Abandoned Bodie: Ghost Town Extraordinaire

Bodie, California’s iconic ghost town, preserves hauntingly authentic remnants of frontier life in timeless decay.

In the remote reaches of California’s High Sierras lie the substantial remains of an outpost known as Bodie--the best-preserved of America’s famed Western ghost towns. Although the vast majority of Bodie burned to ash many decades ago, what has persevered still seems amazingly comprehensive compared to most other ghost town sites. Designated a state historic park in 1962, Bodie has been both well cared for and yet left mostly in a state of arrested decay, rendering it as a place truly out of time. A striking sense of authenticity is experienced when strolling its lanes and observing the dilapidated exteriors, and a peek through any given window or doorway can reveal still-life scenes which startle all the more--artifacts and furniture ordered precisely as they were left in place by the last inhabitants.

Abandoned Bodie presents a thorough depiction of the structures and other traces found there which speak with remarkable clarity to a bygone place and way of life. It also documents the elemental plight of an entire village left on its own to bear the ravages of time.