Bodie is a gold rush era ghost town east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Mono Lake California. In its heyday it was a wild west era boomtown with shoot outs, bar-room brawls, stage-coach robberies, and murders. Dust and mayhem in the old wild west!
It had a jail, saloons, a red light district, and a morgue, everything you needed in the lawless frontier, just like all those western movies we’ve all watched.
Bodie also had a Chinatown with an opium den and Taoist temple. I don’t remember Taoist temples in the old western movies, do you? I guess this doesn’t quite fit with the six-guns and society ethos of those movies.
There was a Catholic and Methodist church, to counteract the lawless ways of the frontier, no doubt.
Bodie was founded in 1859 and at its peak it had a population of almost 10,000 people and around 2000 buildings.
It began to decline as a boomtown in the 1890’s, and became more of a family oriented frontier community.
There was a doctor’s house, a town hall, a couple of hotels, a barber shop and a schoolhouse, and I would imagine much less murder, mayhem, and general excitement.
By 1910 there were 688 people living in Bodie, and by 1915 people started referring to it as a ghost town even though it was inhabited by a few hangers-on until around 1942.
Bodie is now designated as a protected state historical park and is maintained but not improved.
We encountered several wild west ghost towns in the Eastern Sierra, some we found while hiking which were completely unexpected and quite a surprise. Each of them gives you the wonderfully eerie feeling of walking back in dusty time.
Cheers to you from the living ghosts of the old wild west~
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these are great! thanks for sharing. my mother grew up in a western coal mining town in the 1920s that became a ghost town when the industry declined.
Yes, sounds very similar to Bodie. She must have some incredible stories to tell. I imagine life in one of these towns would have been wonderful for a child. So much to explore!
I haven’t been to Bodie in a long time. I love the Eastern Sierra – going to have to make a trip there again soon.
The Eastern Sierras are gorgeous and there is so much variety in things to see and do. I look forward to hearing about your trip~
One of my faves is Rhyolite, Nevada, not to far from Beatty as you leave Death Valley. Last time I was there it had two residents and they didn’t like each other.
“it had two residents and they didn’t like each other.”
Classic! So cool that you visit there.
There’s a town I always drive through called Red Mountain. It has around 100 or so residents and one tavern. I really need to stop in Red Mountain and get a sense of what life is like there.
One of the residents was Wheelbarrow Tommy and the original bottle house that they replicated at Knott’s Berry farm is there. Wheelbarrow Tommy was a legend in his own mind and lived in the bottle house. He was a pretty good guy. A true desert rat. I haven’t been there in a very long time, but it used to be a regular stop.
It sounds incredible. Might you be persuaded to do a post on this????
I love these photos – spent much of my childhood pretending to be a cowgirl in Oregon (!) – loved and still love the idea of the Wild West – too many John Wayne films I suspect 🙂
Yep, I was addicted to Laura Ingells Wilder books as a child, so any wild west ghostowns take me right back to my childhood imaginings~
Looks like time travel….
Beautiful images Cindy 🙂
7th one in this series is just awesome for the beautiful light and vivid colors 🙂
Thank you Sreejith. I was fascinated by the interiors and had to restrain myself from posting more photos of them. The pharmacy was incredible too!
I almost wish they would bring it back to life. Great pictures Cindy
It was almost like you could blink your eyes and you would be on a colorized western movie set!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MZDChdOjOV8/hqdefault.jpg
I looked at the pictures and smiled. I too thought about Western movies and wanted to see more.
The thought of them makes me smile! 🙂
Spooky and beautiful!
There are a couple of young rangers who live in one of the buildings, protecting the town.
What an awesome job for a young person!
Interesting !
Thanks!
What a cool piece of history, I actually love the wild west history, would like to live there a bit isolated(more than a bit I guess) I just wonder if they have wifi over there
I kinda doubt it. There are young rangers who live in one of the houses to protect the town. I was thinking how cool this would be until you mentioned the lack of wifi!
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Sí. Seguro que los fantasmas de los antiguos habitantes merodean por allí 😉
Siempre produce una sensación extraña ver lugares abandonados con enseres de sus últimos moradores. ¿Qué les hizo alejarse para no volver? Siempre quedan preguntas por responder y la imaginación se pone en marcha. Así se escriben las buenas novelas 🙂
Si. Esto es por que amo pueblos fantasmas. Quiero hablar con algunos fantasmas, pero no quiero hablar conmigo! Que esten bien mi querida amiga~
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Love this! David Carradine’s character from “Kung Fu” would have felt right at home in Bodie, Taoist temple and all.
He would! Perfect. Kung Fu was an almost erudite western, Grasshopper! 😉
Great pics & stories — happy travels!
Cheers to you~
That’s so cool that this is still around! good ol cowboy days alright 😄
I think we all want to time travel back to the old west, as long as there are no gunfights involving us!
Exactly! lol 😄
I got this sad “tugging” feeling in my gut when I got to Pictures 7 and 8….a haunted/hollow feeling. Makes sense I guess, it is a ghost town! Thanks for sharing your visit!
Yes. I went into a home that was old and abandoned in another western place. There was an oil painting over the fireplace of the daughter of the family. She was around eight and there were mementos and furniture left by the family. This was not a tourist place and I went with my son who had a key. It was a very empty sad feeling. I eventually learned the whole history of the family.
Wow, that explains those feelings then. You really captured the essence of the place with your photo, well enough for me to pick up the vibes both from you and the place itself. When I looked at the general store I immediately thought of all things, Little House on the Prairie (the tv show). I don’t know if you ever watched it, but Mr. Olson’s store looked a lot like the one in your picture! In trying to find a picture, I was lead to this blog that has pictures from their Landis Valley Museum trip, check out the store! http://withoutlovewehavenothing.blogspot.com/2012/04/landis-valley-museum.html
Yes, I was a Laura Ingalls Wilder groupie! I read all the books, watched the show and remember the store!
Love this! “Ghost Towns” have an aura of mystery and history, combined…that’s how I felt when I walked through Old Town.
🙂
Old Town is very cool. I always go back there. I want to stay in the old hotel and chat up the ghosts!
I plan on visiting it on my next road trip…hopefully next year!
Reblogged this on Random Ramblings; Myriad Musings and commented:
Another “Ghost Town” of the old, Wild West…thanks for sharing these, Cindy!
🙂
Thank you more for appreciating my dear friend~
🙂
I have been here!!!! Went about 12 years ago. It was fascinating. It is almost a pity that they are not maintained a bit. I would hate to think it might all disappear one day.
They do maintain them. There are roof repairs and such, and they have rangers that live in one of the houses to protect the place. They just don’t add to or embellish the place. Fabulous you visited. It took me a long time to get here~
Love love love these Cindy! Wonderful post! I love all the photos. There were no trees. Amazing to me. 🙂
The lack of any sort of trees is odd. This town is near Mono Lake which is a highly saline lake. Maybe there is salt in the soil?
OH yes maybe so and it’s probably sandy. I love the colors of the soil. Wonderful photos Cindy. I felt like I went along with you! 😀
Well, you did and I thank you kindly ma’am!
Like many others my age, I grew up with the Cartrights and High Chaparall. And I saw many westerns on TV…It is just what you say about
shutting my eyes…and being there , in the movie, for real.
Love your images and the story!
I had such a huge crush on Hoss Cartwright when I was a kid. I still do I think. He was so kind.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Danblocker.jpg
He really was. I think my favourite was that dark haired, not that kind but still…uh, I forget his name…He worked at the farm anyway, rather nonchalant, but Oh, was it Manolito?
Yep. He was a heart throb!
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I’m amazed at how well preserved it is. What a treasure. Where my folks live in western CO there are quite a few ghost towns but there is almost nothing left. I’m also amazed at how recent these places were inhabited. The wild west wasn’t that long ago.
Yes. This strikes me too. As a kid I thought of the wild west as soooo long ago. But really western exploration, the pioneer movement west, and settlement was a very recent phenomona. It’s strange to envsion life in the frontier in 1859 versus life in say, Vienna at the same time!
An amazing contrast.
<3
Loved the tin ceiling. I think it would be great to experience the wild west for a visit but the thought of outhouses and chopping wood to cook might get old right quick. I would love to spend most of my time on horseback however.
Yeah those things would get old real fast, and then of course there is the wifi issue, althought I do agree with you about horseback!
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Billy Massey – Ghost Town – Rockabilly Instrumental 45 – YouTube
Vidéo pour “ghost towns musique rockabilly”▶ 2:12
Awesome! Thanks for posting! I should have included this as a sound track!
My favorite music more than 40 years … !!!
We have plenty of ghost towns here in Colorado, many way off the beaten track in the mountains where there was mining. You come across them during hikes in the backcountry. Undoubtedly, the level of lawlessness and violence were much higher than portrayed in the movies.
Liked that Bizarro comic you posted above. It seems we share a sense of humor pointed in the same direction. 🙂
I don’t know why but westerns just crack me up. Thinkiing of Mel Brooks right now! 😉 And yes, it is amazing to be hikiing and come upon some remnant of a ghost town you didn’t know about. This just happened to us~
How interesting to see the real thing, compared to the western movies that we saw when we were kids. It was a rough life of daily adventures. Great post Cindy! HJ 🙂
This place would be intense in winter with the winds funneling down the mountain slopes and the absence of trees for windbreaks. They have decaying sleighs in one of the buildings.
Interesting that the “collectors” haven’t made away with everything but the soil. I don’t believe there’s much original left out in the deserts of Arizona, unless it’s found on a Native American Reservation. It is impressive to be able to walk into and around real history…your photos do justice to the subject 🙂
What a thoughtful comment! And yes, it is wonderful this ghost town has been preserved unlike so many others~
So happy you captured it 🙂
<3
What a fascinating post, Cindy! The images are haunting yet beautiful. It’s like in the western movies :-). Sounds like you had a splendid hike, and thank you for sharing this great find.
Thank you more for your kind appreciation & cheers to you!
Gee, I didn’t know all this, Cindy — thanks for educating me! What a fascinating lifestyle, though I can’t imagine living like that now, ha!
I was imagining living here in the wild west, but then I remember no wifi, so that fantasy just crashed down!
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/computers-wifi-wifi_connections-wi_fi_connections-wireless_connections-desert_crawlers-jben215_low.jpg
Gosh – grgeous impressions like taken right out of a western movie, Cindy. I drove through the Death Valley in the eighties and visited several canyons and valleys, I might even have been pretty close to this photogenic beauty. This thought brings a smile on my face. I spent 12 weeks in California and the surroundings counties and loved every minute of it. Such a fantastic land with a surprise awaiting behind every bend.
So wonderful that you spent time in Death Valley! It is an incredible experience isn’t it! It has this very unique, incredibly harsh beauty. California does have an amazing variety of unusual eco-systems. It’s probably why I have never managed to move out of the state despite the fires and quake risk. Thanks for stopping by Dina and be well my friend~
I like Bodie. As ghost towns go, it’s a delight, Cindy. I think your blog should entice several people there. 🙂 Last time I was there I took a wrong turn out of town and followed dirt roads for at least an hour before I got back to the main road. Fortunately, I was driving my 4×4 pickup. –Curt
That would be an adventure. There are definitely dirt roads you could get lost on and that would be fun. You might even happen upon another ghost town, or something else equally interesting, like a bear. I saw an amazing bear cub!
Fun it was, Cindy. mainly it was a lot of wide open beautiful country. There may have been a ghost cabin or two. 🙂 Have you been to Rhyolite? That’s another fun ghost town, and cemetery. It also has that glorious outdoor sculpture garden next door. –Curt
I haven’t been there, but I know there are lots of ghost towns in Nevada! I’d love to visit~
Did they just leave things as is, at the general store? I would have thought they would have cleaned it out.
Leslie
There was a quote I read whose source I don’t know that said that Bodie is “frozen in time in a state of arrested development.”
I imagine there was some re-creation involved with period pieces, but there is an onsite museum full of original Bode artifacts there were left in-situ, so I imagine there may be a mixture of both.
Very interesting story, Cindy. Lovely photos.
Leslie
<3
My favorite of these are the interior shots. Amazing!! Especially that green kitchen. Wonderful shots Cindy.
I love the interiors too. It was hard for me not to post more. There was an amazing pharmacy full of medicinal bottles and a hotel with a dining room!
Oh the pharmacy sounds so interesting!
It was!
What a trip back in time. Abandoned places are sad but beautiful. If the walls could talk!
Yes ghost towns are reminders of our mortality~
And our history 🙂
Precisely~
This reminded me of when we lived in Tucson and went on a ghost town hunt. They weren’t anywhere near as interesting as Bodie. We did see a house with cows in the living room. On that tour we did have an adventure off the beaten path on a winding road up a mountain driving right on the edge of cliffs without rails. The scenery was breathtaking.
Oh this sounds amazing, and can you imagine how fabulous photos of the cows in the house would be!
Yea, pictures, that would have been smart! We did enjoy your pictures!
I am so glad! Thank you~
I juist know such places from films. I would like to visit them too
I hope you do! It is a fascinating experience~
Fascinating history, information and great pics. I bet it was so much fun to step back into time and find those ghost towns undiscovered and those that were with things left behind like in the kitchen photo to see what they used and how they lived. Such funny cartoons to add to it all. I remember a really cool ghost town we went to in Calif. when we lived out there that we went to visit. It was in the desert area east of L A. Seemed it had a name like Calico or something like that. It was fun to visit and opened to tourists then. Can’t remember its been too long ago. About 50 yrs. or so. as it was about 1966 – 1968. 🙂
Amazing! Here is a link to it:
http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ca/calico.html
Would love to see your photos!
I wish I had some of that place when we went, but unfortunately I don’t. We used a little Kodak film camera back then as the digital were not of thought of at that time. Ha! But, it’s nice they have that link to look up some of their things that way. The gold rush in Calif., Colorado, Alaska and other Midwestern states all had their ghost towns. Some here in Colo. included Cripple Creek, Blackhawk, and Silverton. Those were turned into gambling operations with casinos when gabling was legalized here, which I hated to see happen as I loved the uniqueness and history those towns had.
Yes they are important reminders of our incredible pioneer and frontier history. I want to see them perserved too!
Cindy I could reread this and enjoy the pictures over again, you’ve given me incentive to try and get down there to visit these places myself. thanks
Oh good! You will have a wonderful time exploring this area and there is so much beauty to see and experience. Very pleased you want to viisit!
What a fabulous place, Cindy! It really does look like the wild west of old!
It is the wild west of old!
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Eerie yet beautiful!
Yes, exactly how I felt!
It sounds like home. 🙂
I thought you might like a reminder of:-
An old cowboy went ridin out one dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw
Plowin through the ragged skies and up a cloudy draw
Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel
Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
For he saw the riders comin hard and he heard their mournful cries
Yippie I ohhh ohh ohh
Yippie I aye ye ye
Ghost riders in the sky 🙂
Cash was so freaking awesome! He really was a poet. This is so perfect. I can hear his stirrups clacking. You got to come west young man!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f0/JohnnyCashMeanasHell.jpg/220px-JohnnyCashMeanasHell.jpg
I’ll ask the ravens if I can have some time off.
http://www.planetsmilies.com/smilies/animal/animal0078.gif
Oh alright its a penguin. 🙂
I know about your responsibility to the Queen’s ravens as the good Brit-Citizen you are, but penguins??? I had no idea! You have many facets to you Graham!
There is nothing quite like ghost towns of the wild west, I love them. My hometown has a great history of a frontier town, and fortunately it never lost its population but very few old structures exists in the hills nearby. This view of Bodie you shared is beyond cool ~ the old town as was so many, many decades ago… I’d love to visit, as it would feel like stepping inside a dream for me, for as a kid there was not a better place to pretend to live 🙂 Great shots Cindy!
A fellow blogger was talking about how WP put a bunch of comments from fellow bloggers in spam, so I went and checked my spam and found your comment and about ten others there! I would have been so sad to miss this comment Randall. So now you have to come back to California. I can tell you about a couple of other ghost towns we found that are completely off the beaten track. I told you I am selfish. I want to see your photos! (And read your comments!)
Your photos and this post have brought them back to life Cindy! It must have been an interesting experience to be a witness to something now gone, but still alive in our childhood tv memories!
Yes it was a fascinating experience! I think the mythos of the wild west is something many children remember from their chilhood fantasies, and, some adutls fantasies too! 😉
It was such a part of my childhood tv, even across the Atlantic! When we got to Alias Smith and Jones, it became adolescent fantasy for me 😉
We are indeed one world! <3
Wow that is awesome! I love your photos and would love to see that someday! Thank you for sharing! I love ghost towns and it’s on my bucket list to visit some! Hugz Lisa and Bear
Bear would be right at home!
Hi Cindy, I love old ghost towns, they are so full of stories that swirl around me when I visit. I have heard of this one, but never visited. Thanks so much for sharing your awesome pictures! Kinda got me in the mood to draw a western fairy. 🙂
Ooooh I hope you do! I wonder what your western fairy would look like!
Virginia City outside of Reno was on the same path as Bodie until they figured out they could attract tourists…
Yes, it was a much bigger town with a population more than double Bodie’s at the same period of time. Both were gold era boomtowns.
Great knowledge!
<3
That is interesting story about the place. Even at 600+ people at the time, I can imaging that could be felt as a lot of people for such place at the time.
I agree. It is such a barren isolated area, 688 would feel like a real town and outpost.
You are exactly right, I think the logistic to feed such community then was not easy.
They were on the stage coach line. But you are right. Feeding everyone, especially in the winter, and supplying the town in general, would have been quite a challenge.
I’ve been to a lot of ghost towns that are similar. I went to one this weekend from an anti rely different era. It’s called Atomic City, based upon the work they did there.
I saw some photos of Atomic City. Some photographer took same amazing photos of it. It’s a post-apocolyptic-nuclear-canary of town. Wow.
I would suspect they were on my weekend post, but my iPhone photos leave something to be desired.
I will go look….
I really like this.
I am so glad you do and cheers to you!
This has to go on my bucket list! Thanks for sharing these photos of a fascinating part of our history.
I am so glad it resonated with you and thank you!
Wow, these pics are great, reminds me of a few episodes from The Twilight Zone.
This episode I bet:
http://i.onionstatic.com/avclub/5278/66/16×9/960.jpg
We now return control of your television……
Nope, that’s the Outer Limits!
Dang. You’re right! You science ficton watching genius. Twilight Zone didn’t really go to an old western town as far as I can remember. Outer Limits did. Sounds like you and I both love the classic sci-fi.
Ah, it’s so quiet and eerie-sistable! ♡ლ(-༗‿༗-)ლ♡
👻 👻 👻 ♡ლ(-༗‿༗-)ლ♡ 👻 👻 👻
Those buildings still seem to be in livable conditions. Just amazing. If I’d driven by, I don’t think I would’ve known it was a ghost town! Love the view of old kitchenware there. Thanks for this time-travel opportunity Cindy! 🙂
There are some young park rangers that live in one of the buildings to protect the town. I imagine this is an incredibly awesome experience, if you’re not afraid of ghosts! 👻 👻