This giant temperature attraction created some giant electric bills.

Decommissioned experimental solar facilities that pioneered solar energy technology.

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

One of the ghostly stops along Route 66.

The "Fun Spot of the Desert" is now a haunting ruin, and a reminder that putting a water park in a desert is a bad idea.

An abandoned Jazz Age dream home and con man's hideout in Death Valley.

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

The most magnificent bottle house in a town strangely full of them.

A land of debatable treasure.

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

Marta Becket's hand-painted theater in the desert.

Millions of years of oxidation make a drive down this winding Death Valley road surprisingly colorful.

This crumbling Death Valley mining complex was known for its use of giant, 20-mule team wagons.

The location along the shores of the Great Salt Lake of what was once called, "The Coney Island of the West", now sits barren due to arson and time.

An earthwork sculpture built by Robert Smithson in the Great Salt Lake only reemerges during drought.

FDR hoped to find a cure for polio in this Georgia town's warm springs.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

Ten 25-foot-tall, beehive-shaped kilns, abandoned in Death Valley.

The location of the last stand of Charles Manson's doomsday cult.

One of the most unusual geological features, recognizable from a dozen hit movies.

This old mining town, deep in the California desert, has a year-round population of one.

The liveliest ghost town in the state.

Her final resting place was intended to be modest and private, but the power of her popularity continues to draw visitors.

Every equinox this Maya pyramid puts on a spooky ancient light show.