This simple badlands butte is the highest point in North Dakota and may be the only high point to charge admission.

This prehistoric sinkhole lured exclusively male mammoths to their death, much to the delight of science.

The oldest extant wooden jail in South Dakota and possibly the United States. 

The world's largest mountain carving could fit all of Mount Rushmore inside it many times over.

Before its closure in 2002, this South Dakota mine was the largest and deepest gold mine in Western Hemisphere.

A cemetery housing wild west legends in South Dakota.

Seth Bullock, the sheriff of Deadwood, built this town immediately after Teddy Roosevelt’s death in 1919.

This vintage train once gave new meaning to “swimming upstream.”

A six-ton, 12-foot-tall concrete prairie dog is touted as the largest in the world.

The granddaddy of all tourist traps, built on ice water, jackalopes, and a giant dinosaur.

The Bucyrus-Erie model 1850B electric shovel, or "Big Brutus," the largest existing electric shovel in the world.

This former mining town was named the most toxic town in America.

One believer transformed a local curiosity into proof of Vikings on the Great Plains.

This lovely burial mound is actually a replica that was installed after archeologists excavated the original.

Where school buses go to die and be reborn as whimsical works of art.

A remarkably opulent mansion with a tragic history.

This mansion was made famous by its colorful cast of owners and location along the Sante Fe Trail.

This otherworldly church spire reaches up toward the heavens.

European castle ruins in an American state park are actually the product of death and grief.

More than 7,000 gallons of water pour over these cascading red quartzite waterfalls every second.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Minnehaha County courthouse played host to sensational public divorce trials.

The ravine where Jesse James supposedly performed an impossible jump to evade capture.

The cliff and rock formations are made out of Sioux Quartzite.

A pop-culture attraction outside of Dyersville, Iowa, hits a home run.