In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

This working class sculpture pounds his hammer all the livelong day.

A wall of chewing gum moonlights as collective art.

A vast city of the dead, where the deceased outnumber the living by more than a million.

A 1920s speakeasy that had rum runners racing up and down the shores of California.

A humble garage, world-famous for being the epicenter of a technology revolution.

Eastern zen meets Western grit in these four little trees growing out of a rock on Lake Tahoe’s Nevada shore.

Home of what was the largest hydraulic mine in the world, producing gold and the first diamonds in the U.S.

One woman's Viking Castle on Lake Tahoe.

Under the right circumstances, this waterfall in Yosemite briefly turns a luminescent fiery orange.

Offering commanding views of the California coastline, this restaurant was a hub for the artists and bohemians of Big Sur.

This museum looks at the history of one of America's most famous prisons and most beloved albums.

Life in this isolated, hilltop lighthouse was lonely, but it sure was lovely.

The first safe in this California town had to hold all the gold.

A tree grown from astronaut seeds which were exposed to cosmic rays.

I Street Bridge is the heaviest swinging center bridge in the United States.

This concrete ship has had four careers - World War I tanker, floating amusement park, fishing pier, and artificial reef.

Nuclear waste dump site now an environmental sanctuary.

'Cause the fence start shaking, the earth was quaking.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

This partially buried wreck is one of the most complete of its kind but is only revealed when the sea allows.

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

This mountaintop beacon is only lit three times a year but shines like some kind of all-seeing eye.

The century-old bell and clock tower at UC Berkeley is the third-tallest in the world, and has fossils.