The Postcard Tour
Chicago's greatest hits, and the stories behind them. A river the city reversed so its sewage would flow toward Saint Louis. A newspaper tower with 149 chunks of other people's landmarks — the Parthenon, the Great Wall, the Alamo — bolted into the walls. Two towers everyone calls the corn cobs, financed by a union of janitors. A public library England stocked with 8,000 signed books before Chicago had gotten around to building one. And a mirrored sculpture that showed up to its own unveiling unfinished. Walk the Magnificent Mile into the Loop, from the Water Tower to the Art Institute lions. Nearly all of it is documented. A few small things I slipped in myself — see how many you can catch before the reveal.
What You'll Experience
Plan your walk
Know the route before you buy
- Starts at
- Introduction
- Ends at
- The Reveal
- Walking plan
- 40 min · ~1.6 miles
- Schedule
- Start, pause, and resume anytime
Included in the app
- Professional narration
- GPS-triggered stops
- Downloadable tour audio
- Ask the Historian Q&A
- Optional end-of-tour reveal
- All 13 story stops
A taste of what you'll hear
13 stops, each with its own story. Here's a preview.
"You're in Chicago. A city that once had a sewage problem, looked at the options, and decided the sensible move was to reverse the direction of its own river. Permanently. And send the whole mess downstream toward Saint Louis."
"Two round concrete towers with scalloped edges, sixty-five stories each, sitting right on the water. Everyone calls them the corn cobs."
"That's the walk. A water tower to a pair of lions, straight down the middle of Chicago, and about two hundred and forty years of people fixing problems in ways that should not have worked. Let's sort out what I did to you."
Tour itinerary
Every stop on this walk
Explore the route before you go. Each stop has its own story preview, location details, and place in the larger tour.
- 11IntroductionYou're in Chicago. A city that once had a sewage problem, looked at the options, and decided the sensible move was to reverse the direction...41.8975, -87.6244 Read this stop
- 22The Chicago Water TowerThe little stone castle stranded in the middle of Michigan Avenue is the Chicago Water Tower.41.8975, -87.6244 Read this stop
- 33Tribune TowerGet close to the base of the pale Gothic tower with the crown of stone spikes on top. Down at hand height, set into the limestone, there are...41.8905, -87.6237 Read this stop
- 44The Wrigley BuildingThe white one. Two towers joined by walkways, a clock tower on the south end, and a surface so bright it looks lit even when it isn't.41.8895, -87.6244 Read this stop
- 55DuSable Bridge and the River MouthFour little stone houses sit at the corners of this bridge, and there are bronze plaques set flat into the pavement.41.8882, -87.6242 Read this stop
- 66The Chicago RiverwalkDown here at water level you get engine noise, gulls, and a slow green river with tour boats sliding along it.41.8879, -87.6262 Read this stop
- 77Marina CityTwo round concrete towers with scalloped edges, sixty-five stories each, sitting right on the water. Everyone calls them the corn cobs.41.8886, -87.6285 Read this stop
- 88The Chicago TheatreSix stories of red letters spelling out the name of the city, hung off the front of a building on State Street.41.8853, -87.6278 Read this stop
- 99The Chicago Cultural CenterThe grey classical building on the corner is the Chicago Cultural Center, and the reason to know about it is that the most beautiful room in...41.8837, -87.6247 Read this stop
- 1010Cloud Gate — The BeanYour eyes are going to hunt for the seams. Give it a second. There aren't any, and that absence is the whole achievement.41.8827, -87.6233 Read this stop
- 1111Crown FountainTwo towers of glass block, fifty feet tall, facing each other across a long black granite floor with a quarter inch of water lying on it.41.8814, -87.6237 Read this stop
- 1212The Art Institute LionsThe lions. One on each side of the stairs, bronze gone dark green except where the weather has scrubbed it back to gold, and both of them...41.8796, -87.6237 Read this stop
- 1313The RevealThat's the walk. A water tower to a pair of lions, straight down the middle of Chicago, and about two hundred and forty years of people...41.8796, -87.6237 Read this stop
Stories first
Every stop is built around people, conflict, ambition, and consequences—not a plaque read aloud.
Most of it is true. The extra mischief is just a wink at the end, but the story is what carries the walk.
Have questions? Just ask.
Curious about something you heard? Want to know more about a place? Ask us anything — we have a lot to say. It's more fun when it's a conversation.
Ready?
Download the app, head to the starting point, and press play. The stories start themselves.
Get the AppBefore you go
Quick answers
How much is this tour?
$9.99 as a one-time purchase in the iOS app. The Chicago city pack is $14.99 and includes every currently available tour in the city.
Can I use it with spotty cell service?
Download the tour audio on Wi-Fi before leaving. Cached narration plays without streaming; map tiles and other online features may still need a connection.
Do I have to start at a specific time?
No. Start when it suits you, pause for a detour or meal, and resume later. Check the opening hours of any venue you personally plan to enter.
Are admission tickets included?
The purchase covers the Bad Historian audio experience. Transportation, food, and admission to third-party attractions are not included.
Other Chicago Tours
The Loop & North Side
Bootleggers, Bullets & Baloney
Al Capone ran a hundred-million-dollar beer empire, bathed three times a day, and lost it all to a tax form. A singer got his throat cut for switching nightclubs. A bank robber broke out of jail with a pistol carved from wood. Walk Prohibition-era Chicago from the Green Mill — where you can still drink in Capone's booth — down to the vanished hotels of the South Side, past the massacre site that's now a lawn and the cathedral where a man was gunned down in daylight. Most of it is documented. A few small things I slipped in myself. See if you can spot them before the reveal.
Museum Campus
Museum Campus: Landfill of Dreams
Everything on this campus stands on ground Chicago manufactured out of a burned-down city. A marble temple holds the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex on Earth, found because somebody got a flat tire. An aquarium a thousand miles from the sea got filled by hauling a million gallons of ocean up from Key West in railroad tank cars. There's the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere, a two-thousand-year-old Roman column Mussolini sent as a thank-you gift, and a downtown airport a mayor erased with bulldozers at one in the morning. Walk the lakefront from Buckingham Fountain to Soldier Field. Nearly all of it is documented. A few small things I mixed into the fill myself. See how many seams you can find before I show you.
The Loop & Magnificent Mile
Steel, Stone & Ego
Chicago burned to the ground in 1871 and stacked the strangest concentration of ambition in America on top of the ashes. A newspaper tower studded with 149 pieces chipped off other people's landmarks. An office whose steel skeleton went up in fifteen days. A brick tower so heavy it sank twenty inches into the mud, so you step down into 1891. Two round concrete towers — the tallest apartments on Earth the day they opened — bankrolled by a union of janitors. And forty stories up, a goddess of grain with no face, because the sculptor assumed no one would ever build high enough to look her in the eye. Walk the Magnificent Mile into the Loop to Cloud Gate. Nearly all of it is documented. A few small details are mine, set into the true ones where they blend in. See how many seams you can find before the reveal.
Lincoln Park
The Best Free Day in Chicago
One of America's oldest free zoos. A Victorian glass house. A hidden garden designed by a man who cashed in his life insurance for flowers. And roughly twelve thousand unmarked graves. All free.
Jackson Park
The Obama Library Tour
They carved a speech into the side of the Obama Presidential Center — four hundred and fifty-eight concrete letters, each one taller than you are — and the engineers nearly couldn't build it, because of the letter S. This is the story of the most expensive presidential center ever put up, told through the things you can actually stand in front of: a tower its own architects wanted smaller, a font borrowed off a men's fashion magazine, a granite skin cut to a sixteenth of an inch, a free public gym, a garden that replaced a garden, and a six-lane road Chicago simply deleted. It is also, technically, not a presidential library. Nearly all of this is documented. Two small things are mine.
The Postcard Tour
$9.99 · one-time