13 Ghost Towns Across America, From Bodie To Zzyzx

Bodie, The Well-Preserved Ghost Town In The Sierra Nevadas

David Broad/Wikimedia CommonsThe Bodie ghost town is tucked in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.

Like Goldfield, the Bodie ghost town in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains was built around a gold mine. And like Goldfield, Bodie went bust.

Gold was found in the area by William S. Body (sometimes spelled Bodey) in 1859, and subsequent discoveries of gold in the 1870s quickly drew eager prospectors and their families. Though Bodie started with a population of just 20 miners, the official Bodie website reports that its population grew to 10,000 by 1880.

Catering to miners with money to spend, Bodie soon had dozens of saloons — perhaps as many as 65 — as well as brothels and gambling halls. The heavy drinking and the greed that ran through Bodie’s population like a vein of gold meant that the townspeople often lived short, violent lives. Residents were known to ask each other: “Have we a man for breakfast?” which meant: “Did anyone get killed last night?”

Public DomainBodie is kept in a state of “arrested decay” today, meaning that some of its interiors still contain items left behind by its residents.

But Bodie’s boom times were short-lived. Its population started to decline in the 1880s, and mining ended for good in the 1940s. Meanwhile, the town also suffered from two large fires. In 1892 and 1932, these blazes consumed many of the 2,000 buildings that remained.

In 1962, Bodie was declared a National Historic Site and a State Historic Park. And today, parts of it remain stunningly frozen in time.

A number of the structures have been preserved in a state of “arrested decay” — meaning that park officials are making no effort to restore them — so visitors can see how the town looked in the 19th century. In fact, some structures in the Bodie ghost town even still have goods stocked on their shelves.

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