Weird history29.9478° N, 81.3248° W
St. Augustine, FL
Site of the first legally sanctioned free African settlement in what became the United States.
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- Open to visitors
Weird history
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Weird history2,650
Suggest a stopReal events too strange to have made the textbook.
- Weird history39.6038° N, 75.5523° W
Pennsville Township, NJ
Massive concrete gun batteries remain along the Delaware River from a late nineteenth-century coastal-defense system built to protect approaches to Philadelphia. Visitors can walk among the fortifications and see the disappearing-gun positions from public park grounds.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history46.5195° N, 114.0970° W
Stevensville, MT
Remains of an early trading post and settlement site in the Bitterroot Valley, preserving adobe and masonry traces from one of western Montana’s earliest non-Indigenous settlements.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history34.4443° N, 85.7185° W
Fort Payne, AL
The sandstone depot built for the Alabama Great Southern Railroad now houses local artifacts and railroad history. Its heavy stone architecture and preserved rail setting make it one of Fort Payne’s most distinctive historic structures.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history34.4459° N, 85.7198° W
Fort Payne, AL
Fort Payne once promoted itself as the Sock Capital of the World, and this small museum preserves machinery, products and stories from the city’s hosiery industry. Tours operate on a limited schedule, so visitors should check current hours before routing there.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history32.6106° N, 99.6786° W
Abilene, TX
Chimneys and stone foundations are all that remain of an 1850s frontier military post on the open prairie north of Abilene.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history44.5322° N, 106.8260° W
Banner, WY
A reconstructed stockade footprint and visitor center interpret the short-lived 1860s fort at the center of Red Cloud's War.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history30.3266° N, 87.2916° W
Pensacola Beach, FL
Huge brick Gulf fortress where Apache leader Geronimo was imprisoned.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history35.6403° N, 89.8365° W
Henning, TN
Fort Pillow preserves earthworks from the Civil War site where Confederate forces under Nathan Bedford Forrest captured the fort in 1864 and killed large numbers of Black Union troops after overrunning the position. The park interprets the battlefield and massacre through trails, exhibits and preserved terrain.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history32.0348° N, 80.9436° W
Savannah, GA
A massive brick coastal fort on Cockspur Island became a landmark in military technology when rifled Union artillery breached its walls during the Civil War. Visitors can walk through casemates, tunnels and damaged masonry while seeing exactly why older brick fortifications suddenly became obsolete.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history35.9369° N, 75.7090° W
Manteo, NC
Roanoke Island preserves the landscape associated with England’s first attempted permanent colony in North America. When a supply expedition returned in 1590, the settlers had vanished, leaving “CROATOAN” carved into a post. Their ultimate fate remains one of America’s best-known historical mysteries.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history43.0503° N, 98.5604° W
Pickstown, SD
Stone and brick remains mark the Missouri River military post established in 1856 and later abandoned. The ruined chapel and foundations survive beside the modern Fort Randall Dam, placing frontier military history against enormous twentieth-century infrastructure.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history46.5208° N, 97.9256° W
Fort Ransom, ND
Little remains above ground of the 1867 military post, but cellar depressions, a dry moat, embankments and a flagpole still outline the fort. The ghostly absence of buildings makes the site read more like an archaeological footprint than a restored frontier attraction.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history38.9525° N, 77.0791° W
Washington, DC
D.C.'s highest natural point sits in Fort Reno Park, near the site of Civil War defenses and later Cold War communications infrastructure.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history46.5143° N, 100.5840° W
Fort Rice, ND
Markers, depressions and surviving archaeological traces identify a Missouri River military post established in 1864. The site connects U.S. military expansion, steamboat travel and conflict with Indigenous nations in a landscape where most original structures are gone.
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- Weird history40.5827° N, 78.2738° W
Tyrone Township, PA
Fort Roberdeau reconstructs a Revolutionary War-era lead-mining fort built in 1778 to protect local mining operations. The palisade, cabins and grounds can be explored during its seasonal tour season, while the exterior grounds remain visible outside normal interior-tour hours.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history42.6672° N, 103.4655° W
Crawford, NE
Fort Robinson began as a military post and became connected with major events in Plains history, including the final days of Crazy Horse and the 1879 Northern Cheyenne outbreak. The immense preserved post now contains historic buildings, museums and public grounds rather than functioning as an abandoned military site.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history43.3553° N, 121.0586° W
Fort Rock, OR
Original homestead-era buildings relocated from the surrounding basin form a preserved frontier village of cabins, a church, school and other structures.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history46.9027° N, 102.0554° W
Hebron, ND
Local settlers built this improvised defensive position during an 1892 scare, and the nickname 'Fort Sauerkraut' outlived the crisis. The surviving memorial preserves a peculiar episode of frontier fear rather than a conventional military fort.
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- Open to visitors
- Weird history53.9180° N, 166.5119° W
Unalaska, AK
World War II gun positions and fortifications survive high above Dutch Harbor at one of the most dramatic military sites in the Aleutians. The land has access requirements and weather exposure, so visitors must follow local permits and never treat bunkers as unrestricted urbex territory.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history32.5055° N, 106.9184° W
Radium Springs, NM
Adobe ruins preserve a frontier fort where Buffalo Soldiers and other U.S. Army units served in the nineteenth century. The exposed walls and desert setting make the former post feel more skeletal than reconstructed military sites.
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- Weird history47.6765° N, 116.7946° W
Coeur d'Alene, ID
One of the surviving buildings of Fort Sherman, the U.S. Army post established on the shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene in the late 1800s. Interior availability varies, so treat it primarily as a historic exterior stop unless open.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history47.6773° N, 116.7976° W
Coeur d'Alene, ID
A surviving powder magazine from Fort Sherman, preserving a compact piece of the former army post. View only from permitted public access and follow Museum of North Idaho guidance for the historic properties.
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- Seasonal or ticketed
- Weird history45.6594° N, 97.5283° W
Lake City, SD
More than a dozen surviving nineteenth-century military buildings stand at a remote former frontier post on the Coteau des Prairies. Barracks, officers' quarters and support structures create one of the state's most complete preserved military complexes.
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