Bodie State Historical Park

Bridgeport California

June 29, 2022

Sherri and I

While waiting for Julie and Lisa to complete Half Dome we had some time to kill. The girl in the office at our hotel recommended we go to Bodie State Park. It was about an hour from where we were. If we were in the middle of nowhere now when we got to Bodie it was even more remote. This is the road into the park. It was very rocky on all sides. We wondered how horse drawn wagons made it here.

In 1877 it became a boom town. Having about 8500 people here. It had a china town, Opium den, 60 saloons and dance halls. By 1881 it was already in a decline and people were leaving. I think I read there were 200 children here.

Bodie is a real Gold Rush town. It had people living there until the 1960’s when the largest land owner gave it to the state to make a state park. California did something pretty cool. They kept it in a state of arrested decay. What that means is they will not recreate the buildings to look like the old ones. They made some of them safe to enter and others safe to look at through the windows.

There is only a portion of this town left. When you get there they give you a map with each building numbered so you can walk down the streets and tell what each building was and who lived in it. Some buildings you can enter. You can see the wallpaper falling off the walls, the old tile on the floors and in most cases the things the people left behind.

When the gold had run out people just left. They left most things behind. The bar still has bottles on it and pool balls on the pool table. Its really incredible.