Bodie, California

In 1859 four prospectors discovered gold in a shallow California valley north of Mono Lake where tales of riches had drawn them from their homes in the Mother Lode region. Joined by other gold hunters they mined briefly until an unexpected November blizzard overtook the remote mining outpost and killed one of the discoverers. W.S. Body's wintry death gave the diggings its name. The spelling changed when a painter in the nearest town lettered a sign "Bodie Stables" and area residents thought it looked so much better than other phonetic variations that by 1862 Bodie had become the accepted name. Several financially backed companies acquired claims at Bodie but by 1868 they had abandoned their mines along with the district's first two stamp mills. Bleak terrain and meager returns prevented even the glimmer of gold from attracting much interest and Bodie District languished for the next seven years, yielding only enough yellow metal to tempt a few hopeful prospectors and sustain a scattering of destitute miners. Some steadfast inhabitants washed placer gravel while the most hearty drove tunnels or sunk shafts to follow low-grade quartz veins into the earth. Then, in 1875, a mine called the Bunker Hill caved, exposing an ore body that attracted San Francisco speculators. One group of capitalists purchased the claim and organized a company that set up industrial-scale mining. Their gamble paid off. The Standard Company produced $784,523 in gold and silver bullion during 1877 and rewarded stockholders with four consecutive monthly dividends. People of all descriptions poured into Bodie, each hoping to find a fortune. Their excitement gave rise to one of the West's wildest boomtowns, earning the community a reputation for frontier violence that rivaled Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City. "Saloons and gambling hells abound," reported San Francisco's Daily Alta California in June 1879. "There are at least sixty saloons in the place and not a single church." Tall tales about "The Bad Man from Bodie" entertained readers nationwide, while seemingly daily stories of stagecoach holdups, shootouts, saloon brawls, and other forms of deadly mayhem almost eclipsed reports of developments in the mines. Miners, tradesmen, businessmen, wives and others, some desperate, all hopeful, flooded into the booming town until the mid 1880s when residents estimated the population had grown to 7,000 or 8,000 and Main Street stretched more than a mile. Bodie also boasted a brass band, two banks, a Chinatown, and a red-light district. Bodie's confirmed status as a gold-producing community inspired its historically-minded citizens to wonder about the unfortunate prospector who had succumbed in a snowstorm some 20 years earlier and became the town's namesake. They located his shallow grave and dug up his bones. One area pioneer said the remains were those of W.S. Body from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., but a former partner said he was William S. Bodey. Records in New York say his name was really Wakeman S. Body (sometimes spelled "Bodey"). Despite uncertainty, citizens organized a grand funeral procession and formally interred the bones in the town cemetery but they failed to mark the new grave and quickly forgot its location. The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed. Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain was buying up everything from the town lots to the mining claims and reopened the Standard mill to former employees which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped. The last mine closed in 1942 due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all nonessential gold mines in the United States. Mining never resumed.
By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline, Bodie had permanent residents through most of the 20th century, even after a fire ravaged much of the downtown business district in 1932. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942. The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and in 1962 it became Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained.