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.
Macon, GA
A dramatic nineteenth-century cemetery spreads across steep slopes above the Ocmulgee River, with winding roads, old mausoleums and graves tucked among trees. Its landscape and music history make it one of Georgia's most atmospheric public cemeteries.
Newport, RI
Built in 1870 on tiny Rose Island beneath the Newport Pell Bridge, this restored lighthouse can be reached by boat for tours and even overnight stays. The island also contains remnants of historic Fort Hamilton and protected wildlife habitat. Public access is seasonal and depends on transportation, weather and nesting restrictions.
Charlestown, IN
Rose Island was once a popular amusement park with rides, a swimming pool, zoo attractions and river access before the catastrophic Ohio River flood of 1937 left it beyond repair. Charlestown State Park now maintains a trail to the former park area, where visitors can see surviving foundations, the old pool and other ruins in the woods.
Busby, MT
The large landscape of the June 1876 Battle of the Rosebud, where Lakota and Cheyenne forces fought General George Crook’s troops before the Little Bighorn campaign. The final approach includes unpaved road.
Roslyn, WA
The camel mural on the Roslyn Cafe building appeared in the opening credits of 'Northern Exposure,' where Roslyn stood in for fictional Cicely, Alaska. The mural remains visible even as the cafe's operating status and hours change.
Roswell, GA
Stone mill ruins and a historic dam survive along Vickery Creek where Roswell's textile industry once operated. The mills were burned during the Civil War, and the remaining masonry is now reached by public trails and bridges inside the Chattahoochee recreation landscape.
Tulsa, OK
This outdoor village gathers a restored oil derrick, locomotive, railcars and other artifacts tied to Tulsa's oil and transportation history. The collection turns an old industrial corridor into a compact open-air Route 66 museum.
Oxford, MS
William Faulkner's longtime home, preserved by the University of Mississippi with his rooms, grounds and writing environment still central to the visit. The estate gives travelers a direct physical setting for one of the South's most influential and famously gothic literary imaginations.
Cavalier, ND
A preserved remote launch site from the Safeguard anti-ballistic-missile system contains underground corridors and the remains of Sprint missile silos. Scheduled tours reveal one of the shortest-lived and strangest chapters of America's Cold War defense network.
Ruby Hill, NV
Foundations and mining remnants west of Eureka mark a once-busy silver-lead camp that rose around the Eureka mining district.
Everett, WA
A large stone pyramid marks the Rucker family plot in Evergreen Cemetery, looking dramatically different from the surrounding headstones. Visit only during cemetery hours and treat the site as a grave, not a climbing structure.
Greenville, SC
A jet displayed in Cleveland Park honors Greenville native Rudolf Anderson Jr., the only American killed by enemy fire during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Anderson was shot down while flying a U-2 reconnaissance mission over Cuba in 1962.
Grafton, NH
This enormous former mica mine cuts open the side of Isinglass Mountain with tunnels, pits and mineral-rich rock faces. After years of closure, Ruggles reopened to the public and again allows visitors to explore and collect a limited amount of minerals under site rules. The 2026 season is scheduled to run through October 11.
Boston, MA
Stone walls and terraces remain from an Olmsted-designed Franklin Park structure that once served visitors and later golfers. Fire reduced the building to a scenic ruin on the same hill where Ralph Waldo Emerson had lived decades earlier.
Yellville, AR
Abandoned mining buildings and foundations remain along the Buffalo National River at Rush, once a zinc-boom community. Trails lead past ruined structures and mine-era remnants in a remote valley.
Keystone, SD
This museum focuses on sculptor Gutzon Borglum and the difficult process of carving Mount Rushmore into Black Hills granite. Exhibits and models emphasize the blasting, drilling and larger-than-life personality behind one of America's strangest monumental construction projects.
Bridgeport, AL
Russell Cave contains one of the Southeast’s most important archaeological records of repeated human occupation stretching back thousands of years. Visitors can follow the boardwalk to the massive shelter entrance, but entering the cave itself is prohibited.
Sitka, AK
One of the few surviving Russian colonial buildings in North America preserves rooms used by Orthodox Bishop Innocent Veniaminov. National Park Service interpretation connects the house to Russian America, religion, education and Alaska Native communities.
Calumet Township, MI
This remote memorial marks the abandoned mine shaft where six-year-old Ruth Ann Miller fell in 1966 during a tragedy that drew a major rescue effort. The incident helped focus attention on dangerous unsealed shafts across Copper Country; the shrine is reached by an unmarked dirt road and should be treated as a memorial rather than a curiosity to disturb.
Irving, TX
The suburban house where Marina Oswald stayed and where Lee Harvey Oswald spent the night before the Kennedy assassination has been restored as a museum.
Rutland, MA
Concrete foundations, tunnels, root cellars and other remnants of an early twentieth-century prison farm are slowly disappearing into the woods. The complex once housed minor offenders and operated a large agricultural program before being abandoned in the 1930s; the ruins are now accessible on public recreation land.
Nashville, TN
The narrow alley behind the Ryman Auditorium has served for generations as a backstage threshold between performers and downtown Nashville. Its loading doors, brick walls and music lore give travelers a less polished view of the city's most famous venue.
Lewes, DE
Often promoted as one of Delaware's oldest surviving houses, the Ryves Holt House has traditionally been dated to 1665. Recent archival work has questioned that exact date, which makes the building an interesting stop not only for its age but for the evolving detective work around its history.
Duluth, MN
A retired Great Lakes ore carrier is permanently moored in Duluth and opened seasonally for tours through crew spaces and cargo areas. The ship translates the scale of iron-ore shipping into tight corridors, machinery and enormous holds visitors can actually enter.
