Places Jess the Mess Wants to Go

Odd outsider art installations surround a Gold Rush-era ghost town.

The abandoned remnants of a little sanctuary for world peace that fell into disrepair.

If astronomy had a ghost, it would look like this observatory.

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

See just what life was like in a 19th-century prospecting town.

A religious-themed park filled with folk art to bring biblical stories to life that fell into disrepair and now being restored.

The abandoned zoo enclosures offer a perfect place to experience the other side of the bars.

A hillbilly theme park that proved so unpopular the land wouldn't even sell on eBay after it closed.

The remains of an idyllic small town built for the film 'Big Fish' still stand around a rundown main street.

Hiding behind a grocery store is a spectacular cavern carved as part of an old limestone quarry.

This road in the Great Smoky Mountains was supposed to assuage a displaced community, but ended up a $52 million dead end.

This stone memorial pays tribute to a massive shipwreck which was sadly overshadowed by the death of John Wilkes Booth.

The site of the one of the most deadly train wrecks in American history.

In the middle of a remote desert town is a surprisingly opulent hotel.

This rare basilica nestled right in downtown Asheville is an architectural marvel, inside and out.

This bridge is haunted by the ghost of a distraught mother.

The spaceship-like theater, which is still in use, was one of the most popular exhibits at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

The abandoned train depot now doubles as a well-placed rest stop for those who take the road less traveled.

Standing in a state of "arrested decay," this ghost town allows for a detailed peek into Gold Rush life in an unusually harsh climate.

A hand-built folk art installation covered with messages of God's love.

The house where the famed outlaw was shot by a dirty coward is now a museum to the criminal's legacy.

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

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

One of the largest-ever mental hospitals now sits abandoned, surrounded by 25,000 unmarked graves.