Illinois's 3rd congressional district

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.

Swallow Cliff Woods is an 800-acre nature preserve located near Palos Park, Illinois, in the Palos Forest Preserves. It was built in 1930 by the Civilian Conservation Corps and operated by the Cook County Forest Preserve District. One of the highlights is a 100 foot bluff with 125 limestone stairs of varying heights. The stairs lead up to what was once a toboggan slide. Although the slide closed in 2004, the steps remain and are popular all year round for outdoor exercise; sledding is still allowed if you bring your own sled.Hikers can still enjoy over 800 acres with 8 miles of trails.

Site A was a research facility near Chicago where, during World War II, research on behalf of the Manhattan Project was carried out. Operated by the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory, it was the site of Chicago Pile-2, a reconstructed and enlarged version of the world's first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1. The first heavy-water reactor, Chicago Pile-3, was also constructed at this site. Research was carried out under contract to the United States' Office of Scientific Research and Development. After the war, the site became the first home of Argonne National Laboratory, a federally funded research and development center. The site was returned to public use in 1956, but Site A, and a nearby site formerly used for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste, Plot M, continue to be managed by the Department of Energy's Office of Legacy Management as the Site A/Plot M Disposal Site. The Site A/Plot M Disposal Site is located within Red Gate Woods in the Palos Forest Preserves, part of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. The site contains buried radioactive waste from contaminated building debris, and the Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1/CP-2), and Chicago Pile-3 (CP-3) nuclear reactors. "Site A" was an early Manhattan Project code for the facility. "Plot M" was the code name used for the disposal ground.

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.

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.

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.

Palos Township is one of 29 townships in Cook County, Illinois. As of the 2020 census, its population was 56,836, with its most populous municipality being Palos Hills (pop. 17,484). The vast majority of the township's population resides in its eastern half; the half west of La Grange Road consists of the Palos Forest Preserves, a section of the Cook County Forest Preserves. In 1850 the small town of Trenton, Illinois changed its name to Palos; this recommendation was made by M.S. Powell, the local postmaster, whose ancestor supposedly sailed with Christopher Columbus from Palos de la Frontera. When it incorporated as a village in 1914, Palos officially became Palos Park. Nearby communities incorporated later: Hickory Hills, in 1951, and Palos Hills, in 1958. All three municipalities lie completely or substantially within Palos Township. Palos Heights, partially in Worth Township, incorporated in 1959. Township offices are located at 10802 S. Roberts Road in Palos Hills. The municipalities of Worth and Bridgeview also lie partially in the township. Palos Township's approximate borders are Harlem Avenue (Illinois Route 43) on the east, 135th Street on the south, Will-Cook Road extended to the DuPage County line on the west, and 87th Street on the north; in the northwest, the township border follows the Des Plaines River from 87th Street to DuPage County's southeast corner. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, designated a National Historic District in 2011, passes through the township just south of the river, and the Cal-Sag Channel roughly bisects the township from east to west.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.