Urban explorers embraced America's now demolished first suburban mall, south of Chicago.

The history of funerals and funerary customs.

Once known as the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane.

An abandoned meat mecca now serves as an excellent locale for urban exploration.

What was once one of the country's largest confectionary plants is now an abandoned ruin, but is still pretty sweet.

One of two identical monuments marking the sites of military training encampments in Peoria, Illinois.

The sign to a demolished amusement park now stands in front of a local library.

In the Shawnee National Forest, amazing rock formations peer through the treeline.

A hidden grotto on the grounds of the Kane County Government Center.

It was originally part of a "terrible lizards" collection at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

This abandoned 19th century orphanage started as a boarding school for children of Civil War veterans.

A small abandoned and abused cemetery that has become a magnet for ghost hunters.

One-of-a-kind preserved ruins of an abandoned 1880s church in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

What was once the second largest steel mill in the US is now a sprawling complex of modern ruins.

The unluckiest U-boat in the entire German fleet is now on display in a Chicago museum.

This cemetery is all that remains of a school for "wayward" girls.

This overgrown Illinois water park offers a whole new type of adventure.

This modest post office sits on the site of H.H. Holmes' famous murder castle.

These abandoned grain silos and tunnels are an urban exploration dream.

River pirates, murderous bandits, and serial killers used this Illinois cave as their debauched hideout.

Chicago's North Park Village was once the largest municipal sanatorium in the country.

Shop of curiosities with a dinosaur museum tucked in its basement.

A once-booming Mississippi River town with a history of racial violence is now eerie and mostly abandoned.

The subtle science of a master molecular gastronomist.