Site A

Red Gate Woods is a forest preserve section within the Palos Forest Preserve, a division of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Illinois. It is located near where the Cal-Sag Channel meets the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. In the woods is the original site of Argonne National Laboratory and the Site A/Plot M Disposal Site, which contains the buried remains of Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. This section of the forest preserves, then code named "Argonne" (after Forest of Argonne) was leased by county commissioners to the Manhattan Project (and later Argonne Laboratory) in the 1940s and 1950s. After its initial tests, the reactor at Stagg Field at the University of Chicago was removed and reassembled at the Metallurgical Laboratory site in these woods ("Site A"). Local residents reported encountering US Army MPs guarding the area during World War II but no one was aware of the true nature of the activities until long after the war. After further experiments and the shutdown of Pile 1, by then designated Pile 2, a huge hole was dug and the 2-story high reactor was pushed into it and buried ("Plot M"). Other reactors were also built at the site and nuclear waste was buried there. The site is monitored by the United States Department of Energy and is open to the public.By the 1970s there was increased public concern about the levels of radioactivity at the site, which was used for recreation by local residents. Surveys conducted in the 1980s found strontium-90 in the soil at Plot M, trace amounts of tritium in nearby wells, and plutonium, technetium, caesium, and uranium in the area. In 1994, the United States Department of Energy and the Argonne National Laboratory yielded to public pressure and earmarked $24.7 million and $3.4 million respectively to rehabilitate the site. As part of the cleanup, 500 cubic yards (380 m3) of radioactive waste was removed and sent to the Hanford Site for disposal. By 2002, the Illinois Department of Public Health had determined that the remaining materials posed no danger to public health.There is signage in the parking lot showing Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi at the Red Gate Woods site during the Manhattan Project. Concrete markers designate historic sites and the foundations of Manhattan Project labs still exist.

Sagawau Canyon is a canyon located at Sagawau Environmental Learning Center near Lemont, Illinois, in the Sag Valley. The site is owned by the Forest Preserves of Cook County and is the only such landform in the county. The canyon is known for its association with renowned Illinois botanist Floyd Swink, who did much to preserve the area during his career.

St. James Catholic Church and Cemetery, also known as St. James at Sag Bridge Church is a historic church and cemetery in the Sag Bridge area of the village of Lemont, Illinois. It is situated on a high bluff at the western tip of the glacier-carved Mount Forest Island, overlooking the Calumet Sag Channel and the community of Sag Bridge.

The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, historically known as the Chicago Drainage Canal, is a 28-mile-long (45 km) canal system that connects the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. It reverses the direction of the Main Stem and the South Branch of the Chicago River, which now flows out of Lake Michigan rather than into it. The related Calumet-Saganashkee Channel does the same for the Calumet River a short distance to the south, joining the Chicago canal about halfway along its route to the Des Plaines. The two provide the only navigation for ships between the Great Lakes Waterway and the Mississippi River system. The canal was in part built as a sewage treatment scheme. Prior to its opening in 1900, sewage from the city of Chicago was dumped into the Chicago River and flowed into Lake Michigan. The city's drinking water supply was (and remains) located offshore, and there were fears that the sewage could reach the intake and cause serious disease outbreaks. Since the sewer systems were already flowing into the river, the decision was made to reverse the flow of the river, thereby sending all the sewage inland where it could be diluted before emptying it into the Des Plaines. Another goal of the construction was to replace the shallow and narrow Illinois and Michigan Canal (I&M), which had originally connected Lake Michigan with the Mississippi starting in 1848. As part of the construction of the new canal, the entire route was built to allow much larger ships to navigate it. It is 202 feet (62 m) wide and 24 feet (7.3 m) deep, over three times the size of the I&M. The I&M became a secondary route with the new canal's opening and was shut down entirely with the creation of the Illinois Waterway network in 1933. The building of the Chicago canal served as intensive and practical training for engineers who later built the Panama Canal. The canal is operated by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. In 1999, the system was named a Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The Canal was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 20, 2011.

Saganashkee Slough is a 377 acres (153 ha), manmade riparian lake that forms part of the valley of the Cal-Sag Channel. It is located in the Palos Forest Preserves of Cook County, Illinois, on wetland that was drained but was later reverted to a lake starting in 1948-1949 by the construction of dams and levees. Saganashkee Slough, like other segments of the Cal-Sag canal and valley system, drains into the Des Plaines River and ultimately into the Illinois River.

Palisades is an unincorporated community in Downers Grove Township, DuPage County, Illinois, United States. Palisades is located along the north bank of the Des Plaines River and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. It is slightly upriver from the larger city of Lemont. Palisades is just east of Waterfall Glen near the Cook County line. It contains a business park on Jeans Road, which includes the Dupage County Knollwood Plant, a water treatment facility, various truck repair facilities, and other businesses. Palisades also contains various houses on the southern end of Madison Street, 97th Street, and Secret Forest Drive. The area is commonly referred to as "The Darien Palisades", given its close proximity to the City of Darien. It is named for Centennial Ridge, a rocky hill between the canal and the river, which reminded early settlers from New Jersey of the New Jersey Palisades.

Sag Bridge, Illinois is an Unincorporated community in Lemont Township in southwestern Cook County, Illinois, United States. Sag Bridge is an important waterway junction between the Calumet Sag Channel and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. It is also the junction of IL 83 (Kingery Highway) and IL 171 (Archer Avenue) which meet at Sag Bridge to cross the Calumet Sag Channel together on the eponymous bridge. The community was named for a predecessor of the present bridge. It is within the village limits and postal delivery zone of Lemont, Illinois. Other than the bridge for which it was named and the canal that the bridge crosses, the most significant feature of the community is the historic St. James at Sag Bridge Catholic Church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Illinois's 3rd congressional district includes parts of Cook County and DuPage County, and has been represented by Democrat Delia Ramirez since January 3, 2023. The district was previously represented by Marie Newman from 2021 to 2023, Dan Lipinski from 2005 to 2021, and by Lipinski's father Bill from 1983 to 2005. The district includes the western and southwestern suburbs of Chicago as far as the DuPage County border, as well as portions of the Southwest Side of the city of Chicago itself, and covers 124.5 square miles (322 km2), making it one of the 50 smallest districts in the U.S., although there are five smaller districts in Illinois. It is adjacent to the 1st district to the east and south, the 4th district to the north, and the 11th district to the west, and also borders the 6th and 7th districts at its northwestern and northeastern corners, respectively. The district was created following the 1830 census and came into being in 1833, five months before Chicago was organized as a town; it initially included northern and western Illinois before representing areas of east-central and northwestern Illinois from 1843 to 1873. The district has included part of Chicago since 1873, and part of the city's southwest side since 1895; the district has been primarily suburban since 1973.

The Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) is a complex of natural and artificial waterways extending through much of the Chicago metropolitan area, covering approximately 87 miles altogether. It straddles the Chicago Portage and is the sole navigable inland link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River and makes up the northern end of the Illinois Waterway.The CAWS includes various branches of the Chicago and Calumet Rivers, as well as other channels such as the North Shore Channel, Cal-Sag Channel, and Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal. The CAWS ends near the Lockport Navigational Pool, the highest elevated of the eight pools of the Illinois Waterway. There are three major locks within the CAWS, operated by the Army Corps of Engineers: the Chicago Harbor Lock, the Lockport Lock & Dam, and the T.J. O'Brien Lock and Dam.Artificial waterways connecting the Mississippi and Great Lakes systems via the Chicago area, over the Chicago Portage, began with the I&M Canal in 1848. The CAWS as it exists today began to take shape in 1900, with the construction of the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal to reverse the flow of the Chicago River (and eventually the Calumet River), which previously flowed into Lake Michigan, so as to instead flow toward the Mississippi River, thus carrying sewage away from the City of Chicago. Thereafter, additional artificial waterways were built that became part of the CAWS, such as the North Shore Channel, which runs inland from Wilmette to the Chicago River and was constructed in 1910, and the Cal Sag Channel, which provides a direct path from the Calumet River to the Illinois Waterway and was finished in 1922.In the 21st century, a focus of concern around the CAWS has been its potential role as a corridor for Asian carp to enter Lake Michigan. Suits in district court and before the United States Supreme Court have been unable to obtain an injunction requiring the connection between the CAWS and the Mississippi drainage to be closed.

Courtright's was a Michelin-starred restaurant in Willow Springs, in the U.S. state of Illinois.

The Palos Forest Preserves are 15,000 acres of forest preserves in the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, located principally in Palos Township, Illinois.During the 1930s, the area of the Palos Preserves south of Archer was known as the Argonne Forest. This commemorated the battleground of the Meuse–Argonne offensive where over one million Americans fought during World War I. During World War II, Argonne Forest land leased to the Army Corps of Engineers became Site A, a research facility where experimental nuclear reactors built for the Manhattan Project helped in the development of the first nuclear weapons. The Argonne Forest area is known to geologists as Mount Forest Island, an area which, during the Last Glacial Period, formed a triangular island 6 miles (9.7 km) long and 4 miles (6.4 km) wide, rising 80 to 120 feet (24 to 37 m) above the waters of the surrounding ice-age Lake Chicago.The Palos Preserves feature the Palos Trail System, the forest district's largest multi-trail system. The system comprises some 40 miles of unpaved trails, connected to each other by many intersections. The longest trail, "Yellow Unpaved" is 9.2 miles long, while "Brown Unpaved" is the shortest, at 1.1 miles. Trails are made for hiking, bicycle riding, horseback riding, and, in the winter, even skiing. There are sixteen entrances to the system which, along with the preserves as a whole, are open from dawn to dusk each day.The 6,600-acre Mount Forest Island area was, in 2021, designated an Urban Night Sky Place by the International Dark-Sky Association. It is the largest such Urban Night Sky Place designation in the world.Communities adjoining the preserves are Palos Hills, Palos Park, and Hickory Hills.

The Willowbrook Ballroom was a dance ballroom and banquet facility located in Willow Springs, Illinois along Archer Avenue. It was founded in 1921 by John Verderbar and named Oh Henry Park. The Willowbrook Ballroom is often cited as the last place Resurrection Mary danced before her death. Her ghost is said to appear at the ballroom at times, dancing with the patrons.On Friday October 28, 2016 the Ballroom was gutted by a fire. The building was having work done on the roof where the fire was suspected of starting. Due to water pressure issues the fire department had to wait on tanker trucks, which caused a delay in getting the fire under control.