The Pinal County Historical Society Museum in Florence, Arizona has on display a handcrafteddoll that is linked to one of the most salacious and sensational criminal cases of the 1930s. The Museum of Connecticut Glass in Coventry, Connecticut has a glass bottle that bears a secret message from a heart-wrenching saga that consumed a family. And in Portland, Maine, the International Cryptozoology Museum has a wire mesh window screen through which a horrific and legendary beast was first viewed by human eyes.

The National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland has in its collection a glass vial filled with a silvery salve that was used to wage a battle against a medical nightmare. The Charles E. Young Research Library at the University of California-Los Angles has a colorful canvas that hides an artful truth. And the Finney County Historical Museum in Garden City, Kansas contains a boot worn during a notorious murder that shook a small town to its core and inspired an American literary masterpiece.