The Ghost Town of Bodie, truly worth the visit

 

John R Beyer - ready for some visiting

According to Ranger Jake, the ghost town of Bodie is truly haunted.

“Well, I’ve never had an encounter with any real ghosts or stuff like that,” he stated. “But, the state rangers who reside in the town itself says there are some really strange things that go on after dark.”

“With the staff, or the ghosts?” I asked.

Being a ranger, Ranger Jake didn’t see the humor in my question. “No, with things they cannot explain.”

Bodie, which is part of the California State Historic Park system, was known for all sorts of things in its heyday – a mining boomtown, violence, drinking, violence, gambling, violence, and more of the same.

A section of downtown Bodie

The state park is located about twenty miles south-east of the town of Bridgeport. It’s an easy drive, suitable for any vehicle. 

Just east of the tall and beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountain range, the drive to Bodie is beautiful any time of the year. Highway 395 is always a great route to take, and the thirteen mile easterly drive along Highway 270 to Bodie is paved all the way, excepting the last three miles. But, those three miles are hard packed making the journey relatively easy.

Except in winter, when a snowmobile or a bunch of Huskies dragging a sled should be the mode of travel. They get a lot of snow in this part of California.

In fact, one of the original discoverers of the gold in the area was W.S. Bodey, who perished in a fierce snowstorm in November of 1859, while bringing supplies back to the small mining camp from nearby Monoville to the west. 

His friends decided to name the town after him, but the name was misspelled when a sign painter in another mining town, Aurora, mistakenly painted ‘Bodie Stables’ over a horse stable. The spelling stuck.

Though gold had been discovered in Bodie in 1859, it was years before the settlement went from a few tough and stubborn miners to its boom years.

It wasn’t until 1876, that the Standard Company found a large and rich vein of gold-bearing ore. Almost overnight, the sleepy little town of Bodie suddenly found itself on the verge of becoming one of the largest towns in California.

With all that gold, there has to be a bank vault

By 1879, the population had soared to nearly ten thousand folks and two thousand buildings, which consisted of houses, saloons, hotels, meeting halls for the miners, fire stations, schools, and so much more that makes a town a town.

According to some research I did, Bodie, at its peak had 65 saloons just on Main Street, which was a mile long. That is a lot of places to wet one’s whistle, and all in walking distance.

But, as I stood overlooking what was left of Bodie, it didn’t seem that large. Sure, there were two to three streets with homes, businesses, a church, and a school, but not much more to hint that ten thousand people had resided here at one time.

 “You have to understand that Bodie, like many frontier towns experienced numerous fires,” Ranger Jake stated. “It was like a plague for these places built out of wood.”

In fact, so many fires occurred in this town that only five percent of the structures remain to this day. The last major fire was in 1932, which pretty much wiped out the downtown district of Bodie.

As I wandered through the town, I wondered how it would have been to live here during the great mining days. Bodie was a twenty-four/seven sort of town.

Nine large stamp mills crushed the ore dug up from the ground around the clock from the thirty mines located in the area. The echoes from the machinery must have been loud in this town built in a valley. The gold bullion was shipped to Carson City, Nevada and each shipment had to have armed guards since robbery was something Bodie had to deal with.

With mining booms, no matter where, lower social elements usually arrived to take advantage, and Bodie was no exception.

Robbery, gun fights, stabbings, opium dens, gambling halls, brothels, were an integral part of the life in Bodie. In this incident, integral is not to be misunderstood as something positive – nope, not positive but just a fact of life for the towns in the Wild West.

A horse drawn hearse, appropriate for Bodie

As with any mining district, there is the beginning and eventually the ending. Bodie saw the population start to dwindle starting in 1880 when other ‘promising’ booms were reported in places like Butte, Montana and Tombstone, Arizona.

With miners leaving, so did much of the rougher crowds which meant the remaining citizens of Bodie were families. In 1882, the Methodist Church was built, and still stands today. Then a Roman Catholic Church was built, followed by a school house, and more properties suited for a more genteel population.

The Methodist Church in Bodie

The ore was not good, but not bad either, and families were able to make a living in Bodie. With new technology in the 1890’s though, more ore could be found using a cyanide process, which allowed miners a chance to go through the old mill tailings and extract the gold and silver just lying there.

I’d explain the cyanide process, but I don’t want to sound too scientifically nerdy.

But, things eventually turned south for Bodie and according to the U.S. Federal Census of 1920, only one hundred and twenty people resided there. The post office officially closed in 1942, and by 1943 only three people were on hand to keep the town from being looted and vandalized.

In 1961, Bodie was designated a National Historic Landmark, and in 1962 it became the Bodie State Historic Park. With nearly one hundred and seventy buildings still standing, the town has become known as California’s official state gold rush ghost town.

It was early, being the first tourist there, I wanted the place for myself – the park closes at six p.m. during the summer, and though I had planned to spend the night there to see if any ghosts or goblins walked the streets, no overnight stays are allowed – unless you are one of the ranger residents.

As I wandered here and there through the dusty streets of Bodie, I could almost hear the mills thumping away in the nearby hills. The sounds of people laughing seemed to be floating along the slight breeze heading east along Main Street. 

Bodie is referred as in a state of arrested decay, which gives the illusion of people just getting up and leaving their abodes.

The houses, businesses, and the rest which remain today have heavy metal screens over the windows and doorways for good reason.

Looking in through those windows is such a strange sensation. Dinner tables with dishes, utensils, and drinking glasses set around empty chairs. In an accountant’s office, there are ledgers, ink pens and a pair of reading glasses on a desk. In the schoolhouse there are desks with text books resting on them as if the children are simply out for recess.

It's as though the family will be returning

      

A tailor shop, waiting for customers in Bodie

It is a haunting experience to walk the streets of Bodie.

Prior to the anti-theft measures put up by the state, visitors would often take ‘relics’ or ‘souvenirs’ with them when they left the town.

So much so, that the Bodie Curse was invented by a ranger at the park. Legend has it that if an article is taken from Bodie, then bad luck will surely be upon the thief and their family.

When news of this was made public, all sorts of things were mailed back to the park with notes such as: ‘Hey, didn’t mean to steal the shoes from the schoolhouse but now I have two noses.’

I met up with Ranger Jake during a tour of the Standard Mill, and after a great and interesting hour long tour, I asked him more about the paranormal sightings in the park.

“Like I said,” he stated. “I have never had experienced anything out of the ordinary but those rangers who live here say they see shadows going across doorways. Perhaps, voices where no one should be. It seems that in the evenings is when spirits, if there are any, tend to come out.”

According to some other ghostly research, there is a woman with a large basket in her hand, wearing a white hood and wearing a black and white dress, who comes out at midnight and walks a bit before vanishing. Another is a tall figure carrying a light who enters the mines and wanders there until dawn.

Just before the last folks left Bodie, a man murdered his wife and then three men killed him for the murder. Later, the killer returned and yelled at his killers – those three other men died of diseases shortly there-after. Now, these four seem to visit the town or the cemetery from time to time.

Is Bodie haunted? I don’t know, but walking those lonely streets with houses, businesses, and other establishments as though people just stood up and walked away, is creepy enough.

It’s as though, at any moment, a door will open and a family will descend onto the street wondering what activity may be awaiting them.

I didn’t see that happen, but in Bodie, it seems anything could.

A haunting view, east of downtown Bodie