Bodie Ghost Town in California might Bring You Bad Luck

Bodie Ghost Town is an eerie and fascinating place at Sierra Nevada Mountains, California. Just be careful not to pick up the curse of Bodie.

One of our road trips in California took us over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Bodie, an old Gold Rush era town that has since been abandoned and is now a state park. The locals know it as the Bodie Ghost Town.

While we have been living in California we have become quite familiar with Sierra’s as we often visit different areas there. There are several interesting parks, beautiful views and great hiking trails at the mountains.

The road to the Bodie State Historic State Park took us up to Bodie Hill, and there wasn’t much to see on the way there. We only saw a few cows eating grass far away. It was like we were in a middle of nowhere!

Eventually the road turned into a gravel road and we had to drive slower until we finally saw some buildings. We had reached the park entrance and now we were ready to explore the park and maybe see some ghosts too!

Bodie is located on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, close to the Nevada state border. Closest town to Bodie is called Bridgeport.

THE COLORFUL HISTORY OF BODIE

The history of Bodie started when William S. Bodey found some gold in the Bodie Hills in 1858. Gold miners started to move in, and soon there was a whole village full of people living there.

During the years the name Bodey changed into Bodie, and nobody knows for sure why. But the town began to grow, and it was not only the gold miners who lived there. Many families, business owners, prostitutes and even robbers moved in.

During the boom years of Bodie, there were 65 saloons on its main street and Bodie even had its own China town. After a hard day’s work the miners often went to the “red district” to spend their time and money.

Life in Bodie was hard. Just like in the western movies, shootings were common, and many couldn’t resist the temptation of alcohol.

Winters were cold in the mountains and the houses were not properly insulated. The road to Bodie was often closed due to the snow, and people were stuck up in the Bodie Hills. What a life!

In the 1880’s people from Bodie started to move to new mining locations, and the population of the town started to decrease. By the mid 40’s Bodie was completely empty, and had become a ghost town.

The families who were last to leave Bodie, took only the things they were able to carry with them. So many things like furniture, tableware, curtains and such were left behind in the empty houses. Even the general store was left looking like it always was, full of goods on the shelves.

Bodie got totally abandoned for twenty years, until it fist became a National Historic Landmark, then a California Historic Landmark and finally a State Park in 1962.

Visiting BODIE STATE HISTORIC PARK

Nowadays about 200,000 people visit Bodie every year. Considering that the it is only open part of the year, that is quite a lot of people.

I think that the harder it is to visit a place, it often just gets more attractive to people. For example, we have been wanting to visit Bodie for a few years now, but there just hasn’t been a good time for that since we usually spend our summers in Finland. The longer we waited, the more we wanted to see it.

Bodie still has 170 buildings which is much more than any other ghost towns I have visited. They are not renovated, the buildings are only preserved in a state they are now in. So in that sense, you can really call this an authentic ghost town.

If you visit, make sure you have enough time, since it is actually quite a wide area and you can read the stories from the brochure while you visit the houses. In one house they show a half-hour film telling about the history of Bodie.

We walked around and peeked in from the doors and windows, since only some of them were open for visitors. But it was amazing to see how people who left Bodie had left everything behind them. The beds and sofas were now broken and china in the kitchen was full of dust, but they were still there.

In the main street, they have a small museum where you can find personal items of Bodie people found from the houses and from the park. They had for example old letters, photos and money.

Bodie really can be a little bit creepy. The wind moved curtains around in the houses through broken windows, and the thunder made loud warnings about the coming storm, but we still had a great time visiting the park!

Before heading to Bodie you should check both the weather and road conditions. The park technically open year around but the road can close at any time either because of snow or mud. Since Bodie is located in 8,375 feet (2554 metres) the weather can be unpredictable.

The best place to check the road conditions is from the California state website.

Also note that there is no food or gas inside or even close to the park. The closest town in Bridgeport where we also stayed at. We had booked a room in Silver Maple Inn.

THE CURSE OF BODIE GHOST TOWN

It is nearly impossible to visit Bodie without hearing about its bad luck and the curse. It has been going on from the old times until today.

As mentioned earlier, many robbers used to live in Bodie, and they would often had bar fights or shootings like in the wild west. So often in fact, that people in town used to ask: “Have we a man for breakfast?”

Also the weather in the mountains was harsh and took many lives. It can change so fast and even we witnessed a sudden thunderstorm with lightning and rain. We quickly ran under the front porch of the general store to escape the rain.

Someone said that there is always a dark cloud above Bodie. And that was true at least the day we visited.

On the other side of the road from downtown Bodie there is a small cemetery where you can see and remember all the people who died there. All those whose luck ran out in this town.

Also the miners living in Bodie had bad luck. In 1882 they got the first electrical transmitter of the time to transport electricity to the mine. Only after one year in use, an avalanche destroyed the plant that transmitted electricity to Bodie.

When visiting Bodie, it really feels like you have stepped back in time. After you have been walking around and peeking into the houses, you will soon start to notice things on the ground. On the little paths you can find some rusty nails, pieces of glass or china, or even coins.

But consider yourself warned; by taking them, you will also take home the curse of Bodie. The rangers will be happy to tell you more about it if you ask, and can show you things that people have sent back to the park.

People who took items from there soon faced bad luck. Some got in to fights, some into accidents or fires, which made them return the things to the park. Some of them are showcased in the museum in Bodie.

Not only will you get bad luck, but It is also against the park rules to take anything home from there.

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So here was the story of the Bodie Ghost Town. It was a very fascinating and interesting place to visit, in spite of the dark side of the town.

You should add Bodie to your list if you are planning to drive through Yosemite National Park via Tioga Pass since it will be there on the other side of the Sierra’s. Many people go there to visit Mono Lake and it’s tufa towers, or to visit Mammoth Lakes area.

We also went to Mammoth to hike the Devil’s Postpile National Monument. From there you can even continue to Manzanar National Historic Site or even to Death Valley National Park.

You can find ghost towns also elsewhere in California and the U.S. Some of them have been refurbished and then opened up for tourists. For example the Calico Ghost Town in California or Virginia City in Nevada are fun to visit but they are totally different from Bodie. You should visit Virginia City if you are at Lake Tahoe region.

There are also many gold rush towns along the California’s Highway 49. One major one is the Columbia Historic State Park, and if you or your kids like trains, then Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown is for you.

Have you ever visited a ghost town and if so, where?