mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
There are a thousand ghost towns spread across the western United States — a whole constellation of loss and ruin — but most are little more than foundations, or at best a few tumbledown shacks, or if the people who lived and died there did anything of note, and if they’re lucky, a sun-faded commemorative plaque mounted on a squat stone pillar. The ghost town of Bodie, however, is another story altogether. A mining boomtown, it was the third most populous city in the state of California in 1880. By the 1940s sickness, wars, bad weather and exhausted mines had led to the town’s desertion, and its isolated, inhospitable location made certain that it stayed that way; no one eyed this high desert waste, 8,000 feet above sea level between Yosemite and the lonely Nevada border, and imagined a shopping mall in its place. Count us all lucky.
Only five percent of Bodie’s structures are still standing, but considering how large Bodie was, that’s still a lot for a ghost town — more than two hundred. And unlike Tombstone, Calico or any number of other “preserved” ghost towns in the West, it’s not a tourist trap where you can buy cotton candy from gunfight-staging actors playing oldey-timey cowboys; the town is kept in a state of “arrested decay,” which means the park rangers that patrol its dusty streets focus on making sure what’s left of Bodie doesn’t fall down, but they could care less about painting, weatherizing or cleaning up the decades-old trash that’s heaped everywhere.
I bought a little self-guided tourbook at the gate when I visited. It’s full of fascinating tidbits, which I’ll be quoting below:
By 1879 Bodie boasted a population of 10,000 and was second to none for wickedness, badmen and “the worst climate out of doors.” One little girl, whose family was taking her to the remote and infamous town, wrote in her diary: “Goodbye God, I’m going to Bodie.” The phrase came to be known throughout the West.
The old general store has been turned into a small museum. Other than that, the buildings remain untouched. Sitting creepily in the back of that museum was this vintage hearse, which once plied the streets of Bodie with its morbid cargo. (Awesome band name: “Morbid Cargo.”)
Killings occurred with monotonous regularity, sometimes becoming almost daily events. The fire bell, which tolled the ages of the deceased when they were buried, rang often and long.
Below: a hollow grave in the Bodie cemetery, used for hiding bottles of liquor during Prohibition.
Robberies, stage holdups and street fights provided variety, and the town’s 65 saloons offered many opportunities for relaxation after hard days of work in the mines. The Reverend F.M. Warrington saw it in 1881 as “a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion.”
Above: the Methodist church, erected in 1882 and abandoned in 1932. “Since then, the interior has been badly vandalized, and the Ten Commandments painted on oilcloth which once hung behind the pulpit (’Thou shall not steal’) has been stolen.”
Below: a saloon, as seen through a hole in the door.
I’m not sure if this sign is original, but it leads to the approximate location of Bodie’s red light district, where ladies of the night “lived and worked in a row of one-room cabins called ‘cribs.’”
Rosa May was the town’s most famous prostitute. Born in Pennsylvania, she ran away at age 16 and drifted west, where she worked as a prostitute in mining camps to survive. She moved to Bodie in 1890, where in 1911 she died after caring for sick miners during a pneumonia outbreak. (Yep, a hooker with a heart of gold.)
Considered a hero by the miners, she was nonetheless buried beyond the gates of the town cemetery because of her profession, alongside murderers and other Bodians of ill repute. Her sad wooden headstone, split from age and temperature fluctuations, reads
Rosa Elizabeth White
“Rosa May”
Born Jan. 1855
Died in Bodie, in the winter of 1911-1912.
Sacrificed herself for Bodie miners.
In the 60s, a descendant of one of the miners she saved erected a new tombstone for her a few yards away:
They might not have been able to save Rosa May, but they did save her red light, which hangs in the town’s small museum.
Lots of fascinating junk still sits rusting around Bodie. Old cars especially:
Inside this house, you can still see — if you squint — wire hangars in the closet.
All that’s left of the old bank is the vault. The rest of it burned in the fire of 1932, which devastated much of the town.
There aren’t many houses in Bodie you can actually go inside, with a few super dangerous exceptions, like this place. Through the window you can see the old Standard Mine and Mill, the massive success of which took the town from a population of 20 in 1878 to 10,000 just two years later. Between 1860 and 1941, it produced nearly $100 million in gold and silver.
The drive to Bodie is a beautiful one. I had to stop and take a picture of this pasturing herd of sheep.
Most houses in Bodie are filled with the same things that houses in ghost towns everywhere are filled with: broken old crap. See what I mean:
I kept thinking how lonely this place must be at night.
Believe it or not, Bodie is open year-round — even in the dead of winter, when snow piles up five feet high and they stop plowing the roads. There’s always a park ranger or two on the property to ensure that vandals don’t wreak havoc or start fires, so if you decide that 20 miles on a snowmobile is doable, they’ll happily collect your five dollars and let you wander around (in snowshoes). I think that’s kinda cool.
I found this postcard in an antique store a few weeks ago. It represents all that Bodie is not:
If you’re interested in getting prints of any of these photos, they’re available here.
For more photo essays, check out my website.
Comments (29)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
Wow, awesome article! Thank you!
posted by Kristen on 10-5-2009 at 7:58 am
Your photo essays are always my favorite. Another job well done!
posted by bev on 10-5-2009 at 9:05 am
Another awesome job, Ransom! You need to do a coffee table book, dude. :-) I’d buy that.
reCaptcha = ‘New Cabal.’
posted by Roger on 10-5-2009 at 10:27 am
Love the photo essays, Ransom. And I hate to do this, but it’s a pet peeve. The park rangers “couldn’t care less.” “Could care less” is the opposite of what people mean when they use that phrase.
The grammar nazi will now relinquish the soap box . . .
recaptcha: al- brann, a new kind of breakfast cereal?
posted by Peter on 10-5-2009 at 11:26 am
My dad has a small obsession with ghost towns and Old West history. He drives into the Colorado mountains just about every weekend (actually, it’s probably closer to every other day now that he’s retired) to take pictures and preserve the history of these places. The stories are just fascinating and it’s sad to see the state of shambles some of these places are in – though I will say that I’d rather see something like that opposed to fake cowboys, loudspeaker “gun fights” and airbrushed souvenir t-shirts. Dad feels the same way, as you can tell if you peruse his site – http://www.rockymountainprofiles.com.
posted by kate on 10-5-2009 at 11:45 am
^kate–i checked out your dad’s site and enjoy seeing the pics. i even bookmarked it for later perusing during downtime. i always liked history and its cool to see people help preserve it like you father.
and i concur ransom’s photo essays are always my favorite too.
posted by j on 10-5-2009 at 12:22 pm
Fantastic, as always! Thank you.
posted by Melodye on 10-5-2009 at 1:27 pm
Many woman like Rosa, and some less wordly, contributed much to the opening of the frontier. Frequently they married into some very respectable families making a new life. Sadie Orchard of New Mexico for example. And of course there is the story of the Unsinkable Molly Brown and the compassion of Silver Heels and in Colorado.
posted by Rocky on 10-5-2009 at 1:32 pm
Always love your posts, Ransom. Thanks!
posted by Alicia on 10-5-2009 at 1:45 pm
Whast’s up with the saloon pic? Is it occasionally open to the public? It looks clean (okay, dusty) and stocked.
reCAPTCHA: the shorted
yes, we Americans all feel that way these days
posted by Bubba on 10-5-2009 at 3:19 pm
Bubba,
My guess on the saloon is that some tourists left some of those bottles. I spot a couple of very modern Dos Equis bottles and a possibly a modern Becks bottle. I can’t say with certainty that I could resist sneaking in and having a beer at that bar myself (but I’d take my bottle out with me, as I was taught take only pictures, leave only footprints.)
The whole place looks almost like a film set. Really neat. Great photos.
posted by Melissa on 10-5-2009 at 3:58 pm
You took beautiful pictures. Bodie is very lonely at night…and CREEPY. But you can clearly see the Milky Way, so it’s worth it!
posted by Leslie on 10-5-2009 at 4:03 pm
As always, great article, Ransom! Put me down for a copy of your book (if you ever get around to writing one)!
posted by Steve from San Diego on 10-5-2009 at 4:36 pm
beautiful and eerie, well done, as always
posted by ac on 10-5-2009 at 5:55 pm
Great article. I visited Bodie as part of a side trip from summer camp in the early seventies. It was the best part of the whole camp trip.
posted by Beirne on 10-5-2009 at 8:52 pm
I love your photos, and it reminds me of my visit to Bodie when I was a kid in the early 1980s. Not much has changed, it seems. But I remember my grandpa talking about how he visited Bodie several times in the twenties when people still lived there. I wonder if any photos exist of the town before the fire. It might be an interesting comparison.
posted by Aljo on 10-5-2009 at 8:53 pm
Outstanding photos! Thanks for a great article.
posted by Tex on 10-5-2009 at 10:32 pm
I nearly never post comments but I had to for this one just to tell you how much I enjoyed your essay.
You took really nice photos that (I felt) really captured what the town must be like now.
Keep up the great work!
posted by Lola on 10-5-2009 at 11:54 pm
This kind of stuff interests me to no end. It is a shame I live in Rosa’s home state and will probably never see it. I hope they prosecute the crap out of people who deface the buildings. The saloon was incredible!
posted by R Brown on 10-6-2009 at 9:41 am
Love Bodie. Been there multiple times. Great photos.
Supposedly, when the phrase “Goodbye, God. I’m going to Bodie” became famous around the West, the promoters of Bodie got angry and insisted that instead, she meant, “Good! By God, I’m going to Bodie!” Yeah, I’m not buying it, either. :)
posted by John Bejarano on 10-6-2009 at 11:21 am
We were in Bodie a couple of years ago and this certainly brought back memories. It is everything you say, well worth the trip even if it is off your route. The atmosphere is electric!
posted by Pauline on 10-7-2009 at 7:59 am
Great shots- I know that it’s challenging to get decent photos through old and dusty glass.
Did you not get told the “Curse of Bodie”? Apparently anyone who takes anything away from the town site as a souvenir is cursed with bad luck until they return the object.
The story continues that people will trek long distances to return a piece of broken glass, an old nail, or a mere stone, and that anonymously mailed packages containing the same such detritus are regularly delivered to the ranger station, along with stories of woe and hopes that the curse will be lifted.
posted by Brian on 10-8-2009 at 8:58 am
I lived for two years in Tonopah, NV. It is very reminescent of Bodie both in landscape and history. In 2005, it was at times eerie, like living in a post apocalyptic world. There was oftentimes not a living sole around in my apartment complex on the outskirts of town. There were dozens of deserted businesses along Main Street. Now, with the escallation of gold prices, some mines have reopened and the town is rebounding somewhat. If you’re ever in Tonopah then I recommend the Tonopah Mining Museum. You’ll see mine shafts, crevices where silver was mined, original buildings, homes, tools and equipment all about. It is worth the visit.
posted by Victor Easley on 10-8-2009 at 12:29 pm
That is so cool! Thank you for the GREAT article and pictures! :)
posted by Bonnie on 10-8-2009 at 9:10 pm
Here is a half hour documentary on Bodie from the fifties. It shows what the town looked like before it was a state park…
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX9GRx1naB0
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNqtB7z_ssw
posted by Stephen Worth on 10-13-2009 at 5:04 pm
The HDR is awful.
Why do so many people use HDR as a crutch these days?
posted by Jason on 10-13-2009 at 5:31 pm
Fantastic picture tour — thanks. There’s a new novel I’ve just found that gives the same ghoulish effect. ‘The Great North Walk Companion’ This tells the tale of a truly wonderful trail of 250 km between Sydney and Newcastle. To find treasure hunt elements, including beautiful engravings; historic and peculiar obelisks; and mysteries that have occurred along The Great North Walk: murders, disappearances and inexplicable deaths – http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com/Companion
posted by John Kendrew on 10-14-2009 at 12:29 am
This creepy little ghost now has a game in it’s honor
Check it out at http://www.ghosttownmysteries.com
posted by Alex on 10-27-2009 at 9:58 pm
im new to reading your essays,but im very impressed,i went through all of the ones here that i could find.im a big history fan and have recently gotten into reading on different ghost towns and bordellos from back in the day,along with the legends and tall tales that go with them keep up the good work!… oh and peter,thank you so much for being a “grammer nazi” my friend and i had a 45 minute argument over that exact phrase years ago…im glad someone else,somewhere else,feels my pain:]
posted by chavela on 11-16-2009 at 1:11 am