Bodie State Historic Park

Friends of Bodie Day - Saturday, August 8. Click here for flyer.

Bodie State Historic Park is California’s Official Gold Rush Ghost Town, by legislative decree!

You can walk the deserted streets of this gold town that once had a booming population of 10,000 people and was called “the metropolis of the Sierra”! The town was founded by W. S. Bodie (or Bodey or Bode: no one is certain of the spelling), who, with his partner E. S. Taylor, discovered small amounts of gold in these hills north of Mono Lake in 1859. In the early 1880s, a cave-in revealed pay dirt and the ensuing gold rush transformed Bodie from a tiny mining camp to a boomtown.

Only a small portion of the town—roughly 20%— survives, preserved in a state of "arrested decay." You can peer in through windows and see interiors as they were left, with goods and possessions in dusty silence.

Designated as a National Historic Site and a State Historic Park in 1962, the remains of Bodie are preserved in a state of "arrested decay". They aren’t allowed to disintegrate, but they aren’t restored to boomtime appearance either. Today this once thriving mining camp is visited by tourists, howling winds and an occasional ghost.