Look at this building. White Georgia marble. Classical columns. It looks like it was built by the Roman Empire for the Roman Empire.
It was built in 1921 because a dead retail tycoon left money for it.
The tycoon was Marshall Field, founder of the department store. He died in 1906 with instructions to fund a museum of natural history.
Here's the thing about the land it sits on — in 1900, this was Lake Michigan. They filled it with cinders and ash from downtown furnaces — the waste from heating every building in the Loop — mixed with clay, dirt, and household garbage.
You are standing on a century of Chicago's trash, covered in marble.
— From the tour: Landfill of Dreams
