In the mid-1800s, Chicago was a city fighting the lake itself. With storms eroding its shoreline and railroads racing to reach downtown, engineers made a bold gamble: they built a trestle bridge across Lake Michigan. Stretching hundreds of feet over open water, the Illinois Central’s wooden causeway carried trains above the waves—and forever changed Chicago’s lakefront.This unlikely structure triggered fierce battles over commerce, corruption, and public space. It blocked ships, created new land, and ultimately set the stage for Grant Park and the landmark Supreme Court ruling that defined America’s “public trust” doctrine. Join us as we uncover the rise, fall, and legacy of Chicago’s lost lake trestle bridge—a forgotten engineering marvel buried beneath one of America’s most iconic parks.
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13:09
From Hope to Horror | The Fall of Fairfield Hills Hospital
Hidden in the quiet town of Newtown, Connecticut, lies one of America’s eeriest relics of mental health history — Fairfield Hills Hospital. Once a vast psychiatric complex with miles of underground tunnels, this massive institution promised care but delivered something far darker. From lobotomies and overcrowding to wrongful institutionalizations, Fairfield Hills became a symbol of how America lost its way in treating the mentally ill.As the decades passed, it was shuttered and left to decay, its empty halls echoing with stories of suffering — and perhaps something supernatural. But how much of its ghostly reputation is myth, and how much of it is the result of what really happened inside? Join us as we uncover the rise and fall of Fairfield Hills, from its hopeful beginnings to its haunting legacy.
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What's Below New York's Central Park?
At over 840 acres, Central Park is bigger than the nation of Monaco—and every hill, pond, and path was built by hand. But the real history of New York’s most famous park lies below the surface. Beneath the lawns are traces of forgotten neighborhoods, lost infrastructure, and tunnels that shaped Manhattan’s rise to power.In this episode, we uncover what truly lies under Central Park: the remains of Seneca Village, one of America’s first communities of free Black landowners; the massive Croton Reservoir that once supplied New York’s water; and the modern tunnels that keep the city alive today. Along the way, we’ll separate fact from legend and reveal how the park’s buried past tells the story of New York itself.
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19:32
Why Dark Entry Forest is Totally Forbidden
Hidden deep within the forests of Connecticut lies the ruins of a vanished colonial village — a place that locals call Dudleytown. Once a small farming community, it mysteriously disappeared from maps, leaving behind only stone foundations and a legend that refuses to die. Today, the area is sealed off by a private corporation called Dark Entry Forest, Incorporated, which has spent decades keeping trespassers away. Their secrecy has only fueled speculation about what really happened there.In this episode, we uncover the real story behind Dudleytown — from its humble 18th-century origins and harsh winters to the myths of a generational curse that supposedly doomed its settlers. Along the way, we explore how this abandoned Connecticut village became one of America’s most infamous “haunted” sites, and why even today, no one is allowed to step foot on its land.
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Why California has a Bridge to Nowhere
High in the San Gabriel Mountains outside Los Angeles sits one of California’s strangest landmarks — a massive concrete arch that connects to no road and leads to nowhere. Known as the “Bridge to Nowhere,” this isolated span was once the centerpiece of a highway meant to cut through the mountains, linking Azusa to Wrightwood.Built during the Great Depression under the Works Progress Administration, the bridge embodied the optimism of its time. But in 1938, catastrophic floods wiped out the road it was meant to serve, leaving the bridge stranded in the wilderness. Abandoned by planners but preserved by history, it has since become a hiking destination, a bungee-jumping site, and a haunting symbol of ambition versus nature.
IT’S HISTORY is a ride through history – join us in discovering the world’s most important eras, the minds that changed everything, and the most important inventions of our time through weekly tales of Urban Decay.
This podcast is distributed and operated by Video Brothers Music.
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