Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Real events too strange to have made the textbook.
Jackson, NC
Several graves in this eastern North Carolina cemetery are enclosed by small house-like wooden structures rather than ordinary markers alone. These “grave houses” preserve a burial tradition once found more widely in parts of the American South but now rarely seen.
Beech Mountain, NC
This Wizard of Oz theme park opened in 1970 and later closed as a regular attraction, leaving behind a surreal mountaintop Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy’s farmhouse, and themed structures. It is not abandoned property open for exploration: the site operates through scheduled events and ticketed dates, and entering outside authorized events is trespassing. Visitor information: https://landofoznc.com/faq/
Madison, NC
This old-fashioned general store includes a small upstairs museum with local artifacts and material connected to one of the area’s most notorious crimes, the 1929 Lawson family murders. The building has also become associated with ghost stories and paranormal investigations.
Tryon, NC
A modest three-room wooden house is where Eunice Kathleen Waymon, later known as Nina Simone, spent part of her childhood and began playing piano at an exceptionally young age. The historically significant home has been preserved through an artist-led effort rather than turned into a conventional museum.
Sanford, NC
Most of the Carbonton Dam was removed to restore the Deep River, but a tall abandoned concrete powerhouse was left behind beside a small public recreation area. The graffiti-covered shell now stands as an eerie industrial remnant beside the restored river.
New Bern, NC
Caleb Bradham created the drink that became Pepsi-Cola at his New Bern pharmacy before losing control of the company after a disastrous sugar-market gamble. His surprisingly modest grave lies in Cedar Grove Cemetery only a short distance from Pepsi’s birthplace.
Ocracoke, NC
Once an important Outer Banks shipping settlement, Portsmouth declined after hurricanes, shifting inlets, war, and isolation undermined the village. Its final residents left in 1971, leaving a collection of preserved houses, church, post office, and other structures on a remote island reached by boat. NPS: https://www.nps.gov/calo/learn/historyculture/portsmouth.htm
Beaufort, NC
Artifacts recovered from the wreck believed to be Blackbeard’s flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge are displayed at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. Cannons, medical equipment, navigational objects, and everyday shipboard finds give the famous pirate a physical archaeological footprint. Artifact project: https://www.qaronline.org/
Midland, NC
The first authenticated gold discovery in the United States occurred here after a 12-year-old found a large yellow rock that the family initially used as a doorstop. Visitors can tour portions of the underground mine and, seasonally, try gold panning.
Oak Island, NC
The skeletal remains of the 138-foot cargo ship Mary E. Morris sit in a landscaped median in an Oak Island neighborhood. The vessel sank in 1893, spent roughly a century underwater, and was eventually moved onto land, creating the surreal sight of a shipwreck sitting in the middle of a street.
Manson, NC
Civil-rights leader Floyd McKissick envisioned Soul City as a new, racially integrated community with jobs, housing, industry, and political power built from the ground up. Federal support ended before the ambitious plan was realized, leaving a scattered landscape of surviving buildings and infrastructure from one of America’s most unusual planned-community experiments.
Sylva, NC
Rusting train and bus wreckage from the practical-effects crash sequence in the 1993 film The Fugitive still sits beside the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. The wreckage is on railroad property and trespassing is prohibited; it can be viewed from legitimate public areas or from the railroad’s Tuckasegee River excursion.
Bryson City, NC
The remains of Proctor sit in one of the more isolated sections of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Once a logging and settlement community, the town declined after the creation of the park and the construction of Fontana Dam; scattered foundations and remnants now require a substantial backcountry journey to reach.
Bryson City, NC
A mountain road built after the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park ends abruptly at a long tunnel through the mountain. Construction was abandoned before the promised route was completed, leaving a paved road and dark pedestrian-access tunnel that literally lead nowhere.
Newton Grove, NC
A solitary grave marker for Adolphus Rob Lee stands isolated in an agricultural field rather than within a conventional cemetery. It is best viewed respectfully from legitimate roadside access without entering planted private land.
Westfield, NC
A short trail in Hanging Rock State Park leads to a cool natural cave about twenty feet deep that is linked with Revolutionary War-era Tory history. The same access also reaches Tory’s Falls; this coordinate intentionally pins the official Tory’s Den parking area rather than an unreliable point in the woods. Access: https://www.ncparks.gov/park-features/hanging-rock-state-park-torys-den-parking-area
Cary, NC
This 1930s AM transmitter building is still in operation, but its newer claim to OddWay fame is television: it inspired the WSQK radio station building seen in the final season of Stranger Things. The building itself is across from the listed roadside viewing point and is not a public attraction to enter.
