Bodie State Historic Park
24 July, 2021
Me overlooking the Bodie Hills. Photo obviously by Eric.
Bodie is a treasure of California's Gold Rush days, the most intact ghost town in California and perhaps in the entire US west. Although only five percent of the town that once was remains, there are still about 80 buildings for you to visit. I have been to Bodie myself several times on geology and astrophotography trips, but had never managed to bring Eric to see this delightful place.
I mostly left the photography to Eric, as my main purpose was to show him the place, and the mid-day photographic conditions were unspectacular. But we had mostly escaped from the horrid smoke.
The iconic Methodist Church. The park brochure says that the Catholic Church was lost in a fire. Photo by Eric.
The Swasey Hotel. Photo by Eric.
I took a picture of the fire station. Obviously, firefighting is a very important task up in Bodie. The town has burned twice before, and each time, firefighting systems failed. We have to hope that, the next time fire comes, the infrastructure will perform better.
The Standard Stamp Mill, the most prominent structure in Bodie. Photo by Eric.
You're not allowed to go inside most of the buildings in Bodie (you can see that they're not particularly structurally sound), but you can take pictures through the windows. Many objects were left behind when the residents left, because there was a toll on the road, and they didn't want to make multiple trips.
Eric's shot looking into the morgue. The child and baby coffins were particularly grim.
Eric's detail shot looking into the Boone Store and Warehouse.
Looking into the Boone Store and Warehouse, some familiar objects. Eric captured the reflection of the Standard Stamp Mill.
Eric found a Lucky adult beverage in the DeChambeau Hotel.
Eric saw a switchboard in the Wheaton & Luhrs Store.
Eric found a typewriter in the Wheaton & Luhrs Store. Do you think we could procure a ribbon for it?
Eric noticed that this fire hydrant was forged in 1879.
I took a few pictures of objects that fascinated me, like this hose in the fire house.
The park brochure told us that the Oddfellows Hall had at one time hosted the Bodie Athletic Club, which explains the rings and the trapeze. Eric asked me whether it was now my life's ambition to swing from the trapeze in the Oddfellows Hall. "Are you kidding?" I said. "Would you trust any rigging that was attached to that structure?"
Looking through Old Barn at a building that is not identified in the brochure.
View from up high on the hill, looking west at the town. You can see the fun road into Bodie in the distance.
As always, some of the most fascinating things in Bodie were the vehicles, both motorized and, as in the case of this wagon, not. Photo by Eric.
Looking into the surrey shed. Photo by Eric.
And Eric took a picture of my favorite, Lottie, a 1927 Dodge Graham.
Eric looked in closely at Lottie's wheel.
Eric was proud of this picture of Lottie with the gas pumps behind her.
I got to wondering, with all of this romanticization, whether anyone was here before Bodie was settled by miners. If it had been inhabited, surely the residents were cruelly driven away by the miners. Sure enough, the California State Parks brochure says: "The Eastern Sierra Nevada region of Mono County was home to the Northern Paiute and Mono Lake Paiute Indian groups.... The flood of miners drawn by the Bodie gold discovery pushed the Native Americans out of their traditional territory. By the early twentieth century, only five percent of the original area remained under the control of the local tribes. Food supplies dwindled as settlers clear-cut the forests for lumber and firewood, killed or displaced local wildlife, and destroyed meadow grasses by grazing their livestock." The Mono Lake Committee explains more specifically that the greater area around Mono Lake was and is inhabited by the Koodzaduka'a people, a subgroup of the Paiute. These people lived in the highlands during the summer and at lower elevations during the winter, because the area around the lake could not sustain them in all seasons. They harvested nuts from Piñon Pine trees. When the miners arrived in the area, they cut down the Piñon Pines for use as timber, depriving the Koodzaduka'a of an important source of food. I found a web page of the Koodzaduka'a themselves.
So, as we enjoy these places, we should not forget the earlier inhabitants who lost their homes.
I had hoped to stay at the lovely Virginia Creek Settlement very close to Bodie, but, having made our plans so late, we couldn't get a reservation. So, instead we stayed at the unassuming Lake View Lodge in nearby Lee Vining. By this point, the smoke was really blowing south, and it was hardly even worth trying to look at the lake.
We got takeout from Tioga Toomey's Whoa Nellie Deli (highly recommended, even though it's in a gas station!) and ate in our room, remaking our plans for the next two days.
On to Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest.