Beneath the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge is the “Gibraltar of the West Coast,” a fort built to protect the San Francisco Bay from naval attack.

After decades of neglect, a brutalist icon is getting new life as an eco-friendly hotel.

This small-town pizzeria won the Hollywood lottery.

This Civil War monument was designed by an eccentric architect and Gettysburg veteran.

The second-largest giant sequoia in the world.

Sitting atop San Francisco's tallest hill, a cross honors the victims of the Armenian genocide.

A giant can of fruit cocktail is all that remains of what was once the world's largest cannery.

Where the writer penned his famous story about a jumping frog.

A cozy bookstore is tucked within an old gold mine shaft beneath the cafe and ice cream shop.

A water tower shaped like a giant coffee pot looms over a small Swedish village in Central California.

Inky sludge oozes to the surface of this beach thanks to a rare natural tar seep.

This wilderness hike to a waterfall has an unlikely beginning in suburban Reno.

This bridge over D.C.'s Rock Creek Park is sometimes called the "Buffalo Bridge" because of its four buffalo sculptures, which were cast from a single piece of bronze.

A tunnel that brings more than a century of history to life from the deepest parts of the Niagara Gorge.

The museum is housed inside the historic 1863 Carson City Mint.

The first U.S. town to secede from the Union, only to vote themselves right back in.

A middle school sports field that many believe was the true location of the first successful powered flight - and not by the Wright Brothers.

The Empire Mine is "one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest and richest gold mines in California."

An abandoned lot littered with concrete debris was once the home of the world's first female railroad president.

"You don't need a rocket scientist to build a steam engine, but we've got one." -Museum docent on the credentials of a restoration volunteer.

These once-beautiful historic graveyards are set against the barren Virginia City hills.

Back in the day everyone who was anyone played this historic western theater.

Downieville's largest Gold Rush structure still standing has one of the longest bars in California.

Rising out of miles of farmland, these buttes are sometimes called the world's smallest mountain range.