As you walk north along Michigan Avenue from the Loop to the Mag Mile, you cross the DuSable Bridge as it passes over the North Branch of the Chicago River.

Naturally, you cast your eyes upward to take in the gleaming white terra cotta facade of the Wrigley Building and the gothic revival arches of the Tribune Tower.

Given those architectural icons, it’s easy to miss the modest limestone bridgehouse at the DuSable Bridge’s southwest corner, home to the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum.

“We’re famous for skyscrapers. That’s what people are looking at in Chicago,” says Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River, the organization that operates the museum. “They’re not thinking about water quality, wildlife, people swimming.”

The museum has a two-fold mission: Show off the city’s unique bridges and educate the public about the Chicago River’s rich past and present.

A classroom for learning about the Chicago River 

The bridgehouse may look small, but it’s actually a five-story building, much of it below the street level, and each floor tells part of the Chicago River’s story.

Exhibits cover pre-European settlements along the waterway, how Chicago’s slaughterhouses and sewers polluted the river and how in more recent years, it’s been cleaned up and transformed into a lifeline for birds, turtles, kayakers and yes, even swimmers.

Visitors access the museum from the Chicago Riverwalk, a 21st-century project that helped transition the river from industrial to recreational use.

Today the Chicago River winds 156 miles from downtown through leafy city neighborhoods, parks, forest preserves and suburbs, and it’s no longer just the “workhorse river” that helped Chicago grow into a modern city.

“What we’re trying to do is open your eyes and explode your ideas and your misconceptions about our river system,” Frisbie says.

A testament to Chicago’s incredible bridges

The DuSable Bridge where the museum is housed is one of 37 movable bridges within Chicago city limits. It’s a trunnion bascule bridge, meaning it uses counterweights to lift the two sides to span vertically, allowing large ships to pass through the middle.

At the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum, you get to stand inside the bridge and inspect the massive gears that allow the bridge to move.

Lynnea Domienik

“You can actually stand inside this room, watch it from feet away, and see these big gears moving and see the counterweight drop 40 feet underground,” says museum director Josh Coles.

The museum hosts bridge-lift viewings in the fall and spring, as well as a variety of other events throughout the year.

The McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m through the end of the season, October 26, 2024. There’s a suggested donation of $8.