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Chicago Time Machine

Did you ever wish you could travel back in history to find out what happened right on the spot where you’re standing?

Geoffrey Baer

With Geoffrey Baer

That’s exactly what WTTW Host Geoffrey Baer did. With his Chicago Time Machine, he peels back layers of fascinating stories all over Chicagoland, going back as far as 14,000 years.

Here are just a few of the Chicago Time Machine destinations we’ll be visiting on this journey:

• A notorious vice district south of the Loop, where crooked ward bosses went by such names as Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink.

• A giant World War II aircraft engine plant that now houses a mall and makes Tootsie Rolls.

• Wicker Park at the end of the Ice Age, when prehistoric giant beavers roamed freely.

• A decommissioned limestone quarry retrofitted as a fishing pond, in the middle of a city neighborhood.

• An alley in River North that you’d probably walk by without blinking; but in 1887, four unjust executions by hanging were infamously carried out there.

• A South Loop park that was once the site of a bloody battle with Native Americans.

We’ve put all of these stories – and many more – together. Happy travels!

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