The Buckingham Fountain, or as its officially known, the Clarence Buckingham Fountain made all the headlines when it was first unveiled in the late 1920s. As one of the grandest memorials to be commissioned within Grant Park, the feature quickly racked up titles such as the world’s largest decorative fountain and even earned its sculptor and muse, Marcel Francois Loyao the Prix National at the Paris Salon.

Stepping up to the bulwark of stone, its unsurprising how the fountain set off such waves of anticipation. Set at 23ft in height and 280ft wide, only the rim of the ground level pool is visible above the turf its embedded within. Three concentric basins, typical of the European Rococo architecture rise from within, wreathed in laurels of carved pink marble. Yet the fountain only reveals its true colors after the onset of dusk, when all is quiet and narrow beams of electric lights provide scarce lighting within the park. Four seahorses set at a corner each of the pool release jets of water, the hazy mist tinted in dazzling technicolor as 820 lights fixed within the pool come to life. Meet Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan, the four horses and states ringing the iconic Lake Michigan, allegorized by the expansive ground pool of the fountain. The entire 20 minute spectacle employs 134 jets powered by just 3 water pumps, shooting the water up an impressive 150ft in the air at the performance’s zenith. It’s almost disappointing as the spouts dull to a trickle and the spotlights flicker off to leave you drenched in darkness. Fret not for the colors will continue running beneath your lids long after the curtains have closed.