CALIFORNIA
FOUNDED | 1876
ABANDONED | 1940s
CALIFORNIA
BODIE
(BOH-dee)
Gold Discovered | 1859
Founded As Town | 1876
Elevation | 8,379ft (2,554m)
Population | 10,000+ (1879) 0 (2016)
Mined Gold Value | $34,000,000+
U.S. National Historic Landmark
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
California Historical Landmark
75 Miles Southwest of Lake Tahoe
70 miles Northeast of Yosemite Valley
The hills around Mono Lake sit high in the Sierra Nevada Range in Mono County California. It's nestled between Yosemite National Park and the Nevada border. Originally inhabited by the Mono Lake Paiute Indians, white man eventually settled the area and in 1859 prospector W.S. Bodey (boh-dee) struck gold in the hills. The town of Bodie, which bares his name, though of different spelling, has no shortage of tales and legends: some fact, some fiction and some a combination of the two. It’s up to each individual to decide. The last of California’s mining towns, founded in 1876, was well known for being the epitome of the wild west lifestyle. Murders, shootouts, stage-coach hold-ups, barroom brawls and robberies were part of Bodie’s fabric during the boom, yet families still found a home there. The boom only lasted a few years, but there was plenty of activity up until 1942 when the population was 8 people. Those last residents had an untimely end in Bodie according to legend. During its height, Bodie boasted 10,000 residents, 450 businesses and 30 mines. The mines alone produced more than $34 million though some say more than $100 million in both gold & silver during their lifetimes. The exodus began in the 1890s and was about complete by the 1930s when a major fire destroyed 90% of what was left in the town. Not all the residents left though. Bodie is said to be a true ghost town, with spirits still inhabiting the mines and 110 structures still standing. Today Bodie is a State Park and a National Historic Landmark managed by the Bodie Foundation and welcomes more than 200,000 visitors each year. In 2010, my Fiancé (then girlfriend) and I visited Bodie while on an epic California road trip that took us through Yosemite, over Tioga Pass and onto Bodie. What was supposed to be a short stop in a small ghost town turned into a day with the spirits, history and structures of Bodie. I brought a camera along and this is what we learned.
1859
IN
W.S. BODEY
STRIKES GOLD
1876
THE STANDARD COMPANY
DISCOVERS HUGE GOLD VEIN
TRANSFORMING BODIE OVERNIGHT
FROM MINING CAMP TO BOOM TOWN
DIED
THAT WINTER HE
IN A BLIZZARD
BODIE
1877
OCTOBER 10
THE STANDARD PIONEER JOURNAL
OF MONO COUNTY
PUBLISHED IT'S FIRST PAPER
SERVICE BEGINS AUG. 5 1878
A BUSTLING
BODIE'S FIRST DAILY
10,000+
1879 POPULATION TOPS
OFFICIAL 1880 US CENSUS: 2,712
Bodie’s residents enjoyed the new flow of cash into the town and they needed a way to spend it when they weren’t working. The boomtown didn’t disappoint. There were many opportunities for hard working miners to relax and let loose. Infamous brothels on Bonanza Street, China Town’s opium dens, and more than 65 saloons that lined the streets of Bodie gave prospectors endless opportunities to indulge themselves at the end of the day. As common in most boomtowns, bar fights, shootouts, and hold-ups were daily occurrences. Bodie was especially unruly and was well known throughout the west as lawless and turbulent. A quote by Reverend F.M. Warrington sums up Bodie as “a sea of sin, lashed by the tempest of lust and passion” and The Sacramento Union wrote that Bodie was experiencing the “wildest, maddest years the west has ever seen.” The remote location, the three breweries supplying the many saloons and vast amounts of gold and money combined to make Bodie the baddest town in the west. A resident named Mike “Bad Man” McGowan, who came to Bodie by way of Virginia City, 120 miles to the north, was well known for biting off the ears, noses and thumbs of unlucky folks he would scrap with at local drinking establishments. Gamblers by the hundreds came to Bodie in an effort to exploit the riches the hills provided. Prostitutes, con-men, and other illicit types also settled in Bodie comfortably. A young girl moving to Bodie with her parents from San Francisco wrote in her diary, “Goodbye God, we’re going to Bodie,” knowing the anarchy that awaited her. Bodie’s one-armed sheriff, Dan McMillan, was also the manager of the town’s baseball team. He was probably the busiest Sheriff in the west, "have a man for breakfast?" was a saying in Bodie which meant 'did anyone get killed last night'?. Robberies were also a major problem regular stagecoach service to Carson City, Aurora and Bridgeport multiple times a day gave thieves ample targets for hold ups going in and out of Bodie. Even the Miners Union's first president, Alex Nixon was shot in a saloon fight.
In 1859, W.S. Bodey and "Black" Taylor came to the Mono Hills with gold rush fever. Before long, they had found what they were looking for and mined nearly $500 worth of gold from the hills. Immediately, they set up a mining camp and hunkered down for their first winter in the Mono Hills. The winters in the hills are unforgiving though and while on an excursion to get wood, Bodey broke his leg and couldn’t move. By the time Black Taylor had returned with help, the ground and W.S. were covered in several feet of snow. Reports differ to whether his body was ever recovered. Some say it was never found; others say it’s buried outside of town; while others still tell stories of his skull hanging in saloons across Bodie. In the early years after Bodey & Black's discovery, mining in Bodie was slow but sustainable. Nearby Gold Rush towns of Aurora and Virginia City were both seeing major booms at the time, while Bodie was still just a small mining camp. It was around this time the first spelling of Bodie appears as we know it today. According to a well-respected Judge at the time, the spelling was changed by a “painter with an eye to the beautiful” who thought the spelling was more aesthetic when he was painting a sign reading “The Bodie Stables”. And so it stuck. Bodie remained a small mining camp of just a few hundred miners until 1876 when The Standard Company unearthed a massive gold vein after a mine collapse. Word spread quickly and soon miners from around the country set their sights on Bodie. With workers living in such a remote area, services for daily life were essential and businesses sprang up quick to fill these needs. A general store, a bucket fire brigade, and regular stage coach service began to transform the small mining camp into a full fledge boom town. On July 10, 1877, The Standard Mining Company began production at their stamp mill and the boom was on! Construction was rapid as mines, housing and business went up to accommodate the mass of people that came to Bodie in search of riches. In 1878, The Bodie Mining Company made a huge discovery of their own and stocks soared almost overnight. Money and people poured into Bodie and by 1879, the population of the town reached over 10,000 with over 2,000 structures.
IN 1881 ORE PRODUCTION TOPPED
$3.1
MILLION
ONE GIRL WROTE IN HER DIARY
GOD
GOODBYE
WE'RE GOING TO
BODIE
"
"
65
BODIE'S
SALOONS
OPIUM
DENS
& THE FAMOUS BONANZA ST.
RED-LIGHT DISTRICT GAVE THEM EVEN MORE OPTIONS FOR DEBAUCHERY
CHINA TOWN'S
ONE-ARMED SHERIFF WAS A BUSY MAN
COACH
HELPED MINERS SPEND THEIR HARD EARNED PAY
BODIE'S
BUT FOUND TIME TO
THE BODIE
BASEBALL TEAM
1882
IN
THE FIRST
CHURCH
IN BODIE
WAS BUILT
Despite its reputation, Bodie attracted more than just rough mine workers. Both entrepreneurs and families found a home in Bodie during the short boom and for years after. One of those entrepreneurs was James Stuart Cain and his new bride Martha Delilah Wells in 1879. Born in Quebec, Canada in 1954, it didn’t take Cain long to make his mark in Bodie. After buying and running his own mule team in Carson City, Cain eventually got a contract to start floating lumber across Mono Lake and hauling it 20 miles into Bodie from the shore. Like most secluded Boom towns, a steady supply of wood was crucial to life, as it was used for construction, steam engine fuel, cooking and heat, as well as many other daily uses. Cain had his hands in a lot of different business in the area. In 1880, the Firm of Anton, Cain and Hopkins was awarded a contract to build the new courthouse in Bridgeport 35 miles from Bodie. Then in the mid-1880s he and others leased a land block from The Standard Consolidated Mining Company and began to mine for gold. The land he leased yielded $90,000 in gold in just 90 days making him and his partners very wealthy. Eventually he bought The Bodie Bank in 1890 and was the sole Wells Fargo agent in town until 1912, when the banking giant pulled out. Cain was the primary factor in electricity coming to Bodie, when his Standard mine got power in 1892. Thanks to James, Bodie was one of the first U.S. boomtowns to get electricity and marked the longest transmission of power at the time. Before leaving Bodie in the late 1930s to be with his beloved wife in San Francisco, he left a caretaker to watch over the town. Jim Cain ultimately owned most of the buildings and land in and around Bodie, which The Cain Family continued to own until the 1960s, when the town became a California State Park. James S. Cain passed away in 1938 and his wife later in 1943. He and his family are the reason Bodie is a State Park and National Historic site today. Thanks, James.
Cain was the most prolific, but certainly not the only entrepreneur in Bodie. At its height, Bodie had more than 450 active businesses, including hotels, barber shops, bowling alleys, a racetrack, a plethora of saloons, 3 breweries, 5 newspapers, blacksmiths, drugstores, law firms, sawmills, and more than 30 mines. The volcanic rock in Bodie, where all the mines dug for riches, is almost 10 million years old. The ancient rock yielded millions of dollars a year during the boom in both gold and silver. In early 1878, The Syndicate Mill crushed 1,000 tons of ore in one month, worth more than $600,000. Soon after a mine collapsed on June 1, 1878 at the Bodie Mining Company, a sizable gold vein was unearthed unintentionally which led to the coming rush. According to the California Division of Mines and Geology, over $34 million in Gold and $7 million in silver was harvested from the mines between 1876-1940. Other estimates put that number over $100 million. When the rush began, firms like Bodie Bluff Consolidation Mining Co and the Red Cloud Mine sprang up and were followed by assayers and mine index companies. Gold and silver were big business; but so was alcohol. Saloons were the biggest industry in Bodie behind mining and there was no shortage of choices in the boomtown. The American Flag Saloon, Snug Saloon, Dividend Saloon, and Gunn’s Saloon were some of the 65 watering holes that patrons of Bodie had to choose from. Restaurants had a heavy presence in Bodie. At one point, Bodie had over 100 eateries including Nevada Restaurant & Chop House, Polar Eating House and Bon Ton Eating House. In Bodie you could get a room and a meal for under $2 at establishments like The Swazey Hotel, which still stands today. An underrated profession in Bodie was the town doctor. Jon L Berry M.D. came to Bodie from Bellevue Hospital in New York City, he ran an office and a drug store in the town. In 1892 a major fire destroyed a large portion of the business district, further solidifying the decline of this once bustling town.
BODIE BANK
IN TOTAL BODIE'S MINES PRODUCED AN ESTIMAED
1ST
SOME ESTIMATES PUT THAT NUMBER OVER $100 MILLION
ELECTRCITY
IN1892
MADE BODIE THE
ONLY
1 MORE WAS EVER BUILT
$34
MILLION IN GOLD
MINIG TOWN IN THE COUNTRY T0 INSTALL IT
IN BODIE WAS HARD
LIFE
32
93.2"
O
AVG. ANNUAL
SNOWFALL
TEMPS FALL BELOW
WOOD
WAS INTEGRAL IN BODIE
IT WAS USED FOR
COOKING HEAT
FUEL FOR STEAM ENGINES
& CONSTRUCTION
(MOST IN LOWER 48 STATES*US CLIMATE DATA )
308 DAYS A YEAR
Life in Bodie was arduous and not for the weak. Not only was being shot or robbed a real threat, it's said a man was shot everyday in Bodie except Sundays, but the winters were notoriously brutal. Bodie gets an average of 93.2 inches of snow a year with some winters seeing more than 200 inches of snowfall. It also holds the distinction of having the most days a year that fall below 32 degrees. 308 days a year it drops below freezing in Bodie, which is the most anywhere in the lower US. Even summer nights can be dangerously cold. Summers days aren’t much better, no shade and California sun make the days scorching. The weather is partly to blame for the decline in Bodie. While the rush was underway, though, the town was a bustling melting pot of miners, families, entrepreneurs, professional gamblers, seedy con artists, Chinese immigrants, Native People, lawyers, and tradesmen. Tradesmen were an important part of Bodie’s society. Almost as important as the wood they worked with. Wood was integral in Bodie, but it sits above the tree line so Logs were hauled in over Mono Lake and brought to the saw mill. Wood was used for cooking, heating, it fueled the burners for steam engines, all the houses in Bodie are wood and the mines were shored up with wood. The mines and miners were the lifeblood of the town and the Miner’s Union Hall was the heart. Meetings, Dances, firemen’s ball and even Church services before the Methodist Church was built in 1882, all went down at the miner’s union hall. The International Order of Odd Fellows hall was also a center of activity and had a gym for member to work out in. Saloons were another gathering spot in Bodie and as you’ve read there were plenty to choose from. The posh Philadelphia Beer Depot was called “the handsomest pub in Bodie” and was patronized by all classes, which ran the gambit in Bodie. As the boom waned the rougher crowd and the weaker souls left Bodie within just a few years of arriving. By the mid 1880s the decline was in full swing. A few mines and heartier souls remained but by 1890 Bodie’s population was down to less than 2,000 people. Not everyone was giving up on Bodie, James Cain was buying property like wild fire.
In 1892 a fire ripped through the business district and destroyed dozens of homes as well. This major disaster furthered the migration out of Bodie. That same year The Standard Company, with help from majority share holder James S Cain, built a hydroelectric plant 13 miles away at Dynamo Pond. The plant delivered 3,530 volts of AC power to the company’s mill, which was the first transmission of electricity over a long distance, anywhere. This lead to one of many small resurgences that Bodie would see through out its years. As technologies like, electricity, combustion engines, automobiles, advances in mining techniques and better understanding of geology came to Bodie, so did waves of populations. During these waves came a couple of famous, or infamous, women. Rosa May, known as the hooker with the heart of gold, is said to have nursed sick miners during a plague and has a book written on her, Rosa May: The Search for a mining camp legend. Eleanor Dumont “Madame Mustache” was a well known gambler who was born in France and came to America as a young girl. In her later years she later ran a brothel and would parade her girls through town, much to the disgust of “proper women”. Newspapers reported she committed suicide by overdosing on morphine after losing big in a card game earlier in the night while in Bodie. An incredible fire in 1932 destroyed nearly 90% of the structures that were left in the town after all the previous fires. The fire was reportedly started by a 3 y/o boy playing with matches. Despite this people still stayed in what was left of Bodie, by 1940 the official population was 90 but by the mid 1940s that number was down to 8 people. A post office operated in Bodie until 1942. One of the 8 residents was a caretaker hired by Cain to keep vandals and looters at bay. 5 of the remaining residents are said to have met untimely ends. A man accuses his wife of cheating, a fight ensues and he shoots her dead. After hearing the shots 3 men in the town came to investigate and then took the law into their own hands, hanging the murdering husband. The ghost of that husband is then said to have haunted the men until they all died within a year of the incident. Some ghost stories are just that, stories. Others, though, are harder to explain.
1910
BY
THE POPULATION HAD DECLINED TO
ONLY 698 RESIDENTS
90%
BY A MASSIVE FIRE
IN 1932
OF BODIE
WAS DESTROYED
1917
AFTER CLOSING
IN
THE BODIE
RAILWAY'S
IRON RAILS WERE
SCRAPPED
1942
BY
THE CAIN FAMILY
OWNED MOST OF
BODIE
ONLY A MINE A POST OFFICE AND A FEW BRAVE SOULS
BECAME
LANDMARK
TODAY 200,000+
IN
EXPLORE 110
VISITORS A YEAR
REMAINED
HISTORIC
BODIE
A
1961
NATIONAL
DWELLINGS
Ghost stories and old mining towns go together like moonshine and mason jars. Bodie is no exception. Many of the structures still standing today are said to have spirits of from the past who never wanted to ..or could, leave the mining town. Rangers and visitors both report hearing audio apparitions like strange out of places noises, laughter, voices, music and loud bangs from empty buildings. One of Bodie’s most famous residents’ house hosts one of it’s most famous ghosts. The Cain house is said to be haunted by a heavy set Chinese maid who worked for the Cain family. Park rangers and their families who have stayed at the house report sightings of the maid and music coming from empty rooms. A few have even reported waking up with the woman sitting on their chests unable to catch their breath. Its also said she loves children but not adults. A Ranger doing some reading In the Mendocini House heard what sounded like a “party” coming from inside the house. Upon yelling to the spirits he had work to do the noises stop. The same house is said to smell of Italian cooking when opened in the spring after the winter. The spirits don’t just inhabit the houses of Bodie. Bodie’s cemetery on Boot Hill is home to the spirit of a little girl. A Man visiting with his young daughter reported her playing and giggling with a “friend” that no one else could see. The apparitions weren’t just humans in their former lives either, a white mule can be seen roaming the hills of the mines. In total there are about 12 spirits that are said to still call Bodie home. Bodie has a way of holding onto you once you’ve been there. The Curse of Bodie goes beyond the park and follows visitors home that take more than pictures and memories with them from the park. Park goers that steal items that were left behind by Bodie residents report streaks of terrible luck and even tragedy after returning home with their “souvenir” and often make all efforts to return the items by mail or even in person in hopes or reversing the curse. Most visitors, however leave things just the way they found them so others can enjoy the beauty of the decay.
Today Bodie stands in it’s famous state of arrested decay exposing visitors from all over the world to it’s unique character. The California State Parks and The Bodie Foundation, Co-administers of the park, welcome more than 200,00 visitors each year. The Bodie Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the town’s history and its structures that still stand today. Visiting Bodie is an adventure in itself as it’s way off the beaten path. Following Route 270 east until you reach a dirt road that you then follow for another 3 miles before finally reaching the ghost town of Bodie, California. What the park lack in facilities it makes up for in character. There are restrooms and a bookstore on site and not much more. Come prepared with water snacks and something warm as it can get cold quick in Bodie even in the summer, being 8,300+ feet up. Take away knowledge & photos from Bodie but leave the things you find. Bodie was abandoned and many things were left how they were so there’s “trash” like old soup cans, car parts, tools and other metal workings strewn about the town. It’s important to leave these things where they are. Most structures’ interiors are off limits to the public, but a couple are open and the mines are open for tours daily. The staff and Rangers are friendly and always happy to share their vast knowledge of the town. The Bodie Foundation hosts different events throughout the year. 3 nights a year they open the for ghost tours and stargazing walks and in August they host Friends of Bodie Day featuring BBQ, music and vendors. If you love History, the wild west, photography opportunities, ghost hunting or abandoned spaces; then Bodie is a must visit for you. With Yosemite, Mono Lake, Lake Tahoe, Mammoth Lakes and Reno, NV all within driving distance it’s worth it’s own vacation. The park is open year round but the winter is only accessible by skis, snowshoes or snowmobiles during most months. Call for condition information prior to your stop, being a mountain town conditions can change fast. Bring your buddy with you because dogs on leashes are always welcome in Bodie!