Bodie
An old gold-mining town in eastern California. Not far from Aurora Nevada where Samuel Clemens – before he became Mark Twain – almost made it rich as a miner, not writer. Prospectors were in the area by the late 1850s; it became a formal town in 1876. The population peaked near 10,000 people during the boom years of late 1870s/early 1880s. The mines were productive up to the beginning of WWII but the population had fallen to below 700 by 1910. Considered a semi-ghost town by 1915, a fire destroyed much of the town in 1932, the last resident left in 1943, and it became a California State Park in 1962.
Mark Twain moved far and away and often to avoid serving in the Civil War.
Well … he did join a Missouri Confederate militia early on … then decided “I’m outta here” very shortly thereafter which led to “Roughing It” when he scooted to Carson City with his brother. Perhaps part of my inspiration to put down some scribbles about exploring the Overland Stage route.
Lots of people headed out to the territories (CA and OR were states by then though) to avoid the war. Even NYC had severe anti-draft riots in 1863. A different topic for another time.
The then-recent immigrants from Europe…many of them Irish…were themselves poor and under-employed. Their view was that enlisting in or being drafted into the Union military would put them in competition with poor and underemployed blacks.
I think that it was here (or at Gerard’s place) that I mentioned seeing a chair hanging on the wall behind the bar at McSorley’s Ale House in NYC that Abraham Lincoln had stood upon during a campaign appearance there. I have to imagine that the draft and the civil war were a couple of his topics.
My compliments on the beautiful pictures.
Thank you. The vast majority are mine. Saves dealing with copyright issues.
Wooden Winding Stairway
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Now it took some long coin to make that happen.
https://tinyurl.com/5eby83xw
I’d even sit there and chow down on snails just so I could check out all the details everywhere.
And the groin vaults….
The story is that Bodie, while not looking it, in the winter is very cold and wind-swept. It’s at 8400 ft elevation The summers are glorious. A riot of prairie flowers abound. It’s in the lee of the mighty Sierras, so it doesn’t get much snow.
It’s a favorite destination for amateur and “pro-sumer” photographers, along the 395 Ansel Adams trail. Several of the better remaining houses have been upgraded/modernized to allow the park rangers etc. to live there. The other houses, you look at them, and wonder how the residents even survived the winters: drafty and no insulation floors, walls, ceiling. Some of the abandoned houses are available for inspection and photography only by reservation. The photographers come in groups, staying in Lee Vining or Bridgeport, and spend the day photographing all sorts of “still-lifes”. When the mining families moved out and moved on, they left all sorts of stuff behind, and in the high-altitude arid climate it’s well preserved.
It’s a fun day to visit. You get to tour the stamping mills, the mining detritus and abandoned equipment, the hotels/museums, walk through and about many of the ramshackle dwellings. A summer weekend will see several hundred people come by to take a look. As ghost towns go, it’s top-notch.
Now Lago, I’d like to see that. But it got burned up and the mess carted away after The Stranger left. But there’s still a few subtle clues that it was once there.
Last time I was at Bodie, the mill site was still private (and there were no digital cameras). Sounds like the park has been “discovered” – like the difference in Black Rock before and after Burning Man. Yep – it gets *cold* in Bodie. Dry, windy cold.
I didn’t know it was filmed at Mono Lake – always heard it was filmed at Sevier Lake in Utah.
Ah, I see. Your photo must be on film originally, it’s looking a little sepia-faded on my monitor. Shoulda used Kodachrome, my slides from long ago are still sharp and colorful as ever. Then again, how else are you going to know the photo is from long ago if it’s not faded with time? The children today will never know the experience of looking through the family photo album of all those old b&w 2×2 photos of the old folks, contact prints from brownie cameras. Uncles and grandpas and grand-uncles coming back from the deer hunt, [great] grandmas and grandpas standing in front of church with the children themselves now long gone to their reward.
Yes, Bodie is discovered. It even has a full-service gift shop, plenty of tchotchkes, t-shirts, hats, jackets, books. Many people come looking, looking. My wife the photographer brings me souvenirs from her journeys.
It was film, it was Kodachrome – probably 64 but maybe 25. Nikon F3 I believe. I suspect early 80s. Color distortion is probably from the way I digitized the image. Too embarrassed about it to mention the technique
The slide is probably still OK, but I’d have to dig deep to find it. Sorting through old photos is still on my to-do list. Getting closer to the top of the list though.
Glad I got to explore the area before it was “discovered”. I could go there and be the only one around back then. Doesn’t sound like much point in going back; I’m not overly fond of crowds.
Anymore “crowds” tend to ruin everything so we mostly just stay home. I’d like to see the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone but when I see the number of people that go to those places everyday I just get depressed.
Yellowstone can be OK. Both Grand Canyon and Yosemite are zoos. I had never been “west” when I first saw Grand Canyon. It took 3 days before my brain adjusted to seeing it “3D” instead of 2D. Hells Canyon is a deeper hole in the ground but much harder to see from the top.
He said “The Stranger”. heh
Do you feel lucky punk?
Welcome to
LagoHell.Well done!