Graceland Cemetery

Lonely Planet review

Graceland Cemetery is the final resting place for some of the biggest names in Chicago history. Most of the notable tombs lie around the lake, in the northern half of the 121 acres. Pick up a free map at the entrance to navigate the swirl of paths and streets.

Many of the memorials relate to the lives of the dead in symbolic and touching ways: National League founder William Hulbert lies under a baseball; hotelier Dexter Graves lies under a work titled Eternal Silence; and George Pullman, the railroad car magnate who sparked so much labor unrest, lies under a hidden fortress designed to prevent angry union members from digging him up.

Daniel Burnham, who did so much to design Chicago, gets his own island. Photographer Richard Nickel, who helped form Chicago's budding preservation movement and was killed during the demolition of his beloved Chicago Stock Exchange Building (the 1972 accident was unrelated to the demolition), has a stone designed by admiring architects. Other notables interred here include architects John Wellborn Root, Louis Sullivan and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (whose sleek, modern tombstone perfectly mirrors his architecture), plus retail magnate Marshall Field and power couple Potter and Bertha Palmer.