It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Chicago, yippy. That's how Virginia native Liz Hanson felt when she and her family moved to Evanston about four years ago.

Liz is a beach person.

She grew up going to sandy ocean beaches on the east coast.

And in her mind, Chicago was just a big concrete jungle on a lake.

Nonetheless, the day they moved in, she took her two young daughters for a stroll

near the Lake Michigan shoreline and...

Literally probably a quarter mile from our apartment and there's this gorgeous beach with sand.

I came back and I was like, I'm going to like this place.

I'm so glad we moved here.

We've got a beach.

I can't believe it.

But she couldn't shake a feeling.

Like, something was too good to be true.

So she asked us.

Is all the sand on the Chicago beaches native to the area,

whereas some of it imported in?

I'm reporter Laura Pavan.

And if you grew up in the area like I did,

you probably haven't thought very much about beach sand.

But the sand at inland lakes tends to be rough.

So maybe we shouldn't take our smooth, soft, Chicago area beach sands for granted.

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