The world’s best (and only) Amish theme park amused central Illinois roadtrippers for over 70 years, and you could buy pencil souvenirs from the gift shop after challenging a chicken to tic-tac-toe.
Read more143 Years of Death in the Family
Generations of Haertel brothers marked the graves of countless upper-midwesterners, making a name for themselves that is literally still set in stone. Heck, their pencils are even granite colored.
Read moreFrom the Ruins of Chicago's 1893 World's Fair
In the future backyard of the Obamas, a Sears mogul's epic museum of American progress took root in the White City's last palace at the height of the Great Depression, and got its own telephone exchange that still works.
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