13 July 2012, continued:
The park had opened at 9 am, and after the excitement of the illegal intruder had worn off, the photographer and I wandered the streets of Bodie, often bumping into each other as the day wore on.

As large as it is, Bodie was a large town, at one point having 10,000 residents. But fires have swept through Bodie, and only 5% of the town still stands today, with none of the saloons, houses of ill repute, or Chinatown in existence today.

Left: Seiler House, Bodie gold rush mining ghost town, California, USA.

Wagon wheel, Bodie ghost town, California.

Bodie is easily one of the most fantastic ghost towns I've visited, at least on par with Humberstone in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

The interior of the old Methodist church, built in 1992, and the only church still standing in Bodie. Bodie ghost town was designated a state historic park in 1962, and is maintained in a state of "arrested decay". This phrase was coined by the state of California in an attempt to describe how they would preserve Bodie, and means "the structures will be maintained, but only to the extent that they will not be allowed to fall over or otherwise deteriorate in a major way."

That said, much of Bodie is original, and is maintained and washed, as is the case here, where this ranger washes the interior of the Methodist church while singing church hymns in quite a beautiful voice. Later that day, there would be a wedding rehearsal, something that probably costs quite a bit of money.

The morgue of Bodie mining ghost town, a building that saw a lot of activity. Bodie was infamous, and the "badman from Bodie" was that era's "bogey man". Bad men, whiskey, whoring, gambling and more were endemic to Bodie. The Bodie brochure says that "by 1879, Bodie boasted a population of 10,000 and was second to none for wickedness, badmen, and 'the worst climate out of doors' One little girl, whose family was taking her to the remote and infamous town, wrote in her diary: 'Goodbye God, I'm going to Bodie.' The phrase came to be known throughout the West."

The brochure also states, "killings occurred with monotonous regularity, sometimes becoming almost daily events. The fire bell, which tolled the ages of the deceased when they were buried, rang often and long. Robberies, stage holdups and street fights provided variety, and the town's 65 saloons offered many opportunities for relaxation after hard days of work in the mines. The Reverend F.M. Warrington saw it in 1881 as 'a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion.'"

A ranger told two stories.

One was of two men who got in a fight outside a saloon. Standing only 6-8 feet apart, each drew six-shooters on the other, emptying their bullets...none of them striking their adversary.

Another was of theft. Trees do not grow near Bodie, and in the extremely cold, windy winters at 8600 feet, wood was a very scarce and expensive commodity. So one person was dismayed to find that his stash of firewood kept getting smaller and smaller. To address this, he placed some black powder in one hollowed out log, and placed it back on the pile. Later that evening, a neighbor's house exploded furiously, so much so that it could be heard miles away. His wood was never stolen again.

Inside the Standard Stamp Mill building in the hazardous area that is closed to the public, only open during tours.

The Fascinating Story of Power
Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, and developed lighting systems run by steam engines to power entire neighborhoods with electricity. These were useful only within a restrictive area as this form of electricity, direct current, could not be transmitted for long distances.

The mining town of Bodie, however, was in great need of electricity. They had been using a steam engine, and the cost of shipping trainloads of wood was prohibitively expensive. The superintendent of Bodie took a chance on a new, experimental company. That company was called Westinghouse, and their solution was alternating current.

In 1893, several years before the White House had electricity, the town of Bodie disconnected its mill's boilers and steam engine, and the stamp mill ran on AC electricity.

Inside the stamp mill at Bodie.

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