Southwest Suburbs Birthplace of Chicago (2007)

Its a part of Chicago thats full of surprises Its home to a 28squaremile forest with a rock canyon Its where one of the Blues Brothers did time along with thousands of other reallife convicts And its the setting for Chicagos most famous ghost story Its home to major league soccer and minor league baseball Chicagos largest Arab and Ghanaian communities are here Its also home to a bustling industrial canal where salty mariners navigate a Panama Canalsized lock past a hundredyearold hydroelectric dam This modern waterway follows the path of a 19th century canal that first connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi That earlier canal transformed Chicago from an isolated trading post on the edge of the American frontier into the fastestgrowing city in the history of the world