This museum looks at the history of one of America's most famous prisons and most beloved albums.

A statue commemorating the heroic life of a Viking postman who was the Godfather of California skiing.

Dentist's hated concrete colossi are now beloved icons of the community.

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.

The modest home of the very immodest dancer who cost a king his crown.

The oldest continuously operating Catholic school west of the Mississippi.

A fine mixture of the old and the new topped with an art deco neon spire.

Built in 1895, this bed and breakfast was once a hospital that served an early 1900s Gold Rush boomtown.

"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.

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

A watering hole where the options for seating include a bar, patio, or subterranean cave.

Home of what was the largest hydraulic mine in the world, producing gold and the first diamonds in the U.S.

The long, arduous journey of the stones of the Abbey of New Clairvaux.

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

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

The beauty and the beast of hydraulic mining is on full display at this California Historic State Park.

California's oldest existing theater building hosted an impressive cast of celebrities, including hosting Mark Twain's first lecture.

This fully intact Neoclassical-Greek Revival style firehouse operated until 1938.