If you find yourself sitting in traffic on 1-35 in South Austin, you might find your eye drawn to Whip In's vintage neon sign. For almost 40 years, this fusion eatery has been a touchstone of the city's craft beer scene. In 1986, Amrit and Chandan Topiwala bought a convenience store in the Travis Heights neighborhood. At first, the unassuming building...

In the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Grand stands a massive, high-density housing complex sometimes described as a "palace," known for its postmodern architecture often associated with dystopian aesthetics. Named Espaces d’Abraxas after the Gnostic deity, it was designed by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill, who sought to create an unusually palatial low-income...

Each week, Atlas Obscura is providing a new short excerpt from our upcoming book, Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders (September 17, 2024). In the early twentieth century, some prairie dog towns stretched for hundreds of miles. Cowboys and naturalists passing through described acres of sociable rodents, who would pop...

Athens has had numerous fortification walls around the city since ancient times. These walls were mostly made with scavenged material, primarily spoila from the buildings and monuments destroyed by earlier invaders mixed with mudbrick. In the 5th century BCE, Athenian statesman Themistocles feared the Persians would re-invade Athens, so he urged...

 The Copper River and Northwestern Railway completed the Gilahina Trestle in 1911. The main reason for its construction was to transfer mined copper from the mines in Kennecott, Alaska to Cordova. Amazingly, this trestle bridge was completed in just eight days. The bridge contains 273 wooden trestles over 880 feet. The height of the Gilahina Trestle...

In honor of Endangered Species Day, held each year on the third Friday of May, we found some of the world’s most elusive creatures in the Atlas Obscura archive. Meet Puerto Rico’s wide-eyed frogs, Finland’s freshwater seals, and Indonesia’s singing dogs—and the scientists and citizens working to protect them. Puerto Rico’s Most Adorable Frogs Live...