My tour of Bodie, California a once thriving isolated gold-mining town 8,275 ft. high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northeastern California allowed me to do just that.
The town of Bodie is named after William (a.k.a. Waterman) S. Bodey, who in 1859, while prospecting with three prospectors in this gold-laden valley, discovered gold in a stream bed near what is now called Bodie Bluff.
A mill was established in 1861 and the town began to grow. It’s beginnings were faltering until in 1875, Bodie’s luck changed when one of the mines caved in revealing a huge body of gold.
By its peak in 1879, Bodie had a population of 7,000–10,000, one of the biggest towns in this area at the time, and it produced more than $35 million in gold and silver.