Bodie, California, Classic Old Western Ghost Town

If you’ve never read a story or seen a movie or television show that includes a western American ghost town, I’d be surprised.

Ghost towns are evocative symbols of our transitory existence. Once lively with people, enterprise, even industry, they stand forlorn, abandoned, the effort and aspirations of the former inhabitants now crumbing to dust.

Ghost towns provide writers and filmmakers an enormous, literally blank slate. Without people, traffic or cell service to complicate things, they’re perfect settings in which to hide kidnappers, runaways, disaffected geniuses, bad guys, mad scientists, deposed political leaders, aliens, zombies — even the occasional ghost. Maybe the ultimate ghost town movie would have ’em all!

Although the American west may come first to mind when you hear the phrase, “ghost town,” there are ghost towns everywhere, on every continent. We may have the film industry to thank for the iconic place the ones in the western U.S. hold in our imagination. The arid landscape leaves the old towns weathering for decades without being overgrown by forest or washed away.

Recently, I visited one of the best-known and most picturesque Old West ghost towns: Bodie, California.

Like many ghost towns, Bodie owed both its ascent and fall to one commodity: gold.

After 1848, prospectors swarmed the hills, mountains, valleys and ravines of the western U.S. looking for gold, silver and minerals. Gold fever reached the barren Bodie Hills in 1876, when prospectors discovered significant gold deposits. The place didn’t just boom, it exploded. By 1879, there may have been 7,000 residents.

There were mines, stamp mills processing ore, three daily newspapers, a bank, railroad, volunteer fire companies, miners’ and mechanics’ unions, and fraternal organizations. In addition to shops and stores, hotels and boarding houses, Bodie had 65 saloons and TWO (!) churches.

The hotels offered all the sophisticated comforts one could desire.

Shops were stocked with fashions from San Francisco, staples, canned goods and you can even see a snow sled on the left of the next photo.

And then it all went away.

The gold began to play out, and new mining ventures beckoned across the mountains and deserts of the west. The prospectors, miners, card sharps, flim-flam men and women made tracks for the hot new properties, and Bodie dwindled. By 1890, the place was a shadow of the thriving gold rush city.

Die-hards hung on, as did one of the stamp mills. Some survived the ruinous depression at the end of the old century, the new century dawned, but Bodie languished and declined. With World War Two, the death knell: The stamp mine was closed as a non-essential industry.

The remaining residents drifted away by 1942. The last teacher locked the doors of the schoolhouse, which had once boasted 600 students.

Peering through the dusty windows, you can still glimpse the desks, blackboards, and a map of Europe and the Middle East. Judging by the countries it shows, I estimate it must’ve been printed about 1940.

Bodie in the Present Day

The site is now a California State Park as well as a National Historic Site. The town has been left in a state of “arrested decay.” Of the hundreds that once comprised the town, 110 structures still stand. Bodie is a major attraction, and draws tens of thousands of visitors each year. Don’t let the presence of other humans deter you. Bodie is worth a visit.

What distinguishes Bodie is that you roam freely, everywhere. You can confine your visit to strolling the length of Green Street and back.

Or you can wander off along once-lively side streets that are now sagebrush-choked pathways. Reminders of an abandoned world are everywhere.

With every step, if you look down, you’ll find some artifact — a piece of broken crockery, some cast-off bit of iron work. Look through windows to see houses, shops, hotels just as they were left by the last inhabitant.

You can go into a handful of the buildings to get a closer look.

Visiting Bodie State Park

Bodie sits on the western slope of the mountains near California’s eastern border with Nevada. Turn off U.S. Route 395 32 miles north of the junction with California 120 at Lee Vining, near Mono Lake, or seven miles south of Bridgeport.

Turn east on paved Bodie Road, Route 270. The road is narrow, but picturesque. The pavement ends after 10 miles, leaving three miles of unpaved road that can be rough at times. Your Lamborghini won’t make it, but most conventional cars will.

It’s a state park, managed by the non-profit Bodie Foundation. There’s an $8 entrance fee per person. Pay it and smile. The person who collects from you is volunteering their time. Summer hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The park is open year-round, but snow often closes the road, restricting access to skis, snowshoes or snowmobiles. Visit the park website for more details.

Caveats

Be prepared for possible weather extremes. Due to its 8,375 foot elevation and situation on bare, exposed slopes, Bodie occupies an unusual subarctic climate zone. It is almost always colder than the valley below, sometimes significantly so. In the history of record-keeping, there has never been a month in which the low temperature did not drop below freezing at least once. The wind can be strong. Winter conditions can be brutally harsh.

The high altitude sun can be fierce, and the humidity is often low. Drink additional water. There are restrooms at the park, as well as drinking water.

Don’t forget the camera. “Photogenic” doesn’t begin to describe Bodie, under the western sky.

Have a favorite ghost town? Leave a comment.

Licensable, high resolution versions of a few photographs in this post, and select images from other Under Western Skies posts are available on Shutterstock.com. Click on the linked photos, or CLICK HERE to view the Underawesternsky photo portfolio.

© Brad Nixon 2018. Map © Google, with my emendations.