Carol M. Highsmith Archive photos from the 1980s

Long-abandoned hospital building, used to quarantine sick arriving immigrants, on Ellis Island immigration station

Santa Claus drifts off while reading about Abraham Lincoln, whom Mathew Brady photographed in the same building on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C

Wright Brothers plane in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C

Empire State Building at night.

Aerial view looking north across National Mall 16059v

Aerial view of Washington, D.C., offering a good view of the "triangle" in the Federal Triangle row of federal office buildings

Aerial view showing the Reflecting Pool 17233v

Hammering Man" art, Seattle, Washington

Great White Throne," Zion National Park, Utah

Cheesehead" fans of the Green Bay Packers football team come out in droves with their head gear and bratwursts to support the team in Green Bay, Wisconsin

Bowfront" buildings on Warren Street in South End, Boston, Massachusetts

Grey Towers," the 1892 turreted home of sugar refinery owner William Welsh Garrison in Glenside, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Dancing fountains" show at the Bellagio Hotel and Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada

Fish thrower" at the Pike Place Fish Company, Seattle, Washington

Bottle House," an artist's home made largely of bottles near Beaumont, Texas

California Hornblower" at the ferry terminal, San Francisco, California

Fiesta-Jarabe" sculpture at the Otay Mesa Border Station southwest of San Diego, California

Calliope" bed in the Celestial Suites room of the Hotel Astrodome in Houston, Texas

Bowfront houses" in South End, Boston, Massachusetts

Big Brutus," a giant strip-mining shovel that once roared across the southeast Kansas countryside, digging bituminous coal in West Mineral, Kansas

Jalepeno Sam" Lewis raises armadillos and races them, often at Texas's renowned chili cook- offs

Pass-through" barn in the Amana Colonies, Iowa

Pie lady," Sydney Pratt, gets a lot of customers from hikers on the Appalachian Trail, Monson, Maine

Lonnie's Castle, the home of neurosurgeon and longtime Nevada lieutenant governor Lonnie Hammargren, Las Vegas, Nevada

Ignorance to Wisdom," a totem scupted and painted by Lane Technical High School teachers and students, Chicago, Illinois

"Personage and Birds,"

Booker T. Washington National Monument, Hardy, Virginia

The Hiker" statue, Austin, Texas

"Spirit of Enterprise"

Shotgun house" in the Bywater neighborhood, New Orleans, Louisiana

Sno-cone" stand, New Orleans, Louisiana

Three Gossips" formation, Arches National Park, Utah

'Iolani Palace, in the capitol district of downtown Honolulu, Hawaii

'Chiropodist room' at the Fordyce Bathhouse, once the most opulent of such establishments along Bathouse Row in Hot Springs, Arkansas

'Old Main' at the University of Arizona, which opened in 1871 as the first building at Arizona Territory's pioneer college in the Sonoran Desert

10-sided barn, Sturgis, South Dakota

'The Pont' Overlook on Skyline Drive, which is also a crossing point of the Appalachian Trail, in Northern Virginia

'The Windows' at Arches National Park, Utah

'Big Brutus' strip-mining shovel in southeast Kansas

11th & E Streets, N.W., image of a historic block in Washington, D.C. before it was demolished for new construction

'Orange Show' art site, Houston, Texas

'Pass-through barn' in Iowa's Amana colonies

'Head shop' on Haight Street in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco, California, where the hippie movement was headquartered in the 1960s

'The Windows' formation along 'Park Avenue' in Arches National Park, Utah

'Top Hat' formation, first sight along the Columbia River by Lewis and Clark on their expedition. Oregon

The U.S. Capitol at dawn, Washington, D.C.

16-side round barn built in 1792 by George Washington on his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia

1920 round barn made of hollow tile near Sioux Falls, South Dakota

1920s-vintage advertising flier for the Bassett's Ice Cream stand in the Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

13th Street, N.W., neighborhood in Washington, D.C

Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Original convention center, Washington, D.C.

Jefferson Memorial with cherry blossoms, Washington, D.C.

Looking east from the Washington Monument, down the National Mall toward the U.S. Capitol past a parade of national museums in Washington, D.C.

National Mall image taken from the Washington Monument, Washington, D.C.

Spring cherry blossom time at the Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Tea Party ship, Boston, Massachusetts

Dawn over the White House, Washington Monument, and Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C

National Mall image taken from the Washington Monument, Washington, D.C

1964 New York World's Fair site in Queens, New York