Bodie State Historic Park

Bodie is a genuine California gold mining ghost town, located ten miles north of Mono Lake. After the discovery of the Comstock Lode at Virginia City in 1859, there was a rush to the surrounding high desert country and Bodie rose to prominence. In its heydey in the 1880s, the town boasted a population of about 10,000 and soon had a reputation for wickedness, wild west badmen and terrible weather. At an altitude of almost 8,400 feet, it freezes every night in Bodie, and winters are long and treacherous.

As the town's mining operations closed down, Bodie's population declined. The 1920 US Census set the number of residents at 120, and today only five percent of Bodie's original buildings remain. In 1961 Bodie was declared a National Historic Landmark, and in 1962 it became a California State Historic Park, where everything remaining of the original town is now being preserved in a state of "arrested decay."

We visited Bodie on the morning of September 6, 2013.

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