One of the first historical sites of an alternative universe was installed in the town of Paris, Illinois—which is now home to an annual spelling bee of Kcymaerxthaereal words.

Buy a token from the liquor store and you can make this beast spew flames on command.

Quirky water tower advertises the long-gone Brooks Tomato Products Co.

The multinational Burger King chain is banned from operating within 20 miles of a family restaurant filed under the same name.

Even with only two residents and one building, this tiny Illinois town is famous for its burgers.

The legacy of an unsolved, gruesome murder rests beneath the spans of this historic bridge.

The world's largest collection of the world's largest objects is in one small Illinois town.

This grave in a ghost town cemetery marks the death of a witch on a day that never happened.

Once one of the world's great cities, Cahokia was a place of religious worship, trade and mass human sacrifice before being mysteriously abandoned.

A once-booming Mississippi River town with a history of racial violence is now eerie and mostly abandoned.

This spot in St. Louis, marked with a simple sign, has seen more pro baseball than just about anywhere else in the world.

This titanic oil company sign is a reminder of the Americana boom of the 1970s and also its commoditization.

One of few surviving standpipe water towers in the U.S.

University City's quirkiest resident lives in a park named after its first.

This wooded grove of beautiful hand-built stone grottos is a hidden gem within a shuttered Franciscan monastery.

A chessmaster's dream destination.

The Old Courthouse takes visitors on a captivating trip through St. Louis' timeline.

An urban forest overtakes what was the greatest failure of utopic urban housing.

Giant granite rocks standing end-to-end like a train of circus elephants.

In the St. Francois Mountains in the Ozarks at 1,772 feet above sea level, Taum Sauk Mountain is the highest (and possibly oldest) peak in Missouri.

The show pony of cave systems, Fantastic Caverns manages to live up to its name.

A historic house in St. Louis was plagued by a series of suicides committed by family members involved in a successful brewery.

Erosion and time have created a naturally-formed water park.

European castle ruins in an American state park are actually the product of death and grief.