Passport to Illinois Part 3: Touring Cantigny, Haymarket Martyrs Monument and more

CHICAGO (WLS) -- With America's 250th anniversary on the horizon, we're taking a closer look at the stories that define the nation, right here in the Chicago area. The "Illinois America 250" Passport will take you on a tour of just that. Jasmine Minor highlights some of the stops in the last portion of our trip around the Chicago area.

We made it to the last round of our passport tours, and we're starting in the trenches at the First Division Museum at Cantigny.

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Artifacts, uniforms, and personal accounts trace the path of the First Infantry Division, soldiers who stood at the center of America's most defining conflicts.

"As people walk through the museum, they're going to see things like the Battle of Cantigny, D-Day, battle of the bulge, Vietnam, those areas, those actions, the first ID where there was combat, you know, loss of life," Will Buhlig, First Division Museum at Cantigny, said. "But we also showcase, the other things the military does is more of a humanitarian way, more of a security way. That's also vitally important."

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But, America's story didn't begin on the battlefield.

All right, it's time for our next stop. We're heading over to the get you Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum.

"Europeans did not start with the do not mark the beginning of American history, just the beginning of the history of the United States, the political unit. And so we're excited to talk about this," Michael Lamble, Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum, said.

Native tribes had been living around the Great Lakes for generations before the United States existed, building communities rooted in trade and a deep connection to the land. When European settlers arrived, that balance shifted, disease reduced populations, the fur trade changed their economy, and a series of treaties with the U.S. government forced them to give up large portions of their homeland.

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"We're really excited to be able to talk about the ways in which Potawatomi, specifically, and native peoples in general, in Illinois and Chicago land are reclaiming ancestral lands, reclaiming ancestral, traditions, ancestral lifeways, within the history of America at large," Lamble said.

We're heading over to the Haymarket Martyrs Monument. Let's learn more about how Chicagoland played a role in labor relations. Check it out.

The Haymarket Affair began as a peaceful labor rally in what's now the West Loop but turned violent when someone threw a bomb at police.

"Because of the panic and there being no light, the crowd dispersed, probably a number of workers," Larry Spivack, president emeritus of the Illinois Labor History Society, said. "We know a number of workers were killed, but it's not documented. How many? And nobody knows who threw the bomb. There is, to this day, nobody knows. That's one of the great American mysteries."

The explosion and ensuing gunfire left several officers and civilians dead, sparking national fear. In the aftermath, several activists were arrested and controversially convicted, making the event a lasting symbol of labor rights struggles and injustice. The affair produced the eight-hour workday.

For more information, visit https://www.il250.org/passport.