Convenient, centrally located and affordable: Chicago is the #1 destination in the U.S. for meetings and events. Cvent, a tech company whose web-based software allows companies and associations to plan events, recently announced Chicago overtook Orlando and Las Vegas to take the top spot.

“Every great architect is—necessarily—a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.” – Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1887, 20 year-old Frank Lloyd Wright moved to Illinois to study under the famed Adler & Sullivan architectural firm. Wright helped Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan reshape Chicago’s landscape after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. For six years, he helped restore the city’s skyline and make Chicago an architectural capital.

There is a good chance the pumpkins you carve, use as ornamental fall decorations or as pie filling for your holiday treats came from Central Illinois. 

Illinois leads the nation in pumpkin production, with a swath of land near Peoria producing most of the state’s pumpkin crop. Morton, Illinois is commonly referred to as the “Pumpkin Capital of the World”, hosting the annual Morton Pumpkin Festival and home to a Libby's pumpkin processing plant.