259 haunted destinations cataloged across California, spanning 67 counties. The collection features outdoor, haunted hotel, and museum — every listing verified with family ratings, accessibility info, and practical visit logistics.
Silverado, CA
Black Star Canyon occupies remote terrain within the Santa Ana Mountains of eastern Orange County. Historical significance derives from archaeological evidence of Tongva-Gabrieliño occupation and the reported 1831 armed conflict between American fur trappers led by William Wolfskill and indigenous residents. The canyon was historically used as a seasonal gathering site for acorn harvesting.
San Bernardino, CA
The California Theatre opened August 15, 1928, as a Fox West Coast vaudeville and movie palace designed by architect John Paxton Perrine in California Churrigueresque style. Home to the Mighty Wurlitzer organ, it screened classics like King Kong and The Wizard of Oz in the 1930s. Most notably, Will Rogers gave his final public performance here on June 28, 1935, just weeks before his fatal plane crash in Alaska.
Eureka, CA
Originally built by C.S. Ricks in the 1860s, the Oberon Building at 516 2nd Street is a contributing structure to the Eureka Old Town Historic District. Through its lifetime it has housed a hardware store, saloon, speakeasy, YMCA, antique store, the Oberon Grill restaurant (closed December 31, 2022), and most recently The Greene Lily restaurant (since April 2023). The upstairs space operated as Madame Ruby's brothel from roughly the 1880s through the 1930s.
Sacramento, CA
The Vernon-Brannan House at 112-114 J Street in Old Sacramento is a three-story brick building constructed in 1853-54 as the Jones Hotel on the site of Sacramento's first post office (which burned in the 1852 fire). It later operated as the Vernon House boarding house and then as Sam Brannan's hotel, and was physically lifted approximately nine feet in 1865 during the city-raising project. California Historical Landmark No. 604.
Riverside, CA
The Mission Inn in Riverside, California traces its origins to a twelve-room cottage built by C.C. Miller. Frank Miller, who inherited the property in 1900 after his father's death, oversaw the construction of the existing structure beginning around 1902, which was completed in a phased expansion ending approximately 1947. The hotel is a National Historic Landmark, featuring Spanish Mission Revival and Romanesque architecture designed by architect Arthur Benton.
Santa Clara, CA
Established in 1888 as the Great Asylum for the Insane, Agnews State Hospital became the site of California's largest single-event loss of life in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when the collapse of the main Kirkbride building killed 117 patients and staff. The institution operated in various forms until 2009; today a small museum and historic cemetery occupy a corner of what is now Oracle Corporation's Santa Clara campus.
Los Angeles, CA
Fourth Street Elementary School was established in 1926 in the East Los Angeles community. The school serves grades 2-5 and is operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District, currently enrolling approximately 287 students with a 17:1 student-teacher ratio.
Los Angeles, CA
Birmingham High School is built on the site of a World War II military hospital that served injured and amputee servicemen. Named after General Birmingham, the facility treated wounded soldiers throughout the war. After WWII, the building was renovated and converted to educational use as a public high school.
Los Angeles, CA
The Chateau Marmont was built in 1929 as a Norman castle-styled apartment building on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. It became a hotel and quickly established its reputation as Hollywood's most discreet celebrity refuge. John Belushi died in Bungalow 3 on March 5, 1982, from a cocaine and heroin overdose administered by Cathy Smith, who later pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Los Angeles, CA
The Cypress Park neighborhood of Los Angeles has been served by a public library branch since 1920. The original branch building — a Georgian Revival structure designed by architect Harry S. Bent — opened in 1927 at the corner of Cypress Avenue and Pepper Street. The current branch at 1150 Cypress Avenue opened in 2003. The 1927 building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 and now operates as the Cypress Park Clubhouse.
Los Angeles, CA
El Compadre Restaurant has operated on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood since 1975, founded by lifelong friends and designed to evoke an old-world hacienda aesthetic. The interior features traditional Mexican decorative elements including clay tiles, wrought iron, and stained glass. The restaurant has maintained a continuous presence on Sunset Boulevard for five decades.
Los Angeles, CA
Elysian Park is Los Angeles's oldest public park, established in 1886 on approximately 600 acres of hillside north of downtown. The Chavez Ravine neighborhoods within the park's broader footprint were displaced beginning in the late 1940s and 1950s for public housing that was never built, and ultimately for Dodger Stadium. Cathedral High School occupies a former cemetery site.
Los Angeles, CA
Hotel Figueroa opened in 1926 in downtown Los Angeles as a YWCA-financed residence and hostelry for women, the largest of its kind operated by women in the United States at the time. After decades as a budget hotel and an early-2000s overhaul, the property was restored in 2018 and now operates as a Hyatt Unbound Collection boutique hotel.
Los Angeles, CA
Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, opened on March 4, 1952, on land owned by Hubert Eaton, founder of the larger Forest Lawn cemetery group. The cemetery contains burials of many Hollywood entertainment figures and features the largest historical glass-tile mural in the United States, depicting twenty-five scenes from early American history.
Los Angeles, CA
Griffith Park covers 4,310 acres in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains and is one of the largest municipal parks in North America. The land was originally part of the Spanish-era Rancho Los Feliz, granted in 1795, and was donated to the City of Los Angeles in 1896 by Griffith J. Griffith.
Los Angeles, CA
Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a 62-acre cemetery at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, California, founded in 1899 as Hollywood Cemetery on a 100-acre tract of former farmland. Paramount Pictures' studios occupy 40 acres of the original cemetery property. The cemetery was renamed Hollywood Memorial Park in 1939 and Hollywood Forever in 1998 after a 1990s bankruptcy and revival. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Los Angeles, CA
The Hollywoodland sign was erected in 1923 as a real estate advertisement for a hillside development. The word 'LAND' was removed in 1949 when the city took ownership. On September 16, 1932, actress Peg Entwistle climbed to the top of the 'H' and jumped, dying from multiple pelvic fractures. She was 24 years old. The Griffith Observatory opened in 1935 on the ridge below, offering direct views of the sign from its observation deck.
Los Angeles, CA
The five-acre property at 2400 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Hollywood Hills West was built in 1915 for Ralph M. Walker, not Harry Houdini. The connection to Houdini is real but indirect: while filming for Lasky Pictures in 1919, Houdini and his wife Bess rented the guest cottage across the street. That cottage burned in the late 1950s. The Walker Estate — which survived — became known as the Houdini Estate through decades of conflation. The main mansion burned in the 1959 Laurel Canyon fire; the surviving gardens, caves, and terraced grounds were later developed into a special events venue.
Los Angeles, CA
Bullocks Wilshire opened September 26, 1929, designed by architect Donald Parkinson as one of the first Art Deco department stores in the United States. Business partners John G. Bullock and P.G. Winnett built the structure after visiting the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts, using the new aesthetic as their architectural model. The five-story building, topped by a 241-foot tower lit at night with violet beacons, attracted celebrity clientele from Hollywood's golden era for more than sixty years. Southwestern Law School purchased the building in 1994 and completed a $29 million restoration over a decade.
Los Angeles, CA
The John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at Cal State LA combines the 1958 Palmer Wing (85,000 sq ft) and the 1969 JFK Memorial North Wing (~250,000 sq ft), the latter dedicated after President Kennedy's assassination, serving the university's 27,000+ students as the primary research library.
Los Angeles, CA
Linda Vista Community Hospital in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles operated from 1905 to 1991, originally as the Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital for railroad workers. The current 1938 Mission Revival building replaced the 1905 Moorish-style structure. The building was added to the National Register in 2006 and renovated as Hollenbeck Terrace senior housing in 2015.
Los Angeles, CA
The Linda Vista Community Hospital opened in 1904 in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, originally as the Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital serving railroad employees. The Mission Revival building operated as a community hospital through the late twentieth century, sat vacant from 1991 to 2011 while serving as a frequent horror-film location, and was converted to senior affordable housing in 2012.
Los Angeles, CA
The Los Angeles Airport Marriott opened in 1972 at 5855 West Century Boulevard, two blocks from LAX. The 18-story, 1,004-room property has operated continuously as a major airport hotel for more than 50 years, hosting business travel and convention audiences.
Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles City Hall was dedicated on April 26, 1928. Designed by architects John Parkinson, Albert C. Martin Sr., and John C. Austin in a hybrid Art Deco style, the 32-floor, 454-foot tower dominated the LA skyline until 1966. Its tower, modeled on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, was mixed from sand drawn from each of California's 58 counties.
Los Angeles, CA
The Strub Theatre occupies the Foley Building at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Jesuit institution founded in 1911. The original theater space was decommissioned in December 2022 for a significant renovation; the redesigned flexible theater reopened in 2025 with a capacity of 170 and the ability to configure in proscenium, thrust, or in-the-round formats.
Los Angeles, CA
Manual Arts High School opened in 1910 as Los Angeles's third high school, built on 10 acres of farmland near Vermont Avenue and 42nd Street. The 1933 Long Beach earthquake prompted a full campus rebuild, and architects John and Donald Parkinson redesigned it in streamline moderne style. It remains the oldest Los Angeles high school still operating on its original site.
Los Angeles, CA
The Hollywood Roosevelt opened on Hollywood Boulevard in 1927, financed by a syndicate that reportedly included Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Louis B. Mayer. The Blossom Ballroom hosted the first Academy Awards ceremony on May 16, 1929. The property has operated continuously as a hotel for nearly a century and is among the most recognized historic hotels in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, CA
Venice Beach is a coastal neighborhood of Los Angeles developed in 1905 by tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney as a planned canal community modeled on Venice, Italy. The Venice Boardwalk and adjacent buildings served as a frequent shooting location for silent comedies in the 1910s, including Charlie Chaplin's 1915 Keystone short By the Sea, which was filmed along the Venice Beach piers and boardwalk.
Los Angeles, CA
Built 1935 by movie-palace architect S. Charles Lee on Hollywood Boulevard as an 897-seat Streamline Moderne theater. Closed as a first-run cinema in 1995 under Mann Theatres. Reopened intermittently as a music venue and event space; currently houses a church congregation.
San Francisco, CA
Alcatraz Island served as a U.S. Army military fortification and prison from 1850 through 1933, then as a federal penitentiary housing the country's most dangerous and incorrigible inmates from 1934 until its closure in 1963. During its 29 years as a federal prison, 1,576 men served time on the island, including Al Capone and Robert Stroud, the so-called Birdman of Alcatraz.
San Francisco, CA
The Curran Theatre opened in 1922 on Geary Street in San Francisco's Theater District. The 1,667-seat venue has served as a touring Broadway house for over a century. In November 1933, treasurer Hewlett G. Tarr was shot and killed during a box-office robbery before a performance of Show Boat.
San Francisco, CA
The McElroy Octagon House is an 1861 residence built by wood-miller William C. McElroy and his wife Harriet Shober in San Francisco's Cow Hollow neighborhood. The eight-sided form follows the popular plan of phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler. The house has served since 1953 as a free museum operated by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in California.
San Francisco, CA
The Neptune Society Columbarium at 1 Loraine Court in San Francisco was designed by architect Bernard J.S. Cahill and built in 1898 as part of the Odd Fellows Cemetery complex. When San Francisco banned new burials within city limits in 1901, the surrounding cemetery was exhumed and relocated to Colma. The Columbarium was abandoned from 1934 to 1979, during which it was looted and vandalized. It is now owned and operated by Dignity Memorial and is the only non-denominational interment facility still accepting new burials within San Francisco's city limits.
San Francisco, CA
The Queen Anne Hotel is a historic 1890 Victorian mansion in San Francisco, built in the Queen Anne architectural style. It originally served as Miss Mary Lake's School for Girls, a finishing school for young women, before later conversion to a boutique hotel.
San Francisco, CA
The San Remo Hotel at 2237 Mason Street in San Francisco was built in 1906 by A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy (later Bank of America), to house workers rebuilding the city after the Great Earthquake and Fire. Originally the New California Hotel, it was renamed the San Remo in 1922. It remains a small boutique hotel in the city's North Beach neighborhood.
San Francisco, CA
The Westerfeld House is an 1889 Stick-style Victorian at 1198 Fulton Street, built by German-born confectioner William Westerfeld. The 28-room mansion served as the Russian consulate in the 1920s, was occupied by underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger and Bobby Beausoleil in 1966-67, and is a designated San Francisco Landmark and National Register property.
San Francisco, CA
450 Sutter Street is a 26-floor, 344-foot Art Deco office tower in downtown San Francisco, designed by Timothy L. Pflueger and completed on October 15, 1929 — nine days before the Black Thursday stock market crash. The building is distinguished by its 'Neo-Mayan' terracotta-clad exterior and elaborate Mayan-motif lobby. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today the building primarily houses medical and dental offices.
San Francisco, CA
Built 1881-1882 for Dominga de Goni Atherton after the death of her husband Faxon Atherton, the Queen Anne/Stick-Eastlake mansion stands at 1990 California Street and was San Francisco Landmark designation #70. Architect Charles J. Rousseau subdivided it into 13 apartments in 1923, and his widow Carrie Rousseau famously lived there with fifty cats until her death in 1974.
San Francisco, CA
Designed by J. C. Mathews & Son and completed in 1887 for Comstock-era Utah mining tycoon Robert Craig Chambers (1832-1901), the Queen Anne Victorian became San Francisco Landmark #119 in 1980. Bob Pritikin operated it as the Mansion Hotel B&B from 1977 until its sale in 2000, after which the property was converted into two private townhouses.
San Francisco, CA
Built circa 1855 for Boston native and Broderick ally Leonidas Haskell, this two-story frame house at Black Point (today's Fort Mason) was the residence to which mortally wounded U.S. Senator David Broderick was carried after his September 13, 1859 duel with California Supreme Court Justice David S. Terry. Broderick died there three days later. The Union Army seized the property in 1863 and it has been Quarters 3 in the federal Fort Mason complex ever since.
San Francisco, CA
Architect Malcolm Cressy designed the four-story Edwardian as a private residence for the Schmitt family, completed 1902 and converted to hotel use 1904. The building survived the 1906 earthquake fire — which stopped two blocks east at Van Ness Avenue — and has operated continuously since. A 2002 proclamation by Senator Dianne Feinstein recognized it as the longest continuously-operating hotel in San Francisco.
San Francisco, CA
Misión San Francisco de Asís was founded on October 9, 1776 by Spanish Franciscan friars under the direction of Father Junípero Serra. The surviving adobe mission church is the oldest building in San Francisco, and the only intact original mission chapel of California's 21 missions. The adjoining basilica was built in 1918. The mission cemetery contains the remains of approximately 5,000 Ohlone, Miwok, and other First Californian people who built the mission and died — overwhelmingly of European diseases — during the mission period.
San Francisco, CA
The James C. Flood Mansion at 1000 California Street was built in 1886 for Comstock Lode silver baron James C. Flood, who had made his fortune in the Big Bonanza strike of the Comstock mines. Designed by architect Augustus Laver of Connecticut brownstone, it was the first brownstone west of the Mississippi River. The only Nob Hill mansion whose structure survived the 1906 earthquake and fire (its interior was gutted but the brownstone walls stood), it was acquired by the Pacific-Union Club, remodeled by Willis Polk, and has been the Club's home since 1912.
San Francisco, CA
The original Palace opened in 1875 as one of the largest luxury hotels in the world. It survived the 1906 earthquake itself but was destroyed in the subsequent fire; the present building reopened on the same site on December 19, 1909. Operated today by Marriott as a Luxury Collection property, the Palace is best known historically as the place where President Warren G. Harding died in office on August 2, 1923.
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco City Hall is a Beaux-Arts municipal building designed by Arthur Brown Jr. and Bakewell & Brown, completed in 1915 to replace the earlier 1899 City Hall that was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire. Its dome is 42 feet taller than the dome of the United States Capitol. The building was the site of the November 27, 1978 assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by former Supervisor Dan White.
San Francisco, CA
Adolph Sutro — Comstock-mining magnate and one-term mayor of San Francisco — opened the Sutro Baths on March 14, 1896 as the world's largest indoor swimming-pool establishment, with seven pools and capacity for approximately 10,000 bathers. The building burned to its concrete foundation in June 1966 and was never rebuilt. The adjoining Cliff House, originally built 1863, burned in 1894 and 1907 and was rebuilt several times. The ruins have been part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area since 1973.
San Francisco, CA
The St. Francis opened on Union Square in 1904, expanded with a new wing after the 1906 earthquake, and grew again with a 1972 tower addition. The flagship Westin property has been the site of two of San Francisco's most-discussed celebrity-death events: actress Virginia Rappe's collapse during Fatty Arbuckle's September 1921 Labor Day party in suite 1219-1221, and entertainer Al Jolson's fatal heart attack in the same suite during a card game on October 23, 1950.
San Francisco, CA
Built 1894-1896 for paint and white-lead magnate William Franklin Whittier and designed by Edward Robinson Swain, the 30-room mansion is one of the few Pacific Heights mansions to survive the 1906 earthquake. It became San Francisco Landmark #75 in 1975 and was added to the National Register the following year.
San Diego, CA
The Horton Grand Hotel in San Diego is a reconstructed Victorian property combining two 1886 buildings — the original Horton Grand and the Brooklyn-Kahle Saddlery Hotel — that were dismantled in the 1980s and rebuilt brick by brick at 311 Island Avenue in the Gaslamp Quarter. The site itself once held a brothel operated by madam Ida Bailey.
San Diego, CA
The Whaley House was built in 1857 by Thomas Whaley on land where public hangings had taken place — including the 1852 execution of horse thief James 'Yankee Jim' Robinson, which Whaley witnessed. The structure served at various times as a general store, the county's second courthouse, and San Diego's first commercial theater. It opened as a museum in 1960.
San Diego, CA
The U.S. Grant Hotel opened in 1910 in downtown San Diego, financed by Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., son of the eighteenth president. The 270-room hotel anchors the Gaslamp Quarter and now operates as part of Marriott's Luxury Collection. Multiple restorations have preserved its Beaux-Arts character.
San Diego, CA
Villa Montezuma is the 1887 Queen Anne residence built in San Diego's Sherman Heights for pianist, author, and Spiritualist Benjamin Henry Jesse Francis Shepard, later known by the pen name Francis Grierson. The home is owned by the City of San Diego, operated as a museum by the Friends of the Villa Montezuma, and was saved from demolition in the 1960s by Save Our Heritage Organisation.
San Diego, CA
Thomas Whaley built the Whaley House at 2476 San Diego Avenue in 1857, the oldest brick building in Southern California. The site previously held the city's public gallows, where horse thief Yankee Jim Robinson was hanged in 1852. The house served as a residence, store, courthouse, and theater before becoming a museum in 1960.
San Diego, CA
The Balboa Theatre is a 1924 Spanish Colonial Revival vaudeville and cinema palace at the corner of Fourth Avenue and E Street in downtown San Diego, designed by architect William H. Wheeler. Office space above the theater was used as a U.S. Navy barracks during World War II. The theater went dark in 1972 and stood largely vacant until a $26.5 million restoration funded by the City of San Diego's Redevelopment Agency reopened it in 2008. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
San Diego, CA
Originally built 1827-1829 by Juan Bandini as his family's adobe residence in Old Town San Diego, the structure passed to Albert Seeley in the 1850s. Seeley converted and expanded it into the two-story Cosmopolitan Hotel in 1869 as a Greek Revival-style stagecoach stop on the San Diego-Los Angeles line. After decades of decline, California State Parks led a major restoration, and the hotel reopened to guests in July 2010.
San Diego, CA
The Davis-Horton House is the oldest standing structure in downtown San Diego, a saltbox-frame prefabricated home shipped from Portland, Maine, in 1850 by speculator William Heath Davis. It served variously as an officer's quarters, a private residence, and the unofficial San Diego County Hospital in the 1870s under owner Anna Scheper. Today it operates as the Gaslamp Museum at the Davis-Horton House under the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation.
San Diego, CA
El Campo Santo was established in 1849 as the Catholic cemetery for San Diego's Mexican-California community in Old Town, with approximately 477 burials through its 1880 closure. In 1889 a horse-drawn streetcar line was cut through part of the cemetery, and in 1942 that path was paved as San Diego Avenue, entombing more than 20 graves under the modern street. The San Diego Historical Society restored the visible cemetery in 1933, and in 1993 ground-penetrating radar located the buried graves — their positions are now marked by small bronze discs in the sidewalk and pavement.
San Diego, CA
Construction of the Old Point Loma Lighthouse began in 1854 and the light was first lit on November 15, 1855 — the eighth lighthouse built on the U.S. West Coast. At 462 feet above sea level, the light was visible for nearly 40 miles in clear weather but was frequently obscured by fog and low clouds. It was decommissioned on March 23, 1891, when the new Point Loma Lighthouse opened at a lower elevation closer to the shore. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse is preserved within Cabrillo National Monument and operated by the National Park Service as a historic-house museum.
San Diego, CA
The Robinson-Rose House was originally built in 1853 as the San Diego home and law office of Judge James W. Robinson, an attorney from Texas who became a leading figure in early American-era San Diego. After Robinson's 1857 death the house was sold to Louis Rose and later served as a newspaper office, railroad headquarters, schoolroom, and apartments before falling into ruin. The current structure is a state-park reconstruction now operating as the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park visitor center.
San Diego, CA
The Star of India was launched on November 14, 1863, at Ramsey, Isle of Man, as the full-rigged iron-hulled merchant ship Euterpe. She circumnavigated the globe 21 times, primarily carrying cargo and emigrants between Britain, India, New Zealand, and the Pacific Northwest. Renamed Star of India in 1906, she was retired from active commerce in 1923 and acquired by San Diego in 1927. After decades of restoration, she became the centerpiece of the Maritime Museum of San Diego and is the world's oldest active sailing ship.
San Diego, CA
USS Midway (CV-41) was commissioned September 10, 1945, as the lead ship of her aircraft-carrier class and was at the time the largest ship in the world. She served continuously for 47 years — the longest twentieth-century carrier service of the U.S. Navy — including deployments in the Vietnam War and as the Persian Gulf War flagship in 1991. Decommissioned in 1992, she was moved to San Diego's Navy Pier in 2004 to open as the USS Midway Museum.
San Diego, CA
The Yuma Building is an 1882 brick Italianate commercial building at 631 Fifth Avenue in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter, built by Captain Alfred Henry Wilcox and named for the Colorado River port of Yuma, Arizona, where Wilcox ran a steamboat operation. The original single-story brick edifice was among the first all-brick buildings downtown; after Wilcox's 1883 death his widow oversaw the addition of upper floors completed in 1888. It was one of the first establishments closed during the 1912 Stingaree District raids that targeted Gaslamp brothels.
Sacramento, CA
Judge Edwin B. Crocker purchased the corner property on O and Third Streets in Sacramento in 1868 and completed the gallery building in 1872, constructing a private museum to house his collection of more than 700 European paintings and thousands of drawings. After his death in 1875, his wife Margaret Eleanor Crocker donated the gallery and its entire collection to the City of Sacramento in 1885 — making it the first public art museum west of the Mississippi River.
Sacramento, CA
The mansion at 22nd and H Streets in Sacramento was built in 1907 for Dr. Aden C. Hart, founder of Sutter Hospital. The popular 'Martinez murder' story is unsupported by archival records — no Martinez family ever owned the home, and Sacramento researchers found no evidence of any death, murder, or violent incident at the property.
Sacramento, CA
The B.F. Hastings Building is a brick building at the corner of 2nd and J Streets in Old Sacramento, built in 1852-53 during the early Gold Rush. It served as the western terminus of the Pony Express in 1860-61, housed B.F. Hastings Bank, Wells Fargo & Co., the Sacramento Valley Railroad headquarters, and the California Supreme Court at various times. Now operating as the Wells Fargo History Museum within Old Sacramento State Historic Park.
Sacramento, CA
The California Governor's Mansion is a 30-room, three-story Second Empire Italianate Victorian house built in 1877 in Sacramento. Designed by Nathaniel Goodell for Sacramento hardware merchant Albert Gallatin, the State of California purchased the property in 1903 to serve as the official residence of the governor. Thirteen governors and their families lived in the mansion through 1967, when it was retired from gubernatorial use and opened as a State Historic Park.
Sacramento, CA
The California State Capitol is a neoclassical statehouse begun in 1860 and completed in 1874, designed by Reuben Clark and M. F. Butler. It houses the State Senate and Assembly chambers, the offices of the governor and constitutional officers, and a free public museum on its lower floors interpreting California's political history.
Sacramento, CA
The California State Library's Library and Courts Building was authorized in 1914 and completed in 1928, designed by San Francisco architects Weeks & Day in a neoclassical style to match the State Capitol across Capitol Mall. The building houses the California Section's research collections and originally also housed the California Third Court of Appeal chambers on its upper floors.
Sacramento, CA
The Citizen Hotel occupies the 1926 California-Western States Life Insurance Building at 926 J Street, designed by Sacramento architect George C. Sellon. At 216 feet and 14 stories, it was among Sacramento's first skyscrapers. Cal West Partners restored the building in 2008 into a 198-room boutique hotel with five penthouses; the Sacramento Art Deco Society awarded the project a preservation award in 2011. The Citizen now operates as part of the Marriott Autograph Collection.
Sacramento, CA
The Delta King is a 285-foot sternwheel riverboat christened May 20, 1927, that ran between San Francisco and Sacramento until 1940. Drafted into the U.S. Navy in World War II, then used as worker housing in Kitimat, British Columbia, it was restored 1984-1989 and permanently moored at 1000 Front Street as a 44-room hotel, restaurant, and theater. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sacramento, CA
The original Eagle Theatre was built in 1849 as the first purpose-built theater in California — a wood-framed, canvas-covered structure with a tin roof and packed-earth floor. It opened during the Gold Rush, charging $2-$3 for admission, but was destroyed by flooding on January 4, 1850. The current building on Front Street is a reconstruction administered by the California State Railroad Museum as part of Old Sacramento State Historic Park; the site is California Historical Landmark No. 595.
Sacramento, CA
Built in 1856 for Sacramento merchant Shelton C. Fogus, the mansion was purchased by Leland Stanford in 1861 just before his election as California governor. The Stanfords raised the structure twelve feet and expanded it from 4,000 to 19,000 square feet in 1871-1872. After Stanford's widow donated the property in 1900, it operated as a Catholic orphanage for nearly eight decades. California acquired the building in 1978 and reopened it as a state park in 2005 after a $22 million restoration.
Sacramento, CA
Sacramento sat in a flood plain, and after the catastrophic January 1862 floods inundated the city four times in a single winter, leaders raised the downtown streets and required property owners to either raise their buildings or convert their ground floors into basements. The resulting buried street level and sidewalk passages — preserved beneath modern Old Sacramento — are accessed today through Sacramento History Museum guided tours.
Sacramento, CA
Established in 1849 when Sacramento founder John A. Sutter Jr. donated 10 acres for a public cemetery, this is the oldest public cemetery west of the Mississippi. Margaret Crocker expanded it by 23 acres in 1880; the site now covers 44 acres with over 25,000 burials, including a mass grave from the 1850 cholera epidemic. It is a California Historical Landmark (1957) and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
Sacramento, CA
Vizcaya Sacramento occupies the former Driver mansion, a Queen Anne-period white colonial-revival house with Victorian tower and columned entrance built circa 1899 in Midtown Sacramento for attorney Philip Driver. The property operates today as a full-service wedding and event venue with an eight-room bed and breakfast, with the mansion and adjoining pavilion.
Berkeley, CA
The Berkeley City Club was completed in 1930 to a design by Julia Morgan, commissioned by the Berkeley Women's City Club as a clubhouse, hotel, and social center for the city's professional women. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a California Historical Landmark, and is the rare Julia Morgan building that retains its original program as both private club and small hotel.
Berkeley, CA
Bowles Hall opened in 1929 as the first state-supported residence hall in California, funded by a bequest from Mary McNear Bowles in memory of her husband Philip E. Bowles. Designed by George W. Kelham in a Tudor Revival 'castle' style, it housed an all-male residence community until 2005 when it was converted to co-educational use. After a major restoration completed in 2016 it reopened as Bowles Hall Residential College.
Berkeley, CA
The Claremont Hotel opened on May 3, 1915 in time for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Designed by architect Charles W. Dickey for the Realty Syndicate of 'Borax' Smith and Frank Havens, it was built in Tudor Revival style with a 160-foot central tower that is among the world's tallest wooden buildings. The site previously held a castle-like estate built by Bill Thornburg that burned in 1901.
Berkeley, CA
The Faculty Club at UC Berkeley was established in 1902 as a gathering space for university faculty. Henry Morse Stephens, chair of the History Department, lived in the west wing of the Club for over two decades, using Room 219 as his residence until his death on April 16, 1919. At the time of his death, Stephens had been compiling over 800 personal accounts of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake — a project that remained unfinished.
Berkeley, CA
The Hearst Memorial Mining Building was completed in 1907 to a design by university architect John Galen Howard. It was funded by Phoebe Apperson Hearst as a memorial to her husband, Senator George Hearst, who made his fortune in mining. The Beaux-Arts building remains the central facility for UC Berkeley's Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Berkeley, CA
Sather Tower, commonly called the Campanile, was completed in 1914 to a design by John Galen Howard and modeled loosely on the bell tower of St. Mark's Square in Venice. At 307 feet, it is the third-tallest bell-and-clock tower in the world and houses a 61-bell carillon. It was funded by Jane K. Sather in memory of her husband Peder.
Eureka, CA
Built 1884-1886 for redwood-lumber baron William Carson, the 18-room Victorian combines Queen Anne, Eastlake, Stick, and Italianate elements with a four-story tower overlooking Humboldt Bay. Since 1950 it has been the private clubhouse of the Ingomar Club. It is widely cited as a visual inspiration for Disney's Haunted Mansion and the silhouette image of the American haunted house.
Eureka, CA
Constructed in 1911 as the joint home of the Bank of Eureka and the Savings Bank of Humboldt, the Classical Revival building was designed by prominent San Francisco architect Albert Pissis. Since 1960 it has housed the Clarke Historical Museum, founded by Cecile Clarke. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Eureka, CA
The Eureka Inn opened in 1922 as a four-story, 104-room Elizabethan Tudor Revival hotel covering a full city block of downtown Eureka. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in February 1982 and now operates as Eureka Inn, Trademark Collection by Wyndham.
Eureka, CA
The Eagle House was built in 1888 by Finnish immigrants Henry and Elvira Tornroth as a hotel and restaurant on the corner of 2nd and C Streets in Eureka's Old Town, serving sailors, loggers, and merchants arriving at Humboldt Bay. The building is an intact example of commercial Victorian architecture on the Northern California coast, now operating as a 23-room boutique hotel and restaurant.
Eureka, CA
Fort Humboldt was established in 1853 by the U.S. 4th Infantry on a bluff overlooking Humboldt Bay in Eureka, California. The post served as a base for federal troops during the conflicts between settlers and the region's Indigenous tribes, and was briefly the assignment of Captain Ulysses S. Grant. The fort closed in 1870; the surviving hospital building anchors today's California State Historic Park.
Long Beach, CA
DeForest Park is a 50-acre Long Beach city park along the Los Angeles River with a 34-acre restored wetlands and riparian forest. The restoration project began in 2001 and the restored wetlands opened to the public on June 30, 2018, connecting to the LA River Bikeway.
Long Beach, CA
The Rancho Los Cerritos adobe was built in 1844 by Massachusetts-born merchant John Temple on 27,000 acres of land acquired from the heirs of Manuel Nieto's Spanish land grant. The Tongva people had inhabited the site for centuries before Spanish colonization. Temple sold the ranch in 1866 following devastating droughts; subsequent Bixby family sheep operations reduced the property until the City of Long Beach acquired the remaining five acres in 1955.
Long Beach, CA
The Long Beach Marriott is a 309-room hotel located at 4700 Airport Plaza Drive, near Long Beach Airport. It is a modern Marriott property with extensive meeting facilities, two pools, and standard full-service amenities. There is no published deep historical or pre-Marriott provenance for the building.
Long Beach, CA
RMS Queen Mary is a 1,019-foot Cunard ocean liner launched in 1934 and in transatlantic service from 1936 to 1967, with a wartime troopship service from 1939 to 1946 under the name Gray Ghost. Permanently moored at Long Beach, California since December 1967, the Queen Mary operates as a hotel, museum, and event venue.
Long Beach, CA
The RMS Queen Mary was constructed at John Brown & Company's Clydebank shipyard beginning in 1930, launched September 26, 1934, and sailed her maiden voyage on May 27, 1936. Requisitioned as a troopship in 1939, she carried 810,000 soldiers under the nickname 'The Grey Ghost.' The ship has been permanently moored in Long Beach, California since December 1967.
Riverside, CA
At the Villa occupied a historic building dating to circa 1890 at 3563 Main Street in Riverside, one block north of the Mission Inn. The building originally served as a bath house before being converted to an antiques store. The antiques business has since closed, though the building remains.
Riverside, CA
California Baptist University occupies the site of former institutional buildings. The W.E. James Building was originally The New Homes of Woodcraft—a retirement and care home for elderly members of a fraternal organization, purchased by California Baptist University in 1954. Underground tunnel systems exist beneath the campus, historically used for storage.
Riverside, CA
Castle Park opened in 1976 in Riverside, California, as a 25-acre family entertainment center centered on a castle-themed building housing a two-level arcade and an outdoor miniature golf course. The park later added rides and a seasonal Halloween event known as Castle Dark.
Riverside, CA
Mount Rubidoux in Riverside, California, takes its name from Louis Rubidoux, who purchased the 1,337-foot granite hill in 1852. The Luiseno people knew it as Pachappa. Frank Miller, owner of the Mission Inn, acquired the mountain in 1906 and built a road to the summit, establishing it as a public park. The oldest outdoor non-denominational Easter Sunrise service in the United States has been held here annually since 1909.
Riverside, CA
Completed in 1954 as one of the original five buildings of UC Riverside; designed by Graham Latta and Carl Denny. Renamed in 1985 in honor of Mexican-American author and UCR Chancellor Tomás Rivera. Subsequent renovations in 1963, 1968, and 1998.
Redlands, CA
The Burrage Mansion was built in 1901 by industrialist Albert C. Burrage in Redlands, California. It served as a convent for the Victory Noll Sisters from 1934 to 1974 and is now owned by the Rochford Foundation.
Redlands, CA
Kimberly Crest was built in 1897 for Cornelia A. Hill, a wealthy New York widow, in the French chateau style by architects Oliver Perry Dennis and Lyman Farwell. In 1905, John Alfred Kimberly — co-founder of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation — purchased the 7,000-square-foot, three-story residence as a winter home. His youngest daughter, Mary Kimberly Shirk, inherited the estate and lived there until her death in 1979 at age 99, bequeathing it to the people of Redlands.
Redlands, CA
Morey Mansion is an 1890 Queen Anne house in Redlands, California, built by retired shipbuilder David Morey and his wife Sarah from profits of their citrus nursery. The 4,800-square-foot, twenty-room residence was designed by Jerome Seymour and incorporates carved nautical motifs. Returned to private ownership in 2010, it operates today as a single-family residence.
Redlands, CA
The Redlands Fox Theatre was built in 1927 and opened December 28, 1928, as a 1,505-seat Mission Revival picture house designed by Lewis A. Smith for the West Coast Theatres chain. After West Coast merged with Fox Theatres in 1929 it became the Fox West Coast Redlands. The building reopened in 2009 as the Fox Event Center.
Anaheim, CA
It's a Small World was created by Walt Disney and designer Mary Blair for the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, where it operated in support of UNICEF. The attraction was transferred to Disneyland and opened in Fantasyland on May 28, 1966, as part of a $23 million expansion. Blair's bold color palette and stylized international doll figures defined the ride's visual identity. The attraction has operated continuously for nearly sixty years and remains one of Disneyland's most-ridden experiences.
Anaheim, CA
The Kmart at Katella Avenue and Euclid Street in Anaheim operated until early 2016, when it closed as part of Kmart's California store contraction. KTLA reported the closure alongside three other California Kmart stores. The property was subsequently acquired for redevelopment and now operates as a multi-tenant retail center.
Anaheim, CA
The Woelke-Stoffel House is an 1894 Queen Anne Victorian in Anaheim, California, named for two of its owners, John Gottlieb Woelke and Peter Stoffel. The building is part of Anaheim's Founders Park preservation complex, located beside the 1857 Mother Colony House. Stoffel was a successful Anaheim citrus farmer in the early 20th century.
Bakersfield, CA
Garces Memorial Circle in Bakersfield commemorates Father Francisco Garces (1738–1781), a Franciscan missionary who crossed the Kern River in 1776 as the first European explorer recorded in the territory. The circle was built by the Division of Highways in 1935, and the 22-foot limestone statue was sculpted by New Deal artist John Palo-Kangas in 1939 under the Federal Art Project. The site is California State Historical Landmark No. 277.
Bakersfield, CA
The building at the heart of Bakersfield's Gaslight Melodrama Theatre was constructed in the early 1970s in Oildale — a community that grew from the oil industry north of Bakersfield — originally as a toy store. The owner went bankrupt around 1975. The current Gaslight Melodrama Theatre opened at a new Jomani Drive location in August 2005 as Bakersfield's first privately built performing arts venue, producing eight different shows per year.
Bakersfield, CA
The Padre Hotel opened April 12, 1928 as an eight-story Spanish Revival landmark designed by Los Angeles architect John M. Cooper. It was Bakersfield's tallest building and social hub for decades. Restored and reopened in 2010, it remains an operating boutique hotel and has appeared on Travel Channel's Portals to Hell.
Fallbrook, CA
The Santa Margarita River at De Luz Road in northern San Diego County sits within territory crossed during the California Gold Rush. The river corridor carries documented local history of multiple unexplained incidents, and the De Luz Road bridge has accumulated folklore spanning from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century.
Fallbrook, CA
Live Oak County Park in Fallbrook, San Diego County, was dedicated in 1920 and has grown to 27 acres. The park contains an unmapped but publicly accessible Luiseno bedrock milling site where generations of Payomkawichum women ground acorns into flour. The site has been accessible to the public since the park's founding and was never formally excavated.
Fallbrook, CA
The Masonic Cemetery in Fallbrook, California was established in 1917 after the Masonic Lodge authorized Horatio Smelser to locate suitable land the prior year. The first interments occurred that same year, and by 1921 the Masonic Cemetery Association held the deed to ten acres. Today approximately 3,000 individuals are interred across roughly two-thirds of the site.
Merced, CA
Applegate Skate Park is a public recreational skateboarding facility located in Merced, California. The concrete park serves the local skating community and casual park visitors with various ramps, obstacles, and skating surfaces.
Merced, CA
Scout Island is a small island in Lake Yosemite, a reservoir operated by Merced County in the San Joaquin Valley. The lake has a documented history of drowning deaths, including a 2023 fatality during a Fourth of July celebration. Scout Island serves as an overnight outdoor education facility for youth and scouting groups.
Merced, CA
The Merced Theatre opened on October 31, 1931 with the world premiere of Local Boy Makes Good starring Joe E. Brown. The 1,645-seat venue was designed by San Francisco's Reid Brothers for the Golden State Theatre Corporation, featured the first air conditioning in Merced County, and is topped by an iconic 100-foot tower. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in May 2009 and now operates as the Art Kamangar Center.
San Dimas, CA
Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse opened in San Dimas in 1967, operating continuously at 269 W Foothill Blvd as a Western-themed mesquite steakhouse. The restaurant is most widely known for its 'no ties allowed' policy — enforced since opening — which has resulted in thousands of cut neckties hanging from the ceiling as decoration. The Pinnacle Peak brand is associated with multiple locations in Arizona and California.
San Dimas, CA
Raging Waters Los Angeles is a 60-acre water park in San Dimas, California, that opened June 18, 1983. The park is the largest water park in California and operates today under the Palace Entertainment family of properties.
San Dimas, CA
The San Dimas Hotel (also known as Walker House, the Carruthers Home, and the San Dimas Mansion) was built in 1887 by the San Jose Ranch Company as a railroad hotel, designed by California architects Joseph Cather Newsom and Samuel Newsom. A late-1880s economic downturn meant it never had a paying hotel guest; merchant James W. Walker purchased it as a family home in 1889. The City of San Dimas acquired the property in 2000 and funded a $6.5 million restoration.
Altadena, CA
East Loma Alta Drive in Altadena is home to a well-documented gravity hill — an optical illusion that causes stopped vehicles to appear to roll uphill when placed in neutral. The phenomenon results from the road's curvature conflicting with the perceived horizontal baseline set by nearby trees and structures.
Altadena, CA
The Zane Grey Estate is a 1907 Mediterranean Revival residence in Altadena, California, originally constructed as the first reinforced-concrete fireproof home in the area for Arthur Herbert Woodward and his wife Edith Norton Woodward. Western novelist Zane Grey purchased the property in 1920 and lived there until his death in 1939. The home's roof and interior were destroyed in the January 2025 Eaton Fire; the concrete walls survived.
Benicia, CA
The building at 140 W J Street in downtown Benicia was constructed in 1885 as a working mill. The structure was later converted to cultural and community use, becoming the Portuguese Cultural Center and home to the Benicia Theatre Group, established in 1964. The venue serves as both an active performing arts center and a documented paranormal hotspot.
Benicia, CA
On December 20, 1968, high school students Betty Lou Jensen (16) and David Arthur Faraday (17) were shot and killed at a lover's lane turnout on Lake Herman Road, just inside the Benicia city limits. The attack was retroactively attributed to the Zodiac Killer following letters received by Bay Area newspapers in August 1969 in which the writer claimed responsibility.
Bodie, CA
Bodie Cemetery serves the ghost town of Bodie, California, a Gold Rush boomtown that peaked at 10,000 residents in 1879-1880 before collapsing within a decade. The burial ground holds miners, families, and children lost to disease, accident, and frontier violence at 8,375 feet in the Sierra Nevada.
Bodie, CA
Bodie was a Gold Rush boomtown that grew from a small camp to over 10,000 residents between 1876 and 1880, then collapsed within a decade as the ore played out. California State Parks now preserves approximately 110 surviving buildings in a condition called arrested decay — stabilized but not restored.
City of Industry, CA
The AMC Puente Hills 20 opened April 18, 1997 in the shell of the former Broadway Department Store at Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California. The Broadway store had been demolished by 1996 to make way for the multi-screen complex. The mall is also a recognizable filming location from the 1985 film Back to the Future.
City of Industry, CA
The hilltop resort in the City of Industry opened as the Industry Hills Sheraton, anchoring the larger Industry Hills development. Its Eisenhower Course was designed by William F. Bell and Casey O'Callaghan and opened in 1979, alongside a sister Zaharias Course. The Sheraton operation transitioned in 2001 to Pacific Palms Resort, which continues to operate the property as a full-service golf and conference resort.
Clayton, CA
The Clayton Club Saloon at 6096 Main Street in Clayton, California occupies a building first put up by Jacob Rhine around 1873 and later expanded by Carl Berendsen in 1905, who renamed it the Clayton Club and incorporated a structure shipped from San Francisco to Martinez and onward to Clayton.
Clayton, CA
The building housing Moresi's Chophouse at 6115 Main Street in Clayton was constructed in 1870 as a residence before serving as a store, post office, and saloon — a sequence typical of structures in California's post-Gold Rush mining towns. Clayton was founded in 1857 and grew as a commercial hub for miners working the Black Diamond coal region in nearby Somersville.
Corona, CA
Horsethief Canyon takes its name from a band of horse thieves who reportedly used the canyon as a hideout in the 1800s. The rugged terrain of the Santa Ana Mountains foothills south of Corona provided natural concealment for outlaws running stolen horses from California ranches. No specific documented events tied to the paranormal claims have been located in historical archives.
Corona, CA
The Live Oak Inn on Temescal Canyon Road in Corona was built in the 1930s around a large live oak tree — later confirmed to be planted as a sapling in the late 1930s. In 1988, a young woman was strangled to death in the parking area behind the back patio; a dishwasher associated with the inn was convicted of the crime. The property subsequently operated as El Cerrito, then J.J. Live Oak Steakhouse, and now functions as Rockefellas Bar, a rock music venue.
Fresno, CA
M. Theo Kearney was one of California's most ambitious agricultural developers of the late 19th century. He assembled a 225-acre raisin-growing estate seven miles west of Fresno, envisioning a grand mansion as the centerpiece. He died in 1906 before completing his plans, leaving behind only the caretaker's quarters — now preserved as the Kearney Mansion Museum — surrounded by the trees and eucalyptus groves he planted.
Fresno, CA
Kearney Park occupies 225 acres of the former M. Theo Kearney agricultural estate seven miles west of downtown Fresno. After Kearney's death in 1906, Fresno County acquired the land and developed it as a public recreational area surrounding the preserved Kearney Mansion Museum. The eucalyptus windbreaks Kearney planted for his raisin operation in the 1880s and 1890s still define the park's visual character.
Georgetown, CA
The Historic American River Inn opened in 1853 in Georgetown, California, originally built as a private residence on the site of the Round Tent gambling establishment and directly above the Woodside Mine. The structure has served as a private home, a hotel, a miners' boarding house, and a tuberculosis sanitarium before becoming a bed and breakfast in 1984.
Georgetown, CA
The Georgetown Hotel & Saloon was built in 1852 in the El Dorado County Gold Rush town of Georgetown, California, and has operated as a hotel and bar continuously since. Eleven historic guest rooms remain in service above a working saloon and restaurant on Main Street.
Gilroy, CA
Gilroy Gardens opened to the public on June 15, 2001, founded by Michael and Claudia Bonfante following their sale of the Nob Hill Foods supermarket chain. The park was built over 25 years on property originally developed as Tree Haven, a commercial nursery. The name changed to Gilroy Gardens in February 2007.
Gilroy, CA
The Old Gilroy Hotel building sits at 7365 Monterey Road in downtown Gilroy, California. Historical-building documentation places the structure among the oldest commercial buildings remaining on Monterey Road, the original El Camino Real corridor through the south Santa Clara Valley. The hotel ceased operation in the 20th century; the building has since served various retail and commercial tenants.
Hollywood, CA
Sid Grauman opened the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard on May 18, 1927, with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings. Built at a cost of approximately $2 million, the theatre features Chinese pagoda architecture, imported temple bells, and the famous forecourt where over 300 celebrities have pressed their hands and feet into wet concrete. Now operating as TCL Chinese Theatre under current ownership, it remains one of the most visited film venues in the United States.
Hollywood, CA
Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue in the Hollywood Hills have intersected horse-drawn traffic and automobile traffic since the road was cut through the hills in the early 20th century. The winding canyon corridor became a primary route from the Hollywood flatlands to the ridge communities above.
Keene, CA
The 116-acre site in Keene, California - now operated by the National Park Service as the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument - was developed in 1918 as the Stony Brook Retreat tuberculosis sanatorium. It treated TB patients for nearly fifty years before closing after streptomycin made long-term sanatorium care obsolete. The United Farm Workers acquired the property in 1971 and renamed it La Paz; it became a national monument in 2012.
Keene, CA
The 116-acre campus in the Tehachapi Mountains of Kern County began as Stony Brook Retreat in 1918, a tuberculosis sanitarium built by the county after a quarry closed on the property. The compound treated TB patients for nearly five decades before closing in 1967. César Chávez and the United Farm Workers established their national headquarters here in 1970, naming it Nuestra Señora Reina de la Paz. President Obama designated it a National Monument in 2012.
Los Gatos, CA
Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad and Bill Mason Carousel are historic amusement park attractions in Los Gatos, California. The carousel and miniature railroad represent classic American amusement park heritage.
Los Gatos, CA
The Old Santa Cruz Highway crosses the Santa Cruz Mountains from Los Gatos toward Santa Cruz. The summit area appears in Bay Area road-folklore writing as a stop on the broader vanishing-hitchhiker tradition, alongside nearby Hicks Road and other South Bay back roads.
Oakland, CA
Joaquin Miller Park honors Cincinnatus Hiner Miller (1837–1913), a poet, lawyer, and frontiersman from Indiana who adopted the name Joaquin after California outlaw Joaquin Murieta. In 1886, Miller purchased roughly 70 acres of Oakland hillside and planted 75,000 trees, developing an artists' retreat he called 'The Hights.' The City of Oakland eventually acquired the land as a public park.
Oakland, CA
Mills College was founded as a women's institution in Oakland, California, and for over a century occupied a wooded Victorian campus at 5000 MacArthur Boulevard. Facing significant financial difficulties that had persisted since 2017, Mills finalized a merger with Northeastern University in June 2022, becoming Mills College at Northeastern University. The campus remains in use with Northeastern students attending from across the university's network.
Pasadena, CA
The Cravens Estate at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena was completed in 1929 for industrialist John S. Cravens and his wife, Mildred Myers Cravens. Designed by San Francisco architect Lewis P. Hobart, the 20,000-square-foot mansion was the most expensive home built in Pasadena at the time. It served as the American Red Cross local chapter headquarters from 1962 until its sale in 2017.
Pasadena, CA
The Castle Green at 99 South Raymond Avenue in Pasadena was completed in November 1898 and opened on January 16, 1899 as the Central Annex to Colonel G.G. Green's Hotel Green. Designed by architect Frederick Roehrig in a blend of Moorish Colonial, Spanish Revival, and Victorian elements, the building was converted in 1924 into 50 individually-owned residential units. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Paso Robles, CA
Adelaida Cemetery sits in the Santa Lucia foothills west of Paso Robles, California. The Adelaida district was settled in 1859 by sheep rancher James Lynch and grew into a community of mercury miners, farmers, and ranchers; the cemetery was established by Wesley Burnett in the late nineteenth century.
Paso Robles, CA
The Paso Robles Inn traces its founding to 1864, when the 14-room Hot Springs Hotel opened to serve visitors drawn by the area's mineral springs. A grander, three-story El Paso de Robles Hotel — designed by architect Jacob Leuzen and marketed as 'absolutely fireproof' — replaced the original in 1891. That building burned to the ground on December 19, 1940, after a cigarette ignited a wastebasket on the second floor; night clerk J.H. Emsley sounded the alarm in time to evacuate every guest, then died of a heart attack. The current Inn, built with bricks salvaged from the ruins, opened in February 1942 and operates today as a 98-room downtown Paso Robles hotel.
San Jose, CA
Happy Hollow Park & Zoo opened in 1961 in San Jose's Kelley Park, operated by the City of San Jose. The 16-acre facility includes a small amusement park and a zoo with an emphasis on endangered species native to North and South America. A creek running behind the baby animal zoo section is associated with the figure of a woman in a short red dress, believed in local lore to have been murdered there in the 1970s.
San Jose, CA
Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester, widow of William Wirt Winchester of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, purchased an unfinished farmhouse in San Jose in 1886 and oversaw 36 years of continuous expansion until her death in 1922. The 160-room mansion opened to the public in 1923 and has operated as a tour attraction ever since. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is California Historical Landmark No. 868.
Tracy, CA
Banta Inn opened in 1879 as a two-story saloon serving the small farming community of Banta, just east of Tracy, California. A 1937 fire destroyed the upper floor, after which the building was rebuilt as a single-story bar and restaurant that has operated continuously since.
Tracy, CA
Bethany Reservoir is a public recreation area operated by California State Parks near Tracy in San Joaquin County. The reservoir provides water recreation facilities including fishing, boating, and hiking opportunities for the public.
Ventura, CA
The Elizabeth Bard Memorial Building, originally Elizabeth Bard Memorial Hospital, was built in 1901 in downtown Ventura, California. Cephas L. Bard and his brother Thomas R. Bard funded its construction in memory of their mother, Elizabeth. The Mission Revival hospital opened in January 1902; Cephas Bard died there in April 1902 at age 56. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
Ventura, CA
Mission San Buenaventura was founded on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1782, by Junipero Serra — the ninth Spanish mission in Alta California and the last he personally established. The current church was completed between 1793 and 1812 after the original was destroyed by fire. Mission records show 3,875 baptisms and 3,150 burials of Ventureño Chumash people during the mission period. In 2020, Pope Francis elevated the mission to minor basilica status.
Whittier, CA
Founders Memorial Park in Whittier, California, occupies the site of two former cemeteries — the Quaker-founded Broadway Cemetery and the Jewish Mount Sinai Cemetery. After both fell into disrepair through the mid-twentieth century, Whittier converted the property into a public park in 1968, removing headstones while leaving most burials in place.
Whittier, CA
The Whittier Citrus Association built the packinghouse at Penn Street and Whittier Boulevard in 1902, expanding it in 1904. It was one of California's largest citrus operations at its peak, shipping 650 carloads of oranges and 250 of lemons per year by 1906. King Richard's Antique Center has occupied the four-story main structure as a 57,000-square-foot antique mall since 1979.
Yermo, CA
Calico was founded in 1881 as a silver mining boomtown in the Mojave Desert. The Silver King Mine became California's largest silver producer, generating 70% of the state's silver output during the mid-1880s. The town achieved peak prosperity before declining as silver prices collapsed.
Yermo, CA
Calico is an 1881 silver-mining town in the Calico Mountains of San Bernardino County, California, that produced roughly $86 million in silver and $45 million in borax before its 1896 collapse. Walter Knott restored the town in the 1950s, donated it to San Bernardino County in 1966, and it now operates as Calico Ghost Town Regional Park and California Historical Landmark 782.
Yosemite National Park, CA
Camp 6, formerly known as Camp Tresidder, operated as employee housing for Yosemite National Park staff and concessionaire workers. Located south of Yosemite Village along the Merced River, it consisted of tent cabin structures housing approximately 80 employees. The camp was destroyed in the catastrophic 1997 Yosemite Valley flood and has since been converted to a day-use parking facility.
Yosemite National Park, CA
Grouse Lake sits in the high country of Yosemite National Park, accessible by a long backcountry hike from the Bridalveil Creek Campground area. The earliest written record of a paranormal account at the lake comes from Galen Clark, Yosemite's first official park ranger, who described hearing a child's cries at the lake shore in 1857 and being told by Ahwahnechee people that the sound came from a drowned child.
Agoura Hills, CA
Malibu Lake — properly spelled Malibou Lake — is a private mountain lake community in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles County, established as the Malibou Lake Mountain Club in 1922. The 350-acre property encompasses approximately 250 homes, a private lake, and a small island. It has operated as a members-only residential community for over a century.
Alameda, CA
USS Hornet (CV-12) is an Essex-class aircraft carrier commissioned in November 1943 and decommissioned in 1970. The carrier earned seven battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation during World War II and recovered the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 crews in 1969. The Hornet has operated as a museum ship at the former Naval Air Station Alameda since 1998.
Alhambra, CA
The original Phoenix Inn opened in 1965 in Los Angeles's Chinatown under founders Kai Tai and May Chang, who had immigrated from Hong Kong. The Alhambra location at 208 East Valley Boulevard opened in 1997 and is operated by the second generation of the founding family. Phoenix Inn is part of the broader Phoenix Food & Dessert family of San Gabriel Valley Chinese restaurants.
Amargosa, CA
Built 1923-25 by the Pacific Coast Borax Company as a company town hub featuring a 23-room hotel and theater. The U-shaped Spanish Colonial Revival complex served miners and company officials during the borax mining era. Since 1967, it has operated as a cultural venue and hotel.
Arroyo Grande, CA
The Pitkin-Conrow House was built in 1885 in Arroyo Grande, California by Reuben Pitkin and remains one of the most prominent Victorian residences on the Central Coast. The property operated as the Rose Victorian Inn and later the Crystal Rose Inn, and now functions as The Victorian Estate, a private wedding and event venue.
Atwater, CA
Castle Air Museum opened in 1981 on the grounds of the former Castle Air Force Base in Atwater, California. Its collection includes more than 80 military aircraft, with the centerpiece being the B-29 Superfortress 'Raz'n Hell,' assembled from three separate airframes and bearing the same model designation as the Enola Gay and Bockscar.
Beaumont, CA
Stewart Sunnyslope Cemetery began as the Stewart family's private burying ground on a knoll at Pennsylvania and 1st Street in Beaumont, California. The Stewart family donated the original six acres to the City of Beaumont in 1888, and the site was renamed Stewart Sunnyslope Cemetery in 1962.
Beverly Hills, CA
Greystone Mansion, also known as the Doheny Estate, is a 55-room Tudor Revival home completed in 1928 in Beverly Hills, designed by Gordon Kaufmann for oil heir Edward 'Ned' Doheny Jr. Ned Doheny died in the house in a February 1929 murder-suicide alongside his secretary Hugh Plunkett. The City of Beverly Hills purchased the estate in 1965, and it has been a public park since 1971.
Big Sur, CA
Point Sur Lightstation, first lit on August 1, 1889, sits atop a 361-foot volcanic rock 19 miles south of Monterey, California. It is the only complete turn-of-the-century light station open to the public in California and the heart of Point Sur State Historic Park.
Boulder Creek, CA
Brookdale Lodge opened in the early 1900s as a creek-side resort under James Harvey Logan, creator of the loganberry and Santa Cruz County judge. By the Prohibition era, the property hosted organized crime figures and operated as a speakeasy. The resort achieved peak popularity in the 1950s-60s, hosting Hollywood celebrities and international dignitaries before financial decline.
Burney, CA
Black Ranch Road is an isolated mountain road in the Burney area of Shasta County, California, located in the forested Cascade foothills approximately 50 miles northeast of Redding. The road passes through rural terrain with historical significance to the region's settlement patterns and transportation routes.
Calabasas, CA
The Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas was founded in 1928 by Hollywood veterinarian Dr. Eugene C. Jones. Established because Los Angeles city ordinances prohibited backyard pet burials at residential properties, the 10-acre cemetery became the resting place for the animals of the film industry's most prominent figures. In 1986, the site received the same legal protections as a human cemetery, making development permanently illegal.
Calexico, CA
Calexico High School operates as a secondary educational institution in the border community of Calexico, California. The school lost a student—a cheerleader—in an automobile accident while returning from an away football game.
Camarillo, CA
Camarillo State Mental Hospital opened in 1936 on 1,500 acres in Ventura County, California, designed in Mission Revival style by architect Edward Schmidt. At its peak it housed roughly 7,000 patients and was among the largest state mental hospitals in the world. The hospital partnered with the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and closed in 1997. The campus became California State University Channel Islands in 2002.
Campo, CA
Lake Morena is a reservoir in the Laguna Mountains of eastern San Diego County, constructed by the Otay Water District and completed in 1912. The lake sits in a remote valley at roughly 3,000 feet elevation and is managed today by San Diego County Parks. The 1916 Hatfield flood — a rainmaking attempt that resulted in catastrophic flooding across San Diego County — affected waterways in the region.
Canoga Park, CA
Jack in the Box operates as a fast food franchise location at 7264 Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park, California. It functions as a standard quick-service restaurant with no documented historical significance beyond normal commercial operations.
Carmel Valley, CA
Blue Sky Lodge was established in 1952 as a family-owned inn in Carmel Valley, California. The lodge operated continuously for over seven decades as a small, independently-run hospitality business. The property has closed as of 2026, though it remains historically significant as a mid-century lodging establishment.
Chowchilla, CA
The Save Mart on Robertson Boulevard in Chowchilla, California, became known in Central Valley folklore as one of the most haunted grocery stores in America. After the original store closed in the 2000s and Save Mart relocated to a newer building, the haunted location was taken over by a Dollar General Market, which operates there today.
Clovis, CA
The Clovis mansion best known as Wolfe Manor was built in 1922 by Anthony Andriotti as an 8,000-square-foot private residence. It became the Hazelwood Sanitarium in 1935, the Clovis Avenue Sanitarium in 1942, and later a nursing home that closed in 1992. After years as a haunted attraction it was demolished on November 8, 2014.
Coloma, CA
The Vineyard House at 530 Cold Springs Road in Coloma, California was built between 1878 and 1879 by Robert Chalmers, a Gold Rush-era Scotsman, on land that had belonged to his predecessor and now-wife Louisa, widow of Martin Allhoff. The 19-bedroom Victorian served as a jail, inn, restaurant, and winery. The house was featured on That's Incredible! and Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and has been closed to the public for years.
Colton, CA
Montecito Memorial Park was founded in 1925 on former orange grove land in the Inland Empire, spanning the city limits of Colton and Loma Linda — a geographic distinction that makes it the only cemetery in the United States crossing two municipal boundaries. The Hinze family established the park and operated it for generations.
Columbia, CA
The Fallon House Hotel was built in 1859 by Irish stone cutter Owen Fallon in Columbia, California, at the heart of the Mother Lode's most prosperous placer mining district. Fallon expanded the property in 1863, and the associated theater became a social hub for miners and merchants. The original structure burned and was rebuilt; the current building is an authentically restored replica within Columbia State Historic Park, administered by California State Parks.
Coronado, CA
Hotel del Coronado opened on February 19, 1888, designed by James and Merritt Reid as a wood-frame Victorian resort on the Coronado Peninsula. Financed by Elisha Babcock Jr. and H.L. Story, the building was constructed in just eleven months. It hosted President Benjamin Harrison in 1891 and has received countless heads of state and Hollywood celebrities since. The hotel is a National Historic Landmark and remains a fully operating luxury resort under Hilton's Curio Collection.
Crescent City, CA
Battery Point Lighthouse is one of the oldest lighthouses on the California coast, first illuminated on December 10, 1856. The light station occupies a small tidal island accessible only at low tide via a rocky causeway from Crescent City. The lighthouse survived the catastrophic 1964 Alaska earthquake tsunami that destroyed much of the surrounding coastline.
Davis, CA
Built in 1938 as the Davis City Hall, this Spanish Colonial Revival building was a New Deal-era civic structure that housed city administrative offices and the fire department. The fire department moved out in 1966, and the police department occupied the space until relocating to a new facility in 2001. The building was later renovated into a restaurant.
Del Rey, CA
Del Rey Cemetery in Fresno County is part of the Sanger/Del Rey Cemetery District, which administers burial grounds in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The district originated with the Sanger Cemetery established near the town of Centerville in the mid-1850s. The Del Rey Cemetery District was annexed into the Sanger district in 1991.
Dorrington, CA
The Dorrington Hotel was built in 1852 by John and Rebecca Dorrington Gardner as a stage stop on the Big Trees Carson Valley Road in California's Sierra Nevada. The town surrounding the hotel was named after Rebecca's maiden name when its post office opened in 1902, and the hotel and restaurant continue to operate today.
Downieville, CA
The Downieville River Inn & Resort sits at 121 River Street on the banks of the North Yuba River in the Sierra Nevada town of Downieville, an 1850s Gold Rush settlement now within the Tahoe National Forest. The property previously operated as a boarding house before its conversion to a riverside inn with rooms, cottages, gardens, and a pool.
Duarte, CA
The building at 1431 Buena Vista Street was constructed in 1909 as a five-room schoolhouse — Duarte's only school until 1925. The second schoolhouse on the site burned in 1908; the surviving 1909 structure educated local children until the early 1950s, then served as the Duarte Unified School District administration building until the early 1990s. The Old Spaghetti Factory moved into the vacated building in 1997.
Dublin, CA
The Outback Steakhouse at 6505 Regional Street in Dublin, California, is the documented site of a police officer's murder during an armed robbery on December 11, 1998. Three armed robbers carried out the crime; the officer died at the scene. The Dublin area additionally has ties to Camp Parks, a World War II-era military installation that remains active as a Reserve Forces Training Area.
Dunlap, CA
Dunlap Cemetery sits in the Sierra Nevada foothills of eastern Fresno County. Pioneer Sands Baker, who arrived in Fresno County around 1870, set aside a few acres of his land for the cemetery before 1900. Baker died on April 13, 1918, and is buried there. The Dunlap Cemetery District was formally established as a public cemetery district by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors in 1941.
El Monte, CA
Lambert Park is a City of El Monte public park that includes a gymnasium building. El Monte, California, developed as an agricultural community in the San Gabriel Valley before becoming a suburban city in Los Angeles County. The park and gymnasium serve the local community; no specific construction date for the gym has been verified through web research.
Elizabeth Lake, CA
Elizabeth Lake is a natural perennial sag pond that sits directly on the San Andreas Fault in the Sierra Pelona Mountains of northwestern Los Angeles County at 3,228 feet elevation. The lake was known to Spanish settlers as Laguna del Diablo. Beginning in the 1830s, ranchers established properties on its shores but repeatedly abandoned them, attributing their losses to a creature living in the lake.
Fairfax, CA
Camp Bothin in Fairfax occupies the grounds of the former Arequipa Sanatorium, a tuberculosis treatment home for working-class women opened in 1911 by Dr. Philip King Brown. The property had earlier served as Henry E. Bothin's Hill Farm convalescent home for women and children. After Arequipa closed in the 1950s, the Girl Scouts took over the buildings, which they still use today.
Fort Bragg, CA
The Grey Whale Inn occupies the building constructed in 1915 by the Union Lumber Company as the Grey Whale Hospital. After 1923 it operated as the Redwood Hospital, treating coastal Mendocino patients until 1971. Subsequent owners converted it into a bed and breakfast; as of 2025 it was closed and undergoing restoration by a local family.
Fremont, CA
Niles Canyon Road is a seven-mile stretch of California State Route 84 running through the Coast Range between Fremont's Niles District and Sunol. The winding two-lane highway has been the subject of a well-documented vanishing-hitchhiker urban legend since at least the 1930s, identified variously as Miss Lowerey or the White Witch of Niles Canyon.
Fullerton, CA
Cal State Fullerton operates dormitory facilities for student housing.
Glendale, CA
Brand Park surrounds El Miradero, the 1904 Indo-Islamic-style mansion of Glendale pioneer Leslie Coombs Brand (1859–1925), often called the 'father of Glendale.' Brand willed the estate to the city as a public library and park; the mansion opened as Brand Library in 1956. A fenced family cemetery in the hills behind it holds Brand's distinctive pyramid-shaped tomb.
Grass Valley, CA
The Holbrooke Hotel began as the 1852 Golden Gate Saloon, built in Grass Valley, California by Stephen and Clara Smith during the Gold Rush. A neighboring single-story Exchange Hotel was added in 1853. Fires in 1855 and 1862 led to the current two-story stone-and-brick structure. The hotel was renamed for owner D.P. Holbrooke in 1879 and was designated California Historical Landmark No. 914 in 1974.
Groveland, CA
The Groveland Hotel, opened in 1849 along the Sierra foothills route to Yosemite, is the oldest hotel in the Yosemite area and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The eighteen-room inn has operated continuously through the Gold Rush, the highway era, and a 1990s restoration.
Hanford, CA
The Irwin Street Inn & Restaurant at 522 N. Irwin Street in Hanford, California was built in 1886 as part of the Victorian-era development of Hanford, the Kings County seat. The property comprises four Victorian houses arranged around a courtyard, with antique furnishings and period stained glass windows. It was converted to its current use as a restaurant and inn around 1980 and has operated under multiple owners since.
Harbor City, CA
Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park — known locally as Harbor Park — sits at the junction of Wilmington, San Pedro, and Harbor City, half a mile from the Los Angeles Harbor. The park is the third-largest in the City of Los Angeles and preserves one of the only remaining coastal-Los Angeles wetland environments. The land was historically a meeting point of Dominguez, Sepulveda, and Machado holdings and included Gabrielino-Tongva village sites.
Hayward, CA
Lone Tree Cemetery in Hayward was established around 1868–1870 and is among the oldest cemeteries in southern Alameda County. It is the resting place of many area pioneers, including city founder William Hayward, and has hosted the area's longest-running continuous Memorial Day observance since 1903. Its name comes from the 'Legend of Lone Tree,' a tragic folk tale predating the city.
Imperial, CA
Imperial Historic Cemetery operated from 1903 to 1949, holding 205 recorded burials on land donated by Anthony Heber, who originally deeded 80 acres to the City of Imperial. Located on Clark Road in the Imperial Valley desert, the cemetery's highly alkaline soil destroyed most concrete markers and eliminated all wooden ones. Only 30 markers remain of the original 205. The site is no longer in service and is surrounded by chain-link fencing.
Ione, CA
The Preston School of Industry in Ione, California was established by the State Legislature as a reform institution for juvenile offenders — emphasizing rehabilitation over imprisonment. The cornerstone was laid in December 1890, and the Romanesque Revival building, designed in the Richardsonian style, opened in June 1894. The school operated until 1960, when new facilities were completed on the same property. Notable alumni include Merle Haggard, Rory Calhoun, and author Eddie Bunker.
Keeler, CA
The Belshaw House was constructed in 1868 by Mortimer Belshaw, one of California's most prominent silver barons. Located within the Cerro Gordo ghost town, the structure represents the apex of 19th-century mining prosperity. Belshaw pioneered silver transportation from the mines, operating the Yellow Road toll road that connected mining operations to Los Angeles.
Lancaster, CA
The Western Hotel Museum at 557 West Lancaster Boulevard occupies the oldest standing building in Lancaster, California, constructed in 1888. The two-story Victorian served travelers under multiple names, was longest associated with owners George and Myrtie Webber, and was designated California Historical Landmark No. 658 in 1958.
Lathrop, CA
The Mossdale Bridge over the San Joaquin River near Lathrop completed the first transcontinental railroad on September 6, 1869 — the final link from the Missouri River to the Pacific. The original wooden Howe truss swing bridge was rebuilt in steel in 1895 and replaced entirely in 1942 with the current vertical-lift Warren through-truss design. It is registered as California Historical Landmark 780-7.
Lemoore, CA
The Kings River flows through Kings County in California's Central Valley, passing through agricultural communities including Lemoore. The stretch near Elgin Road has been associated with drowning incidents — the hazards of irrigation canals and seasonal river flows have been a documented concern in the Central Valley for more than a century.
Livermore, CA
Morgan Territory Road traces a 19th-century logging route connecting Santa Cruz timber operations to Eastern Contra Costa County. The surrounding land takes its name from Jeremiah Morgan, an Alabama-born pioneer who crossed the plains by ox-wagon in 1849 and established a ranch on Mount Diablo's eastern flank in 1857. The East Bay Regional Park District began acquiring the surrounding preserve in 1975; it now encompasses 5,230 acres.
Lompoc, CA
La Purisima Concepcion de Maria Santisima was founded on December 8, 1787, by Father Fermín de Lasuén as the 11th of California's 21 Franciscan missions. A devastating earthquake in 1812 destroyed the original complex; the rebuilt mission at its current location opened in 1821. In 1824, the mission was the epicenter of the Chumash Revolt — the largest Native American uprising against Spanish colonial authority in California history — which ended in the deaths of indigenous people and soldiers alike.
Lynwood, CA
Lynwood City Park at 11301 Bullis Road in Lynwood, California is a 23-acre municipal park operated by the City of Lynwood's Recreation Department. The Shadowlands account documents a 2003 fatal incident involving a young man riding a bicycle at this location during daylight hours.
Magalia, CA
The Depot Restaurant & Cafe in Magalia, California, occupied a building that began life as a railroad depot before being converted into an eatery in 1977. For decades it was a fixture of the Paradise–Magalia Ridge community until the building was destroyed in the November 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history.
Menlo Park, CA
The Coleman Mansion was completed in 1882 in Menlo Park, California, designed by architect Augustus Laver as a wedding gift commissioned by Maria O'Brien Coleman for her son James and his bride Carmelita. The mansion has housed Peninsula School since 1929.
Modesto, CA
Acacia Memorial Park was established in 1872 as the Masonic Cemetery by Stanislaus Lodge #206 Free and Accepted Masons. The cemetery expanded in the 1920s through land acquisition from the Odd Fellows Cemetery, and was officially incorporated in 1917. It remains an endowment-funded burial property.
Mokelumne Hill, CA
George William Léger, born in 1815, established his hotel in Mokelumne Hill around 1851, during the height of the California Gold Rush. The building has burned and been rebuilt twice, with the stone portion of the current structure surviving the 1874 fire. In 1866, Léger purchased the adjacent Calaveras County Courthouse after the county seat relocated to San Andreas and incorporated it into the hotel. Hotel Léger is among the oldest continuously operating hotels in California.
Montebello, CA
The site of Bluff Road and Washington Boulevard in Montebello marks the location of the Battle of Río San Gabriel (January 8, 1847), a key engagement during the Mexican-American War. Approximately 500 Mexican forces under General José María Flores were positioned on bluffs overlooking the San Gabriel River when American forces under Captain Robert F. Stockton and General Stephen W. Kearney attacked. The battle ended in a Mexican defeat and was strategically significant in the American military campaign for California.
Moreno Valley, CA
The Nason Street bridge over Interstate 215 in Moreno Valley was constructed in the 1950s and has long been the center of a local gravity hill legend. A 1996 UC Riverside study on gravity hills determined that the perceived uphill roll of a vehicle placed in neutral on the approach is an optical illusion produced by the relative positions of trees and surrounding terrain. No bus accident involving children at this location has been verified in historical records.
Moss Beach, CA
Frank Torres built the Moss Beach Distillery in 1927 as a speakeasy called Frank's Place, positioned on ocean cliffs above a secluded Half Moon Bay beach to facilitate rum-running operations during Prohibition. The location attracted San Francisco politicians and silent film stars; mystery writer Dashiell Hammett was a regular and used the setting in his fiction. Torres's political connections kept the establishment free from raids. After Prohibition ended in 1933, the operation transitioned to a legitimate restaurant that has operated continuously since.
Mountain View, CA
Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View, California was commissioned in 1933 as a naval airship station, designed to house the massive USS Macon dirigible. Its landmark Hangar One, built between 1931 and 1933, covers 8 acres and remains one of the largest freestanding structures in the United States. The airfield became NASA Ames Research Center's home in 1994.
Nevada City, CA
The National Exchange Hotel opened in 1856 in Nevada City when the surrounding town was the largest and richest mining settlement in California. The classical-revival brick hotel hosted miners, businessmen, and President Herbert Hoover, and is widely regarded as the oldest continuously operating hotel in California. A full restoration completed in 2021 returned the building to active service.
Newbury Park, CA
The Stagecoach Inn Museum in Newbury Park began as the Grand Union Hotel, constructed in 1876 as a rest stop on the Los Angeles to Santa Barbara stagecoach route. The building served as a stagecoach stop, post office, church, restaurant, and military school before being moved to its current site in the 1960s when the original location was threatened by highway development. The original Inn burned in 1970; the present building is a meticulous reconstruction.
Oceano, CA
Coffee Adam Rice built the Queen Anne Victorian house at 2531 Cienaga Street in Oceano in 1885 — the same year the family suffered multiple tragedies, including the death of a son in a riding accident and the deterioration of his wife's health. In 1905, the Temple of the People, a Theosophical intentional community based in the adjacent Halcyon settlement, purchased the property and operated it as the Halcyon Hotel and Sanatorium until 1925.
Oceanside, CA
Hunter Steakhouse opened in 1967 at 1221 Vista Way in Oceanside, on land that previously served as the Buena Vista Cemetery. When the cemetery was cleared for development, not all the dead followed — at least according to the restaurant's accumulated reputation over six decades of operation. The chain operated as Hungry Hunter until 2008, when the Oceanside location became independently owned.
Ojai, CA
The Ojai Valley Inn opened in 1923 as a private golf club, designed in Spanish Colonial Revival style on land in the foothills above the small town of Ojai, California. The resort is a member of Historic Hotels of America and has hosted figures from Hollywood's classical era including Clark Gable and Judy Garland.
Orange, CA
Holy Sepulcher Cemetery is a Catholic burial ground established in 1930 in the Santiago Canyon hills near Orange, California. It is the largest of the cemeteries operated by the Diocese of Orange and serves as the resting place for many diocesan priests, along with Catholic families across Orange County. It has served the community for nearly a century.
Palmdale, CA
Una Lake is a small sag pond in the San Andreas Rift Zone of the Antelope Valley, immediately east of Lake Palmdale along Sierra Highway in Los Angeles County. The lake was separated from the larger original water body in the 1870s when Southern Pacific constructed a raised causeway across the lake bed. The South Antelope Valley Irrigation Company stabilized the pond as a year-round water source in 1897. The property is fenced and patrolled by private security.
Petaluma, CA
The Phoenix Theater first opened in 1904 as the Hill Opera House, built by William Hill, and hosted performers including Harry Houdini and Enrico Caruso. After fires in the 1920s and 1957 the building was rebuilt and renamed multiple times, finally becoming the Phoenix in 1983. It now operates as an all-ages music venue and youth community center.
Placentia, CA
Tri-City Park is a public recreational space straddling the boundaries of Placentia, Yorba Linda, and Anaheim in Orange County. It offers lakeside walking paths, sports facilities, and picnic areas. No formal historical events are documented at the site.
Placerville, CA
Placerville, California, earned the name Hangtown during the California Gold Rush after a large white oak in the town center served as a vigilante execution site from 1849 to 1853. The tree was cut down in 1853, but the stump remained beneath a two-story building constructed in 1895 over the same lot. The site is California Historical Landmark No. 141. The Hangman's Tree Ice Cream Saloon opened at this address in 2017.
Pleasanton, CA
Gay Nineties Pizza occupies an 1864 building on Main Street in Pleasanton, one of the oldest commercial structures in the city. Originally a general store, bar, and Wells Fargo stagecoach stop with 10 rooms for travelers, the upper floor later housed a brothel. Chinese railroad laborers excavated underground tunnels connecting the building to the nearby Pleasanton Hotel. The restaurant has operated at this location for over 65 years.
Pomona, CA
Spadra Cemetery is a 2.5-acre pioneer burial ground established in 1868 on land donated by rancher Louis Phillips. It is nearly all that survives of Spadra, a stagecoach-era town founded in 1866 on the former Rancho San Jose. The last burial took place in 1971, and the site is now owned and maintained by the Historical Society of Pomona Valley.
Port Hueneme, CA
Bard Mansion, also known as Berylwood, was constructed in 1912 by California Senator Thomas Bard as a family residence in Port Hueneme. The Spanish Colonial Revival structure remains a significant architectural landmark, now located within Naval Construction Battalion Center Port Hueneme. The mansion serves as the historical centerpiece of Port Hueneme's cultural heritage.
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
The Sycamore Inn occupies a site on what is now Historic Route 66 in Rancho Cucamonga that has housed travelers since the 1850s. The original Mountain View inn, built by William Rubottom in 1856, was the scene of a murder in 1862 and a vigilante conspiracy shortly after. The current building dates to 1920; Danish immigrant Irl Hinrichsen renamed it The Sycamore Inn in 1939.
Rancho Dominguez, CA
The Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum occupies the 1826 adobe ranch house of Manuel Dominguez, on land first granted to his uncle Juan Jose Dominguez by King Carlos III of Spain in 1784. The 75,000-acre Rancho San Pedro was the earliest Spanish land grant in California. The site was the location of the 1846 Battle of Dominguez Rancho.
Reedley, CA
The Reedley Opera House, also known as the Jansen Opera House, was built in 1903 by Danish immigrant Jesse Jansen following a 1902 fire that destroyed most of downtown Reedley. The brick building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and is now home to the River City Theatre Company.
Salinas, CA
Old Stage Road in Monterey County was historically part of the stagecoach route between San Francisco and Los Angeles, passing through Salinas and continuing toward Hollister and San Juan Bautista. The road is documented in regional histories and in the USC Digital Folklore Archives as the setting for several California ghost legends.
San Bernardino, CA
St. Bernardine Medical Center opened on a foundation laid October 10, 1931 in San Bernardino, California, founded by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word at the request of local surgeon Dr. Philip Savage. Today it is a 342-bed nonprofit hospital operated by Dignity Health at 2101 N Waterman Avenue.
San Gabriel, CA
The San Gabriel Mission Playhouse is a 1,387-seat historic theater in San Gabriel, California, constructed between 1923 and 1927 to house John Steven McGroarty's Mission Play. Architect Arthur Burnett Benton designed the building in Mission Revival style with a facade modeled on Mission San Antonio de Padua. The theater was renamed San Gabriel Civic Auditorium in 1945 and reverted to its original name in 2007.
San Miguel, CA
Mission San Miguel Arcángel was founded by the Franciscan order on July 25, 1797, the sixteenth of California's missions, on Salinan land. After secularization it briefly passed into private hands, and in December 1848 it was the scene of one of early California's most notorious crimes — the murder of eleven people in the Reed household. It is a National Historic Landmark and remains an active parish of the Diocese of Monterey.
Santa Cruz, CA
Adolph's Restaurant operated as a Santa Cruz institution from 1939 onward, serving as a gathering place for judges, lawyers, and the local community. Located proximate to the Santa Cruz County Courthouse, the restaurant became a judicial landmark. The building itself dates to the 1800s and is steeped in the city's legal and commercial history.
Santa Maria, CA
The Historic Santa Maria Inn opened in 1917 as a 24-room hotel built by Frank J. McCoy to serve travelers along El Camino Real. Today the property has expanded to roughly 164 rooms while retaining its original wing. Its early guest book included Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Bette Davis, Bing Crosby, and President Herbert Hoover.
Santa Paula, CA
The Glen Tavern Inn opened in 1911 in Santa Paula, California, designed in the Tudor-Craftsman style by architects Burns and Hunt during the Ventura County oil boom. The inn hosted Hollywood guests including John Wayne, Harry Houdini, and Clark Gable, and its third floor served as a Prohibition-era speakeasy, gambling parlor, and brothel.
Saratoga, CA
Bella Saratoga occupies a two-story Victorian home built in 1895 in the heart of Saratoga Village. The building previously served as the home of the Saratoga News, and before Bella Saratoga opened in 1993, housed another Italian restaurant. The 1895 structure is one of the older commercial buildings in the village.
Scotia, CA
The Scotia Inn, now rebranded as Scotia Lodge, operates in the historic company town of Scotia, California, founded in 1863 as Forestville by the Pacific Lumber Company. The first unit of the new Mowatoc Hotel, later renamed Scotia Inn, was constructed in 1923 to house company guests visiting what was then the world's largest redwood sawmill.
Seaside, CA
California State University, Monterey Bay is a public university in Seaside, California with reported paranormal activity on campus.
Simi Valley, CA
Sycamore Park is a Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District property in Simi Valley, California, featuring trails through native oaks and sycamores and a landmark known as Elephant Rock. Historical photographs document use of the park as early as the 1940s.
Soledad, CA
Los Coches Adobe in Soledad, California began as a two-room adobe completed in 1843 by William and Maria Richardson. By 1854 it served as a stop on the Butterfield Overland Stage and the San Juan Bautista-Soledad line. Donated to the state in 1958, it is a designated California Historical Landmark.
Sonoma, CA
Mountain Cemetery in Sonoma was founded in 1841 and is among the oldest continuously operating burial grounds in California. The 80-acre site contains the graves of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and his wife, William Smith — the only confirmed Revolutionary War veteran buried in California — the founder of Sebastiani Vineyards, and two members of the Donner Party. It sits within the Sonoma Plaza Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Springville, CA
The Springville Inn has stood at the entrance to the Giant Sequoia National Monument since 1912, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Tulare County, California. It serves as both a historic lodging property and a restaurant with banquet space for up to 250 guests, anchoring the small town of Springville at the gateway to the giant sequoia groves.
Stevenson Ranch, CA
Mentryville was founded in the Santa Susana Mountains by Charles Alexander Mentry, a French-born oil field superintendent, following the first commercially successful oil strike in California on September 26, 1876. The town supported over 100 families at its peak before declining after Mentry's death in 1900 and becoming a ghost town by the early 1930s. The property is now managed as a public historic park by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.
Stockton, CA
The San Joaquin County Courthouse in Stockton is the third on its downtown site. The building visitors see today is a 13-story, 301,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2017, replacing a mid-century modernist courthouse from 1964 that itself replaced an 1890 domed courthouse designed by Elijah E. Myers.
Summerland, CA
The Big Yellow House was constructed in the late 1800s by H.L. Williams, founder of Summerland. Originally built as a private residence, the structure was converted to an upscale restaurant by John and June Young in the early 1970s. The building remains a visible landmark from Highway 101, though the restaurant has closed.
Sutter Creek, CA
The Sutter Creek Inn occupies the former residence of Edward Voorheis, a California state senator and mining executive, in Sutter Creek's historic Gold Country main street. In 1966, Burlingame mother of five Jane Way purchased the property and converted it into what is widely cited as the first bed-and-breakfast in the western United States.
Thousand Oaks, CA
Mount Clef Hall is a dormitory at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, built in 1961. Local legend claims the dorm was constructed on the site of a former hotel where a small child was murdered.
Torrance, CA
Bishop Montgomery High is a private Catholic secondary school in Torrance, California. The school operates as a religious educational institution administered by the Catholic Church.
Vallejo, CA
Operates inside the 1927 Vallejo City Hall building. Documents the history of Vallejo and the adjacent Mare Island Naval Shipyard, established 1854 as the first U.S. naval base on the West Coast and closed in 1996.
Victorville, CA
7th Street is the heart of historic Route 66 in Victorville, California. Established as the primary thoroughfare through town when Route 66 was authorized in 1926, the street preserves mid-20th-century automobile culture with period buildings, museums, and iconic Route 66 landmarks including the California Route 66 Museum and the New Corral motel.
Watsonville, CA
Mt. Madonna County Park encompasses land that was once part of the holdings of Henry Miller, the German immigrant who became the largest private landowner in California through the cattle business and was known as the Cattle King. Miller owned over 1.25 million acres at his peak. The park, administered by Santa Clara County, preserves the ruins of Miller's mountain estate and occupies the ridgeline on Highway 152 west of Gilroy.
West Covina, CA
Emil and Gladys Galster donated 42 acres on the north slope of the San Jose Hills to the City of West Covina in 1971, stipulating that the land remain a wilderness park available for educational use by scouting organizations. The park is operated by the San Gabriel Mountains Regional Conservancy in partnership with the city. The nature center building is largely closed; trails remain open daily.
Wheatland, CA
The area surrounding Camp Far West Lake holds significant Nisenan (Southern Maidu) historical importance. The Nisenan inhabited the region from the Sacramento Valley into the Sierra Nevada, spanning modern Placer, Nevada, Yuba, Sacramento, and El Dorado counties before European contact. Camp Far West was established as a military post in 1849 to manage conflicts between indigenous populations and gold-rush settlers, though it ultimately could not prevent the decimation of the Nisenan people.
Yucaipa, CA
Mill Creek is a 17.8-mile stream originating in the San Bernardino Mountains that historically served as the site of the first commercial three-phase alternating current power station in California. The Mill Creek No. 1 Hydroelectric Plant, a 250-kilowatt facility near Redlands, came online in 1893. Spanish missionaries introduced irrigation from the creek via the Mill Creek Zanja as early as 1819.