Field index

Historic Oddities

Browse documented historic oddities from across America.

Search the archive

Explore Oddities

Find unusual destinations by keyword, location, or category.

Clear all filters

109 documented oddities Highest curiosity first

View Map

Historic Oddities

Coney Island Hot Dog Stand

Bailey, Colorado

Shaped like a giant hot dog complete with bun and toppings, the Coney Island Hot Dog Stand is one of Colorado's most beloved roadside attractions. This…

Historic Oddities

Skull and Bones Tomb

New Haven, Connecticut

A nearly windowless brownstone known as the Tomb houses Yale's oldest and most mythologized secret society.

Haunted Locations

Historic Squirrel Cage Jail

Council Bluffs, Iowa

Prison cells once rotated inside this Victorian jail like a human-sized carousel controlled by a hand crank.

Historic Oddities

Bishop Castle

Rye, Colorado

Built stone by stone by a single man in the mountains of southern Colorado, Bishop Castle is one of the largest self-built structures in the United…

Historic Oddities

Oscar-Zero

Cooperstown, North Dakota

An elevator descends roughly sixty feet beneath the prairie to an intact Minuteman missile launch control center sealed behind a massive blast door.

Historic Oddities

Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine

Beckley, West Virginia

Visitors board a low mining vehicle and travel about 1,500 feet underground through a real former coal mine guided by veteran miners.

Historic Oddities

Newport Tower

Newport, Rhode Island

An old circular stone tower stands on eight arches in a Newport park, surrounded by centuries of arguments about exactly when it was built and what…

Curious Landmarks

Grand Central Whispering Gallery

New York

Whisper into one tiled corner and a friend can hear you across the passage.

Historic Oddities

Zwaanendael Merman

Lewes, Delaware

A shriveled monkey-fish sideshow creature waits inside a Dutch-style Delaware museum.

Historic Oddities

George Washington’s Bathtub

Berkeley Springs, West Virginia

A tiny stone-lined pool in a public park commemorates the young George Washington's visits to the warm mineral springs, although the present "bathtub" is a later…

Abandoned Places

Monson Center

Hollis, New Hampshire

Walk the cellar holes and vanished streets of an eighteenth-century ghost town.

Vulcan cast-iron statue overlooking Birmingham, Alabama

Giant Objects

Vulcan Statue

Birmingham, Alabama

The world’s largest cast-iron statue watches over Birmingham from a pedestal atop Red Mountain.