The California capital city once stood 10 feet lower than it does today.

An old-timey medicine shop that once served Chinese laborers during the Gold Rush is still open for business to this day.

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

The Empire Mine is "one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest and richest gold mines in California."

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

This 19th-century church is now a popular roller rink.

The giant pair of sexy legs sticking out the window of this costume store have become its main draw.

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

The restored and active Victorian-era final resting place of San Francisco.

A collection of memorabilia from the Beat era in the back of a San Francisco bookstore.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

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

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors.

This shop and studio is dedicated to the art of the book, from letterpress to bookbinding.

The oldest burial ground in the city, final resting place of city founders, Ohlone natives and murderers alike.

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

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

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

The tea room that pushed the boundaries of adorable straight into...we can't find the words.

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.

After starting as a whimsical tourist attraction that eventually found its way to ruin, these renovated canals offer a lush and exotic locale on the Pacific Coast.

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

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