Bodies Gold

by Marguerite Sprague

The discovery of gold deposits in the area helped establish the Bodie Mining District in 1860. With the end of the boom just twenty years later, the town began its long, slow decline, surviving into the twentieth century with a few small but steady mines. Mining ended with World War II, and what remained of the town became a state park in 1964.

In Bodie's Gold Author Marguerite Sprague uses a wide range of original sources to recount Bodie's colorful history: its mines and miners; demimonde of saloons and brothels; schools and churches, and other institutions of settled life; residents of many origins including Native Americans and Chinese; women in the towns social life and economy; and the pattern of its decline. The Story is lavishly with period photographs and enlivened with the reminiscences of former residences and extracts from newspapers of the period. Bodie's gold is a vivid account of the life that once throbbed behind the now-closed doors and empty streets of California's official Gold Rush ghost town.