Another post based on September’s road trip in the US. This time from perhaps the most surprisingly photographically inspiring location of them all in our nature-chasing itinerary.

Somehow Bodie seemed to me to have everything to be meh. It’s a ghost town but in a way, it’s actually a skansen. Or actually, I thought it is just a boring skansen. Quite oppositely, it proved to be a great meal for my love for ruins.

Located at over 2500m above sea level, on the hills east from Sierra Nevada range in Mono County, CA, Bodie was a gold mining boomtown of the late 19th century. Supposedly it was famed with stories of crime and it was big enough to have its own Chinatown, bad and good districts, multiple churches, bars, and opium dens. It fell into decline already before the turn of the century and was completely depopulated when last mining operation shut down during the Second World War.

Since 1962 the area is protected as Bodie State Historic Park. The protection strategy that is employed is called an arrested decay. No damage got repaired but further damage is prevented. Even random objects on the tables inside houses are left as they were and there are no touristy establishments feeding you with faux-authenticism all over the place.