This estate on the banks of the James River was home to a Founding Father, two presidents, a famous bugle melody, and what some say was the actual first Thanksgiving.

A small Richmond island dotted with the remnants of hundreds of years of history.

An eclectic trailer park retreat in the middle of the California desert.

The world's largest mountain carving could fit all of Mount Rushmore inside it many times over.

The oldest continuously operating church in California.

Early prototype for Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim.

Nestled in the heart of San Francisco’s bustling Financial District stands a unique homage to the Mayan and Beaux Arts.

One of the few working locomotive roundhouses in the United States.

A painted-over wall in Detroit originally built to segregate a black community from an adjacent white development.

These enduring murals depicting a distinctly Marxist tribute to capitalism could not even be defeated by McCarthyism.

One of the earliest graveyards in the region.

The schoolhouse where Jesse Merwin, the inspiration for the "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" character, once taught.

The fictional star of "Breaking Bad" is memorialized with a real-life gravestone in his hometown.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

Trails through lava-carved tube-caves display sparkling bacteria and a rich history.

The longest living non-clonal organisms on Earth.

Standing in a state of "arrested decay," this ghost town allows for a detailed peek into Gold Rush life in an unusually harsh climate.

Along the Outback Scenic Byway, adjacent to hot springs, this human-made geothermal feature takes unexplained breaks.

An internationally-recognized dark sky sanctuary lies in northern Nevada, near the Oregon line.

How a bat poo mine became a major Native American archaeological site—and connections to legendary red-haired giants.

An obscure waterfall that looks like something out of a fantasy novel.

A fine, large-aperture telescope available for public use.

A 1940s nuclear reactor built to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project.

Nuclear reactor created the plutonium used on Nagasaki.