Destination: Bodie State Historic Park

“Destination: Bodie State Historic Park No. 1” 2018

Traveling down the Eastern Sierra's last summer, I was finally able to visit and photograph the legendary ghost town of Bodie. This deserted gold-mining town looks just like a Hollywood set but has actually been preserved and was designated a State Historic Park in 1961. Once a booming town of 10,000 people, Bodie nows sits quietly in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain rang in Mono County.

I've been hesitant to capture this decaying landmark because it is so overly photographed. There are multiple photography workshops you can attend during the day and numerous excursions to photograph it at night. It has been shot from every angle and documented to death. I usually stay far away from locations like this.

But since I was on vacation and it IS a very photogenic subject, I decided to capture it for posterity. This series of photographs only shows  the outside structures. I shot quite a few interiors but as I was not on a workshop tour, I did not have access to the inside of these buildings. Shooting through warbled old pain glass windows isn't the best way capture their contents.

What struck me about most about the town was how remote it was to the rest of the region. After driving 3 miles on a rough dirt road straight into the hills, I couldn't help thinking of how even more desolate the place must have been when it was first established back in the 1860's. It was singularly quite, with only the occasional hawk circling above.

Laura Ingalls Wilder would have looked right at home in this rural outpost, running quickly down the hillside trampling through the creosote bush scrub and soda straw towards her wooden town that no longer exists.

Julie Green
March 2, 2019

“Destination: Bodie State Historic Park No. ” 2018

“Destination: Bodie State Historic Park No. 3” 2018

“Destination: Bodie State Historic Park No. 4” 2018

“Destination: Bodie State Historic Park No. 5” 2018