20 interesting facts about Chicago

  1. The "Historic Route 66" begins in Chicago at Grant Park on Adams Street in front of the Art Institute of Chicago.
  2. The Art Institute of Chicago holds the largest collection of Impressionist pacity of Chicagointings outside the Louvre in Paris.
  3. Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837.
  4. Chicago’s nicknames include: The Windy City, the City of Big Shoulders, the Second City, and The City That Works.
  5. The first Ferris wheel made its debut in Chicago at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Today, Navy Pier is home to a 15-story Ferris wheel, modeled after the original one.
  6. The first Blood Bank ever in the United States was created in Chicago in 1937.
  7. Chicago is home to eleven Fortune 500 companies, while the rest of the metropolitan area hosts an additional 21 Fortune 500 companies.
  8. The Chicago Cultural Center is the first free municipal cultural center in the U.S. and home to the world’s largest stained glass Tiffany dome.
  9. Chicago is home to the world's largest population of Poles outside of Warsaw.
  10. Chicago was one of the first and largest municipalities to require public art as part of the renovation or construction of municipal buildings, with the passage of the Percentage-for-Arts Ordinance in 1978.
  11. The Lincoln Park Zoo, one of only three major free zoos in the country, is the country’s oldest public zoo with an estimated annual attendance of three million.
  12. At 23.5 miles, Chicago's Western Avenue is the world's longest street. It also has more car dealerships than any other street in the city -- 62 total.
  13. When it opened in 1991, the Harold Washington Library Center, with approximately 6.5 million books, was the world’s largest municipal library.
  14. The Chicago Post Office located at 433 W. Van Buren is the only postal facility in the world where you can drive a car through.
  15. The first steel rail road in the United States was produced in 1865.
  16. The Sears Tower is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 110 stories high.
  17. Four states are visible from the Sear Tower Skydeck (Indiana, Illinois, Michigan & Wisconsin).
  18. The Adler Planetarium became the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere in 1930.
  19. The world’s first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Company, was built in 1885.
  20. The first drive-in bank opened in 1946.
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