A classic advertising icon immortalized in regal bronze.

These WWII-era murals were initially booed as a libelous portrayal of the American dream but have survived multiple attempts to have them destroyed.

27-room home built with the fortune of a sugar magnate.

A mysterious painting of the self-declared Emperor of the United States watches over a local hof-brau.

Recovered from the brink of extinction, at home in the Financial District.

San Francisco's oldest operating hotel, with a Victorian atmosphere and a "haunted" fourth floor.

A brooding mansion of clinker brick stands out among the Victorian houses of Pacific Heights.

Half of a house.

A historic hotel that made a cameo in Hitchcock's classic film has no intention of letting guests forget its fame.

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

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

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

A psychedelic labyrinth on the San Francisco bay.

These crudely shaped folk giants may be the the second most photographed statues in the U.S.

At this Minnesota state park you can easily wade across the source of the mighty Mississippi.

Gold Rush-era tombstones line the park's paths.

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

A pair of mutilated bronze octopuses slump at the base of the monument honoring California's admission to the U.S.

A famous alternative culture epicenter and where Joplin serenaded young hippies.

Gold Rush ship-turned-hotel buried underneath San Francisco's financial district.

Alleyway plaque commemorating the death of a fictional character in The Maltese Falcon, not far from the author's home.

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

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.