The oldest hotel in Nevada.

Ruins of the original wooden flume that carried water to Virginia City are still visible high on the Virginia Range.

The Empire Mine is "one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest and richest gold mines in California."

Bodie's 20th-century rival was a paragon of respectability and calm—but the mines eventually ran dry.

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

The pits used to load the nuclear bombs onto the aircraft that dropped them over Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

An abandoned early 20th-century gold mine in a spectacular setting overlooking Bridgeport Valley and the Sierra Nevada.

An abandoned cyanide mill is now a haunting magnet for graffiti and illegal parties.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

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

The most beautiful Taco Bell in the world even has surfboard parking.