Ghosts of Miners, Hookers, and Gunslingers Past

All my life I've had an interest in and felt a kinship with the old west: pioneers, miners, gunslingers, and ladies of ill repute. Actually, I love a lot of history, but the days of America's youth and western expansion fascinate me. I also have an obsession with the spirit of old buildings, so when I learned about the ghost town of Bodie, California, I immediately wanted to check it out.

On June 25 and 26, Lexxsi, Kane, Richard, and I went to Mono County to visit Bodie. We drove through the Tahoe area and down Highway 395 on the 25th, stayed the night in Lee Vining, and went to Bodie on the 26th. (My Grandmother's birthday. She would be 83 if she were still alive.) At first, we weren't sure about how our trip was going to turn out. As we drove down 395, it started raining. Hard. Very hard. Then, the moment we pulled into the lodge, the sky darkened and rumbled louder than I've ever heard. It had an eerie end-of-the-world feel to it. However, we were determined to see Bodie, and we planned on going no matter what Mother Nature had in mind.

I had heard that you can spend as little as a couple hours in the park or as much as a whole day, so I figured that we had plenty of time when we got there at 11:30. It was a lovely day, warm but not hot and with an occasional breeze.

Bodie is being preserved in a state of arrested decay. Park staff are not rebuilding any of the structures, and only doing what they can to slow the process of time. Buildings that are falling are given supports to help hold them up.

Old buildings have an energy about them that seems to hold all the events and emotions of all their inhabitants. Whenever I am inside an old building, I can't help but feel a sense of curiosity and connectedness to the people who lived or worked there. The husband's conflicted feelings over the birth of a new child that caused the death of his wife. The woman who learned that she lost a husband or son in the war or in the case of Bodie, a mining accident. The prostitutes who sold their bodies only because they lost their husbands and had children to support, and livable-wage jobs for women were probably more scarce than a rich vein of gold. The women who were raped or beaten and had no where to go, because they were thousands of miles from their families and had no means to support themselves.


I know these buildings also had their happy experiences, but it's the sadness and despair I feel most when I enter them. Of course, that's probably that part of me that has an affinity for the dark and melancholy. Occasionally, I will imagine the people who walked over the very spot in which I stand.

Bodie now only has a small percentage of the buildings that it had during its heyday. Many of the buildings still have furniture and other household items. While I'm sure that some of the rooms have been "staged" by park staff (especially inside hotels and saloons), I am amazed that so many items were left behind when the town was deserted. Did these people not need their possessions? Did they start fresh at their new destinations? Did they move in with family or someone else who already had a completely furnished home or business? Did they plan to return for their property? Were they in a hurry to leave?

I'm also intrigued by Bodie's cemetery. Not really the cemetery, but the area outside the cemetery. The Bodie cemetery is made up of three cemeteries: the Masonic area; the Miners Union area; and the Wards area. Despite Bodie's lawlessness, the people who made the decisions were strict about who they allowed to be buried within the cemetery's boundaries. Hookers, criminals, Chinese, and whomever else they deemed unsuitable for the cemetery were buried outside its boundaries. So it's the hillside of the cemetery that I'm fascinated with. Those are the people who lived the lives that give Bodie most of it's allure.

Even in the official cemetery, many of the grave markers have decayed, and all that remain are pieces of wood that seem haphazardly placed. Bodie boasted a population of around 10,000 during its prime, so the few visible grave markers can't possibly be an accurate count of all the people who died during Bodie's years (1859-1962). I read somewhere that at one point, a murder was committed every day in Bodie.

There's something indescribable about walking over the ground on the cemetery's hillside. The entire time I couldn't help but wonder how many people's skeletons were beneath the ground I walked on, and how close they were to my feet. It's very easy to feel a closeness to them. I also wondered what it was that disqualified them from a "proper" burial. Race? Criminality? Alcohol or substance abuse? Occupation? Money? Or perhaps simple rumor?

One of Bodie's most popular citizens, at least in our time, is Rosa May, a successful prostitute who also nursed sick and dying miners. Even with her good deeds, the town did not see her fit to be buried in the cemetery. One of the park rangers told us that while a head stone was created for Rosa May, it is not where her body is actually buried. Because of the recent interest in her, her true burial site is kept secret to protect her. Now that's a celebrity!

Bonanza Street, Maiden Lane, and Virgin Alley, which I'm pretty certain are three names for one street, was where you could find fun with one of the towns many good-time gals. Although I'm confident it wasn't the only place they could be found. Ironically, this also ran along the side of the jail, yet at the time, prostitution was legal.

Bodie summers can seem mild, usually reaching no more than the 90s, but even those are unpredictable. At one point while we were walking around the cemetery, without any notice, the sky went from sunny and clear to nearly dark and back to sunny and clear. A park ranger told me that the night before the temperature dropped to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Winters often drop to 20 below zero. How many people died simply of the harsh weather? The buildings are modest, simple wood with no insulation. The only thing to insulate the walls was wallpaper or fabric. In one home, I counted six layers of wallpaper/fabric, and I wasn't sure that I counted all of them, because they were blended together. You will find no trees in Bodie, so all the lumber had to be shipped in. Bodie was not a place for wimps.

We stayed until the park closed. I didn't see any ghosts of miners, hookers, or gunslingers. I did, however, leave with what may very well be a dangerous sunburn and a feeling of deep kinship with the spirit of Bodie. As soon as we hit the road, I was ready to go back.