On this post, I’m going to discuss Bodie, one of the most fantastic ghost towns I’ve ever seen, more than this photo specifically. Bodie, north of Mono Lake, was a mining town, and one of the first towns to get alternating current electricity from Westinghouse, several years before the White House.
Bodie was infamous as a dangerous town, 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 at Bodie 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.
Oh, and yes, this is a photography blog, so the photo. I’ve been using the Tokina 11-16mm since April, and absolutely love it. This one was simple. I just got down on my stomach, focused on the wagon wheel, and went for it. No processing except for a little sharpening and contrast, the usual things that you do with a RAW file. There were no filters used. I don’t have a circular polarizer for the wide-angle because it creates bands, so yes, the sky really was that blue.
Equipment: Nikon D90, Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX AF 11-16mm f/2.8 Lens For Nikon
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