Travelers leave tea kettles in a remote part of Death Valley as part of a mysterious, decades-old tradition.

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

This rare example of a "tidefall" is a spectacular drop from the cliffs down onto the beach.

This glamorous old building is said to have inspired the Tower of Terror.

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

A strange house built only at night, with rumored mystic inspiration.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

A winding path built in secret on the edge of the continent.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.