Geocaching in Chicago, Part II: Explore and Learn

By L. Stolpman in Miscellaneous on Sep 21, 2009 6:20PM

In Part I of our series Geocaching in Chicago, we learned more about the outdoor activity of geocaching. In this part, we'll take a look at how this activity can help you learn more about the city of Chicago.

We began by going to Geocaching.com, clicking on Hide & Seek a Cache, entering our zip code and limiting our search to a one mile radius. A list of hidden secrets will appear, waiting for your discovery. We learned that a cache was hidden in Skinner Park and we've been walking by it with the pooch for over a year. The cache description (here) taught us that Skinner Park used to be known as Jefferson Park and was the backdrop for the novel Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, a fact we confirmed here (which appears to be the source of the information).

Next, we walked a few blocks to the Museum of Holography where another cache was listed. Despite walking by a sign for the museum for years, we'd never actually seen it but after reading the cache description, we're determined to walk back and explore this unique place.

Just a few blocks down, we searched for this cache in front of the Groesbeck House: "...the residence and office of early Chicago physician Abraham Groesbeck. It is one of the few structures to survive from pre-fire Chicago, when Washington Boulevard was one of the city's most-exclusive residential streets, home to such families as the Cranes, Glessners, and Harrisons, as well as Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of President Abraham Lincoln."

Of course you could learn these facts in a variety of ways. But what we liked was that our adventure to find the caches had us out and about, more interested in our own neighborhood and curious about the places to which our hunt brought us - not to mention the obvious sense of "ah ha!" when we'd discovered something we'd been walking past day after day. Mainly, it's fun. So! Ready to see what is potentially in your own neighborhood? Head over to geocaching.com and enter in your own zip code and limit the search to a mile or so. You'll be amazed at what you've been missing.

Part III will cover how to get started (gear, etc.), Part IV will be general tips and tricks for geocaching in the city, and finally, in Part V, we've scored an interview with Jeremy Irish, the President and CEO of Groundspeak, the company that owns and operates Geocaching.com.