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.
Cambridge, MD
The current post windmill is a reconstruction of a 19th-century mill destroyed by a blizzard, surrounded by a collection of relocated and restored historic buildings. The grounds are generally accessible from dawn to dusk, while buildings and milling demonstrations have more limited schedules.
Brookfield, MA
A marker identifies the well where Joshua Spooner's body was dumped after his wife Bathsheba arranged his murder in 1778. The resulting trial ended with Bathsheba and three accomplices being executed and became one of colonial Massachusetts' most notorious criminal cases.
Long Branch, NJ
The modest house at 7½ West End Court is closely associated with Bruce Springsteen's mid-1970s period and the creation of Born to Run. It remains a private residence rather than a museum, so OddWay travelers should only view it from the public street without disturbing occupants.
Mesa Verde National Park, CO
Spruce Tree House has been closed to direct entry since 2015 because of rockfall danger, but NPS maintains public overlooks behind the Mesa Verde Museum. The overlook gives a lawful view of one of the park's largest and best-preserved cliff dwellings without routing visitors into the closed site.
Manitowoc, WI
A brass ring embedded in North 8th Street marks where a fragment associated with the Soviet Sputnik IV spacecraft crashed back to Earth in 1962. Manitowoc later embraced the bizarre Cold War incident with the annual Sputnikfest celebration.
Mesa Verde National Park, CO
The park's tallest standing cliff structure rises four stories inside a large alcove and can be seen from the Mesa Top Loop. Interior access is only through designated ranger programs when offered; otherwise the public experience is from established overlooks.
Mauckport, IN
Squire Boone, younger brother of Daniel Boone, settled in this area and developed a gristmill near the cave system in the early nineteenth century. His remains are associated with the cavern property, where guided tours descend through underground rooms, streams and formations around a site carrying both natural and frontier history.
Council Bluffs, IA
This rare nineteenth-century rotary jail once moved pie-slice-shaped cells around a central mechanism like a human-sized carousel. The preserved mechanism and confined architecture make it one of Iowa's strangest historic buildings.
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, FL
1898 steamship wrecked on a reef in 1900 and now a shallow protected dive site.
San Francisco, CA
One of the last surviving operational Liberty ships from World War II is preserved as a floating museum with its massive engine spaces intact.
Asbury Park, NJ
A memorial near the Asbury Park waterfront remembers the victims of the SS Morro Castle disaster, a 1934 passenger-ship fire that killed more than 130 people offshore. The burned ship eventually grounded near the city and became a grim temporary tourist spectacle.
Fairbanks, AK
This enormous wooden sternwheeler once carried passengers and freight on Alaska's river system and now rests permanently at Pioneer Park. It is one of the last surviving large wooden boats of its kind and reads almost like a landlocked shipwreck.
Panama City, FL
Passenger-and-freight steamer lost in a 1937 gale, now a protected deep-water archaeological preserve.
St. Albans, VT
A historical marker recalls the 1864 St. Albans Raid, when Confederate operatives crossed from Canada and robbed local banks before fleeing north. The attack is remembered as the northernmost major land action associated with the American Civil War.
St. Augustine, FL
Compact military cemetery holding Seminole War dead and the distinctive Dade monuments.
Shubert, NE
St. Deroin was once a Missouri River community but declined after transportation patterns changed and repeated flooding damaged the town. Reconstructed and preserved features within Indian Cave State Park allow visitors to explore the remains of a real vanished settlement without entering abandoned private property.
Washington, DC
The landmark psychiatric-hospital campus carries layers of medical, Civil War, and institutional history; many portions remain controlled or restricted, so view only from authorized public areas.
St. Elmo, CO
One of Colorado's best-preserved mining ghost towns, with a surviving main street, cabins and a seasonal general store. Many buildings are privately owned, so visitors should stay on public ways and enter only structures explicitly open to the public.
Saint Helena Island, SC
Tabby walls are all that remain of a chapel built in the 1700s for plantation families who lived too far from Beaufort’s main parish church. Fire destroyed the chapel after the Civil War, leaving a stark shell and adjoining cemetery beneath Lowcountry trees.
St. Ignatius, MT
A late-19th-century Catholic mission church on the Flathead Reservation, noted for dozens of large interior murals. It remains an active place of worship, so visit respectfully.
Milwaukee, WI
A medieval European chapel dismantled and moved to the United States now stands in the middle of Marquette University's campus. Its stones were reassembled in Milwaukee, creating a genuine piece of medieval architecture in an unexpectedly modern setting.
New Orleans, LA
New Orleans' oldest surviving municipal cemetery is a dense landscape of above-ground tombs tied to some of the city's best-known historical and supernatural stories. Public entry is controlled through authorized tours, so do not expect unrestricted walk-in access.
Sitka, AK
The Orthodox cathedral in the center of Sitka is a landmark of the Russian-American era and houses historic icons and church objects. The current building is a reconstruction after the original burned in 1966, so visitors should treat it as an active place of worship rather than a museum-only attraction.
Kenai, AK
The 1906 chapel honors early Orthodox missionaries and stands near the site of Kenai's first church and Russian trading post. Local history also credits the priests it commemorates with helping bring smallpox vaccination to Dena'ina communities.
