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

The unedited photograph called "Bliss" has graced the screens of over a billion computers.

The largest drain hole in the world.

California's own medieval Italian castle, authentic down to the 300-year-old iron maiden in the dungeon.

Wheels of chrome by the thousands adorn this California Historical Landmark.

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

The fossilized remains of ancient California redwoods.

The southernmost outpost of the Russian Empire in colonial America.

A trash dump made beautiful by nature's power.

A raised boardwalk winds through a thicket of stunted, century-old trees no more than nine feet tall.

The oldest lawn bowling club in the United States.

A playing field for a popular French past time can be found tucked away in a quiet corner of Golden Gate Park.

This Japanese treats shop may have been the first business to mass-produce fortune cookies in the United States.

Chevron maintains one “Standard” brand station per state so it doesn’t lose the trademark.

The rustic cabin-like decor of this Arts and Crafts-style church reflects the love of nature central to its little-known theology.

One of the oldest producers of hand-folded fortune cookies still uses its original secret recipe.

Join the circus for a few lessons to learn clowning, acrobatics, and Chinese contortion.

This turn of the century masterpiece has a mysterious goaty interloper.

A still functioning vaudeville carousel that has operated for over a century boasts a colorful menagerie and past.

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

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

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

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

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