ruthk's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Birgu, Malta

The Executioner's House

The medieval home is still engraved with the symbol of the profession, an eye flanked by two axes.
Valletta, Malta

St. John’s Co-Cathedral Skeleton Tombstones

The floor of this spectacular Baroque sanctuary is covered in memento mori.
Ridgedale, Missouri

Bat Bar in Lost Canyon Cave

If there's another drive-through golf-cart bar in a bat-filled cave on top of a mountain, we don't know about it.
Portland, Oregon

Creepy's

Definitely not a clown bar.
Ashmore, Illinois

St. Omer Cemetery Witch Grave

This grave in a ghost town cemetery marks the death of a witch on a day that never happened.
Charleston, South Carolina

Stede Bonnet Hanging Site

Most historians agree that the so-called "Gentleman Pirate" wasn't much of either of those things.
New Orleans, Louisiana

Abandoned Jazzland

A theme park that suffered massive flooding during Katrina was abandoned, and now proves irresistible to trespassing explorers.
New Orleans, Louisiana

Séance Room at Muriel's Jackson Square

The restaurant keeps a hidden séance room on the second floor and reserves a table for the spirit of the former owner each night.
Spiro, Oklahoma

Spiro Mounds

Where hills of dirt conceal the burial ground of one of the most powerful ancient Native American societies.
Heavener, Oklahoma

Heavener Runestone

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

Savannah Powder Magazine

An abandoned munitions storage facility with a rich architectural history.
Vicksburg, Mississippi

U.S.S. Cairo

This iron and wood Civil War city-ship was the first vessel to be sunk by an electrically detonated torpedo.
Kværndrup, Denmark

The Wooden Man

Generations have refused to move this doll from its dusty resting place to preserve a castle from a watery fate.
New Orleans, Louisiana

Jean Lafitte's Old Absinthe House

A 200-year-old bar in the historic French Quarter refuses to give up its place in history, nor its role in securing ours.
Exeter, Rhode Island

Grave of Mercy Brown

The final resting place of New England's last "vampire."
London, England

Tower of London's Ceremony of the Keys

The ritual has been performed uninterrupted for nearly 700 years.
London, England

Two Princes Staircase

Richard III supposedly disposed of his nephews' bodies here in an effort to seal his claim to the throne.
New Orleans, Louisiana

The Luling Mansion

Despite the ever pressing encroachment of urban sprawl this grand New Orleans manse still stands.
Chicago, Illinois

Ulysses S. Grant Boulder

A strange rock in Chicago marks the spot where a tree once stood in honor of the 18th President.
Prague, Czechia

Speculum Alchemiae

The hidden lair of an alchemist rediscovered in a 2002 flood.
Riga, Latvia

Black Cat of Riga

A black cat protests the City Guild in Riga's Old Town.
Richmond, Virginia

Ruins of Belle Isle

A small Richmond island dotted with the remnants of hundreds of years of history.
Phoenix, Arizona

Fry Bread House

Founded by members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, this one-room joint's James Beard–winning fry bread is light as a cloud.
Phoenix, Arizona

Navajo Code Talkers Tribute

The first permanent memorial to a unique secret weapon of World War II.