100 year old lost panoramas of northern Illinois on display at Nature Museum

The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is currently featuring a remarkable display:  the recently discovered collection of 20,000 fragile photographs that allows a glimpse into the landscape of Chicago and northern Illinois between 1894 and 1928.

The photographs were taken by the Sanitary District of Chicago over a span of 35 years.  Many of the photos were taken with such precision that when pieced together, they create seamless and stunning panoramas showing what Chicago and Northern Illinois looked like before all of the changes that have reshaped the northern Illinois landscape in the past 80+ years. 

The museum compares the artistic beauty of these black & white panoramas to those of Ansel Adams and other great American photographers.

As beautiful as these panoramas are, they are important for another reason as well.  The photographs also document one of the great engineering feats of the twentieth century—the reversal of the Chicago River.

The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is located at

2430 N. Cannon Dr.

(just north of Lincoln Park Zoo) in Chicago.  Hours are Mon-Fri, 9am-4:30pm; Sat-Sun 10am-5pm.  Admission is $6 (ages 3-12), $7 (students and ages 60+), and $9 (adults).  If you’re able to go mid-week, Thursdays are suggested donation days.