to see the F-14 Tomcat, which is parked outside the museum. A man was there with a baby in a stroller. He was looking at the plane and the baby was asleep. He looked over at me, looked at his baby and told me he didn’t know why he took his 1 month old to an airplane museum. I asked him if he was enjoying himself and he told me that he was. 

Blue Island. I went there to run a menial errand I cannot remember. 

Bolingbrook. I ended up here a whole bunch of times simply because it was in the area where my family was running errands. I also think I may have had some soccer practice there as a kid but I could be misremembering. It is deeply normal in Bolingbrook - if someone told me it was a good place to raise a child I would believe them. 

Bone Gap. There was an earthquake there that damaged the post office in 2008. When I was there the post office was clearly still damaged but otherwise functional. 

Bourbonnais. There is a dismal mall there that I wanted to look at. Half the lights in the mall were out but a couple of people were still milling about. I saw a movie at the movie theatre - a Cinemark. There is a statue memorializing an Amtrak crash in 1999 that killed 11 people. 

Braidwood. A restaurant there called the Polk-a-Dot Drive In with a giant statue of Elvis playing a guitar. The food is all right. 

Breese. There is a cross there memorializing victims of cholera. The plaque on it reads: ”In 1832, Cholera plagued this area. Entire families were wiped out, sometimes overnight. Jos(eph) Altepeter made a covenant with his maker if his large family was spared he would erect a large cross on his farm near the public road as a perpetual memorial. The family was spared and the original wooden cross that was built was replaced many times." The cross is 25 feet tall. The rest of the town is small and I don’t remember much about it other than the cross.

Bridgeview. A not good “Family Restaurant” is there. I had a breakfast sandwich that I cannot recommend. 

Brookfield. Home of Galloping Ghost Arcade, the largest arcade in the country with a great selection of games, including plenty of Japanese games like Ikaruga, a fast paced game where you shoot spaceships and airplanes. They also have an Outfoxies cabinet, another Japanese game that I was shocked to see a real cabinet of. Across the street is Tony’s Restaurant, a 24 hour place with good Greek food and good pancakes. 

Browns. A small town that declares itself “dry” - alcohol prohibited and not sold. It has been this way since prohibition. I drove through it for one reason or another. 

Buda. I like Buda. I would live there. It’s small and has a feeling about it like it has been there a long time and everyone knows each other but maybe does not talk to each other much but nods at each other when they see each other places. 

Brussels. There is a very little jail there you can go inside of and look at. I am not sure if it is functional. The rest of the town is small too.

Burbank. A normal suburb with an inexplicable statue of Frankenstein that is 20 feet tall.

C

Cairo. A bit more than a ghost town. There were houses for sale there that were uninhabitable and being sold for $800. I saw a boy playing basketball and a factory that was of ambiguous purpose. I assume it provides employment for the small number of people living there. A church was there that seemed in fine condition and operational. 

Calumet City near Gary, Indiana. A big water tower here with a smiling face. The city itself is run down and has a high crime rate. Jazz drummer Gene Krupa is buried there. 

Cambridge. A beautiful courthouse there, on the National Register of Historic Places. I would drive to locations on the list that were close by sometimes. A nice small town. 

Canton. I can’t remember why I was there but it seemed fine. 

Carbondale. I love it in Carbondale. I met my ex-boyfriend’s grandmother. We grew pretty close. We spent time at her house with her dog Darwin, looked at books with big pictures of animals and talked about the difference between frogs and toads, and ate Chinese food together. We visited her friend in a house sort of in the woods. Has a rural feel, a bit collegiate (there is a college there). 

Carol Stream. It’s fine there, I don’t have much to say about it. 

Carthage. Before it closed, it used to have a museum there that displayed a replica of President Lincoln’s casket. At the Kibbe Hancock museum you can see a two-headed pig. 

Carrier Mills. Largely abandoned. I drove through it to get somewhere else and being there made me a little sad because it looked to have life in it once and now it was all gone. It made me reflect on aspects of my own life and inspired me to make some modest changes to how I think. 

Casey. Casey is fun. Main Street has tons of giant replicas of household items, like a mailbox, a golf club, a pizza slicer, a pitchfork and a truck key. Other than this, it is a normal small town. 

Champaign. Near one of the only dark sky parks in the Midwest, a place so dark that you are able to see many more stars than is normal for a relatively populous place. It is a somewhat bustling city, I presume - when I was there it was 3 in the morning, though. There is a giant Kraft noodle there because there is a Kraft factory. 

Chatsworth. A plaque there marking a horrific train accident. The plaque reads “Horrible Train Wreck Happened Here”.

Chicago. A large city that I live in. Most of my favorable memories have been made here, along with some bad ones. It’s a nice place in the warm months but a beautiful place in the cold ones. Sometimes when it’s late at night and snowing and I’m downtown with the skyscrapers and nobody is around but me and a bitter cold breeze blows past me I am moved to cry. There is nothing more honest than the cold, and when I am alone with it I am inspired to say what I am thinking out loud as if it is listening to me. I am not particularly religious, so these late night walks in the cold are my only form of communion. When the Chicago winters are over, I feel like my spirit is a bit too big for my clothes, that I’m more in touch with myself and smarter. I can’t imagine living in a place that would make me feel better in a year than Chicago makes me feel in one cold month. A spectacular city! Complex! Great hot dogs! Hot Doug’s is closed - regrettably, miserably - but try Superdawg or the Vienna Beef Factory Store where you can also get frozen  “pigs in a blanket”. The Wiener’s Circle is often recommended but when you go there they verbally berate you sometimes (a selling point), which is fun for some people but I would rather quietly enjoy my hot dog and retreat into the night. I don’t like a primarily social experience when I eat unless I am at Medieval Times (see: Schaumburg)… at least, not one that features me as an active participant. People watching as a passive social experience is best conducted in diners very late. I loved sitting at the 24 hour - now defunct - Jeri’s, and watching people at 3 in the morning have drunken conversations that defy all conventional measures of sanity. Jeri’s was a diner near the Ravenswood neighborhood primarily for people watching and to go to when you want to spend an Easter alone with a cup of coffee, a few thick and decent slices of ham and a bowl of Kit Kat bar pudding after attending Mass, an experience that you can enjoy with a detached, historical perspective since you were not raised to be religious. 

Chicago Heights. Went there to buy stuff for Thanksgiving dinner one year. A normal place.

Chillicothe. A very small town that I have spent a whole lot of happy time in, especially summers. I went to my grandpa and grandma’s house and spent time with my aunts and sister. We would play Grand Theft Auto 2 and other video games in the basement and drink Mountain Dew. I remember the drive there felt so long but it is only a couple of hours. 

Cicero. A depressing town near my old house in Forest Park with great Mexican food. 

Clarendon Hills. I only remember that it exists because it was a stop on the Metra train ride from my house in Naperville to Chicago where I spent time when I was young. 

Covell. Lindbergh crashed a plane here - a big brick plaque overgrown with grass and weeds memorializes it. He sustained mild injuries and for the very first time considered a career change en route to town. 

Collinsville. Billed “The Horseradish Capital of the World”. Boasts a statue of giant ketchup bottle. For some reason they have a very large population of Italians and an Italian Fest every year. The ketchup bottle statue is OK. Don’t drive there from Chicago exclusively to see it, though. You’ll be a bit miffed that you wasted the time, unless you really like ketchup.

Countryside. Home of Country Cup Restaurant, a place I went with my sister a whole lot. It is a 24 hour restaurant (or was 24 hours) attached to a bowling alley. A nice neon sign in the window that looks great in snow or rain. 

Crystal Lake. A normal medium-sized town. Nothing of particular interest I can think of. 

Curran. Was in Springfield and ended up in Curran on accident when driving around and killing time. Left on accident also. 

D

Darien. Home to the National Shrine of St. Therese. There, you can find an ornamental box on display that contains a small piece of the saint’s flesh. 

DeKalb. I went there to pick up a really beautiful cathode ray tube television from an elderly man. He said if I can get it out of his basement without help, he won’t charge me for it. It was much lighter than I anticipated and was able to get it out of there myself. I drove home in dense fog listening to AM radio.

Des Planes. Home of the Choo Choo Restaurant, a terrific place where a model train on a track hauling carts with baskets in them delivers your food to your table. 

Downers Grove. Comedian Emo Philips’ hometown and an immense amount of Sears Catalog mail order homes. My gynecologist is there. It’s a fine town. 

Dupo. My reasons for going to Dupo are personal. It’s very sad there but there is a nice little waterfall and a Playboy Playmate was born there. 

Durand, near Rockford. I drove there because I got a tip that there was a tractor on top of a grain silo there. Sure enough, there was - a farmer fueled by supposedly religious fervor felt the need to lift his tractor up and place it atop his grain silo. When I saw it, it was covered in Christmas lights. 

E

East Peoria. A lovely church that looks like a bunch of chicken eggs, white and bulbous with a comically pointy steeple. I’ve never seen anything like it myself, but surely similar churches exist somewhere. 

Effingham. I drove there to see their one claim to fame, The Cross at the Crossroads. It is 200 feet tall and is highly visible from the highway. I don’t regret going, but I would not go again. 

Elgin. I went there a bunch of times, a few with my mom. We got lunch and went to a magic shop. 

Elk Grove Village. A normal suburb with a herd of protected elk in a forest preserve. A very nice thing to find if you’re not expecting to see it. 

Ellsworth. There is a wind farm lookout there. It’s just OK, but I really appreciate that somebody thought to make it.

Eureka. A small town with a piece of the Berlin Wall. I don’t know what I expected but the piece did not resemble what I imagined - it’s a gray concrete slab. In retrospect, that is exactly what a piece of a wall is. 

Evanston. I spent a few years of my childhood here and went to Montessori School. I had a lot of friends and if I could figure out how to find their whole names, I would look them all up to see how they are doing. 

F

Findlay. Home of the Goat Tower, a family farm that boasts a brick cylindrical tower with a pointed roof with steps running up the sides that their goats can climb up and stand on. If you don’t know the family, you can’t really get too close.

Forest Park. I spent a few years of my life in a house here, some good and some real bad. It was where I learned my mother died. My stepfather told me. I think I said “OK thanks”, which in retrospect is a very strange way to react to such news. I don’t remember much in the days or weeks following her passing. I spent a lot of time feeling ill, and even the happy moments were colored with longing. I miss her laugh and smile. Sometimes I will start crying and not know why, and then I’ll realize it’s because my mom is not around anymore. It’s very hard for me to spend extended periods of time in Forest Park.

Frankfort. I definitely went here but can’t remember why.

Franklin Park. I had a great pizza here and flew a kite!

G

Galena. Lovely place that I went with my family a bunch of times. Near Iowa, lots of steep hills and stone staircases. I drove there again recently and felt very nostalgic. My favorite store there, a little tea shop, dark with high shelves and with an intoxicating leafy smell, was still open. I bought a small bag of my very favorite strawberry tea. It smelled the same way it smelled 18 years ago. 

Geneva. I went there a few times to run errands for my late mother, once when she was mourning the passing of her father and my grandfather. She could not get off the couch and years later I wouldn’t be able to either.

Glencoe, one of the wealthiest towns in the country. I had a sort-of friend from summer camp in Maine who lived there. I couldn’t remember her name until I typed out that sentence! Her name was Paulina. I do not remember her last name. I didn’t learn much about her and most of my memories of her are from the airport. 

Glendale Heights. I went to a pawn shop there to sell a bass that I had not touched in a long time when I was maybe 19. I remember feeling really lost, but can’t remember what I spent the money on. 

Glen Ellyn. Where I went to a few semesters of community college and ran errands for my mother. I spent sort of a weird amount of my life putzing around Glen Ellyn. 

Golf. A tiny community that is very wealthy with one of the worst names for a town I have ever heard. It’s no fun to say. They play a lot of golf there and the houses are very big. 

Grand Tower. Far Southern river town that I drove through when meandering back from somewhere else. The earliest inhabitants were river pirates! A town founded by outlaws is a really crazy concept. The town itself struck me as quite beautiful at the time but I could have just been in a strange nostalgic mood one gets in when traveling. 

Gurnee. Six Flags Great America is in Gurnee and not a ton else. I love rollercoasters and always have fun when I go to Six Flags, although I have not gone in a long while. 

H

Hampshire. I remember the high school there has a mascot called the Whip-Purs. It looks like a cat but I guess it has been dictated that it is not a cat but something else entirely. 

Hanover Park. Sort of near where I used to live. There is nothing about it that is particularly notable to me, save for a small waterpark that when I drove past it looked a little bit run down. I remember smelling the chlorine long after I drove past it, and I thought that there must be an alarming amount of chlorine for this to be the case. 

Harristown. I believe I went to Abraham Lincoln’s first home in Illinois with my family in Harristown, but I could be misremembering things. I don’t think so, though. 

Havana. I drove here to see a highly unusual water tower that is cylindrical and tall as opposed to a globe on stilts as per usual. It was worth the drive for me. The rest of the town had a feeling about it that was a little run down and sad, but like they were giving getting the town going again a good effort, so my experience was mostly uplifting. 

Hawthorn Woods. Wealthy, green town. Lush green grass and big trees. The houses are spread far apart and I couldn’t find the center of town, but I left soon after I arrived. 

Highland Park. I went to the Heller Nature Center. There’s a glass place that backs into dense woods that I barely remember but bright flashes of green against my closed eyelids. It could have been a glass room, maybe an observatory. All I remember when I think of Highland Park is flashes of green. 

Hillsboro. Otto Funk was born there, a violin player that played his violin every step of the way on a walk from New York to San Francisco. He did this age 61 and died age 65. It is, in fact, full of hills. 

Hoffman Estates. I called into work sick and drove here instead to play miniature golf. I got two hole-in-ones! 

Homewood. I came here because I read it rested on an “ancient shoreline”. An ancient shoreline is more or less what it sounds like: a defined ridge of sand - about 9,000 years old - that served as the shoreline before the lake receded. I could not find the ancient shoreline. 

I

Inverness. Inverness Village Hall is one of the strangest structures I have seen, it looks like a child’s drawing of a castle. I can’t tell if it is from thirty years ago or a hundred years ago, it has a cartoonish timelessness about it. I wonder what the inside looks like. 

J

Joliet. There is an old prison in Joliet, along with some appealing industrial type buildings, a good donut shop that is open at all times with lamps shaped like spheres. There is also a building that is accidentally lit up at night in a way that creates shadows that make the building look like a big arrow. 

Justice. Justice has a weird slogan - “Peaceful, pretty and proud”. I guess I can’t explain why it is weird, but it is. Justice is medium-size and normal. 

K

Kankakee. I went fishing there once. I caught a fish and accidentally jabbed it with my hook. I felt bad releasing it because I was afraid it was going to die. I released it anyway. The fish turned up in a handful of dreams afterwards. 

Kinderhook. Very, very far west. The Kinderhook plates, a hoax, were “found” in Kinderhook. The Kinderhook plates were forged as a prank on the Latter Day Saint community. They were six small plates of brass with hieroglyphs engraved on them that the creators intended to be perceived by the group as religious law. 

Kirkwood. Stopped there on a bus ride, four people got out, two mothers and two children. One of them had on a grey sweatsuit and was looking bored. I got a coke at the gas station. 

L

La Grange. The flattest place in Illinois, I think. A flat place where people have a lot of money. 

La Grange Park. Lesser La Grange, although I think it existed first. I could be wrong.

Lake Bluff. I got off here on the Metra because I had to see a specialty doctor. It was winter so when I was done the moon was coming up. I enjoyed a moonrise over the lake.

Lincolnshire. I think I may have mentioned earlier on that I went to the best mini golf ever in some suburb that escapes me, but this is actually the suburb with the best miniature golf I have been to. It’s called Par-King Miniature Golf. I don’t know if it’s still open. 

Lisle. There is a sushi place here I would go to with my family. Otherwise somewhat mediocre. 

Litchfield. My friend would always talk about a drive-in here that we never made it out to. 

Lockport. I went here because it was near a giant canal that apparently had been phased out. I wanted to go see how the hell you ‘phase out’ a canal. It was actually replaced by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. I learned that day I am afraid of canals. I don’t know why.