A roaring, awe-inspiring double cascade of icy water flows through woodland Oregon like something out of a Tolkien novel.

An enormous, inside-out glass globe built in 1935.

An amazing collection of scale model ships.

The 30,000-volume library is one of the world's most impressive poetry collections.

Today this bizarre rooftop phone booth seems like a piece of kitsch but it was once used to spot disastrous storms.

This softly rounded mansion was built without corners not to avoid evil spirits, but to make them more comfortable.

The famous author's birthplace is preserved in a town that he once described as narrow-minded.

One of the first historical sites of an alternative universe was installed in the town of Paris, Illinois—which is now home to an annual spelling bee of Kcymaerxthaereal words.

These mansions date back to Chicago's days as a brewer's paradise.

This grave in a ghost town cemetery marks the death of a witch on a day that never happened.

A small abandoned and abused cemetery that has become a magnet for ghost hunters.

This modest post office sits on the site of H.H. Holmes' famous murder castle.

Built to house a chapter of the Knights Templar, this grandiose building is a relic of Freemasonry in Chicago a century ago.

A replica viking ship from the Chicago World's Fair is still in dry dock in an Illinois park.

Cemetery featuring rare glass-fronted columbarium.

Chicago's largest cemetery is full of beautiful Victorian monuments and more than a few ghost stories.

Each of these gorgeous, intricately decorated rooms is painstakingly crafted to the scale of 1 inch: 1 foot.

An enormous park-like oasis, full of famous Chicagoans' graves.

A Bibliophile's Dream.

A monument to the art of slicing people open.

This morbid, delightful curiosity shop offers everything from animal bones to human teeth.

A toxic ghost town sitting atop a massive coal fire.

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

For two weeks every June, fireflies in the Smoky Mountains perform an astonishing light show.