This high desert botanical garden is a unique display of New Mexico’s ecology and culture.

A Roman-style column in Oregon hides a spiral staircase inside.

Home of Jake the Alligator Man, the mummified remains of a cigar smoking, cross-dressing celebrity of the Northwestern coast.

This super-sized skillet is a replica of a usable giant pan where a woman once skated on bacon.

The remnants of the base where US Army troops learned how to fight in extreme conditions.

Thousands of unmarked, sunken graves in a pauper's cemetery.

Gleaming self-built castle towers made from beer cans and inspired by "Vitamin Mary Jane."

The longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner was born in this humble cabin.

148 feet long and in the middle of a verdant forest.

This futuristic airport terminal was abandoned for decades before reopening as a hotel—with a vintage plane of its own parked out back.

This single room has survived the centuries with almost no deterioration.

Ruins battered by centuries of war and disaster offer a wondrous glimpse of medieval Ireland.

The gorgeous library at Trinity College is home to remarkable treasures of Irish identity.

This open-pit mine is now an abandoned symbol of Bisbee's copper-mining heritage.

The Old Mill shown in the opening credits of “Gone With the Wind” is actually fairly new, and was never a mill at all.

Beauty and history abound in this remote West Texas canyon.

Once called the Jersey Lilly, this former saloon was the domain of infamous Judge Roy Bean.

Ghost town with a beer-drinking goat for mayor.

Circus cemetery for all the “showmen under God’s big top.”

This modest structure is where noted musician and the Band drummer Levon Helm grew up.

One of the most acclaimed eateries in Arkansas is a two-table diner on the ground floor of a family home.

This advertisement for talcum powder was painted on the rock face and has since defied removal.

An unusual geological feature towers over the remains of a dark episode in United States history.

This building is a recreation of the gatehouse that separated Los Alamos from the outside world during the era of the Manhattan Project.