Location: 75 mi (120 km) Southeast of Lake Tahoe Map
Found: 1859
Bodie Ghost Town is one of the most beautiful and spectacular abandoned settlements in United States. In essence it a time frozen in time with all buildings, people's items and cars left in place where they were left by people. Town of Bodie in California was named after Waterman S. (Bill) Bodey who discovered large gold deposit north of Mono Lake in 1859. Unfortunately for him a winter storm caught him off guard and he froze to death. A mining camp on the gold mine site was named after him.
Things were going slow for Bodie until 1875 then a large pocket of precious metal was discovered after an accidental cave in. It quickly swelled to 10,000 residents. Resident homes, stores and 65 saloons lined its busy streets. With large amount of cash came violence and sin. In addition to common vices like gambling, prostitution, theft and others killings reached incredible proportions. "The Bad Man from Bodie" became a legend. One of the local pastors described Bodie as "a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion". It did not last too long however. Mining extracted much of gold from surrounding mountains and two major fires in 1892 and 1932 swept through the area. Since then no restoration or rebuilding have touched this truly gem of a ghost towns.
In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain
family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and
to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the
last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.
Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.
The town was
designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the
state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park.
A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as
California's official state gold rush ghost town.
Visitors
arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to
the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a
road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is
extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad
state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are
usually closed in winter.
Today, Bodie is preserved in a
state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived,
with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once
operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a
town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as
they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park,
one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an
occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of
the park.
The California State Parks' ranger station is
located in one of the original homes on Green Street.
In 2009
and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California
state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the
state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2012, the
park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.
Bodie General store
The ghost town of Bodie is located east of San Francisco, in Mono County, on the border with Nevada.
In 1859, a certain William S. Body discovered a large deposit of
gold in Mono County, about 20 kilometers from Mono Lake, in the
Sierra Nevada mountains. In the same year, he froze to death
during a snowstorm while trying to get to the nearest town to
replenish food and supplies. Nevertheless, members of the Bodie
family founded a town on the site of his mining and named it
after the gold digger. In 1861, they began to mine gold here.
After the Standard Company, which was developing this
deposit, discovered another rich gold mine in 1876, Bodie began
to grow rapidly. If in 1876 there were only 30 permanent
residents, by 1880 their number had reached 10,000 people. At
that time, the city flourished: 65 saloons were open around the
clock, there was a red-light district, a Chinese quarter with a
Taoist temple, 7 breweries, several newspapers were published,
its own railway station was opened, and churches of various
directions were built. At the same time, Bodie, this gold rush
city, became the center of crime and lawlessness in the Wild
West; a place where murders, robberies, attacks on mail coaches,
and the like took place daily.
A few years later, due to
a decrease in income from gold mining, caused by a fall in world
prices for this precious metal, residents began to leave Bodie.
By 1900, that is, in 20 years, the population of the city had
decreased by 10 times. In 1917, the railway line leading to
Bodie was dismantled. After a severe fire in 1932, when the
entire business center burned out, Bodie's fate was sealed. In
1942, the post office that had been operating since 1877 was
closed here. However, gold veins near the city were mined until
the mid-1960s. Those who worked for them came to Bodie from
neighboring towns.
Bodie State Historical Park
In
1962, the California Bodie State Historic Park was created.
Bodie is considered the best-preserved ghost town in the United
States. In the city, you can see approximately 170 buildings and
structures that survived the fire of 1932, among them a church,
a school, a bank branch, a bar, a trading shop, a mine
management, an old cemetery, etc. The houses, including the
interior, are preserved in the same form as they were 70-100
years ago. Excursions are organized to the mine where the
gold-bearing rock was mined. For visiting the historical park of
Bodie, visitors are charged $ 5, the administration closely
monitors the order on the territory of Bodie; It is strictly
forbidden to take anything from the park as "souvenirs". Due to
the dry local climate, the preservation of buildings in Bodie is
almost perfect.