Bodie ghost town: shadows of Far West on the Sierra Nevada

ORIGINAL POST FROM WWW.ITALIAPERDUTA.COM:

BODIE GHOST TOWN, OMBRE DEL FAR WEST NELLA SIERRA NEVADA

Often when talking about Ghost Towns the first image that comes to mind is that of an Old West village, a place now become a legend and a time, that of the gold rush, now become a myth. In the 19^th century more and more pioneers looking for fortune flooded the west of the United States, towards the frontier and towards unexplored lands where starting a new life was possible. Thus were the first deposits of gold and other precious metals discovered, and cities were built around the mines. Cardsharpers, cowboys, prostitutes, all overflowed these small towns in the middle of the desert, where soon rose saloons, playrooms, brothels and, yes, also some houses. With time, though, the mines ran out and these towns were abandoned as fast as they were built. Many ghost towns have been admirably restored and today have a great appeal, especially to the European visitor, who often knows about those years only from what they could see in Hollywood cinema. But to experience the prototypical Far West ghost town, Bodie is the way to go…

Lying in California, along the Sierra Nevada’s barren scope, Bodie can be dated back to 1859, when a certain W.S. Bodey found a nugget in a deserted zone over 2.500 metres of altitude. Soon a village was born from nothing. Its first winter was dire: the dead, the isolation and the difficult supplying drove many gold diggers to leave. Bodie, however, survived, and in 1879 it gave its inhabitants a very rich gold seam. In a few weeks the small town became the second most important city in California after San Francisco. It reached a population of 10.000 between adventurers, desperados, bandits, prostitutes and preachers…in 1880 there were as much as 65 saloons, countless brothels, a Chinese district and 4 cigar shops!

But Bodie certainly wasn’t an Eden… the miners were forced to work from 100 to 200 metres deep underground for 3 or 4 dollars a day. At the time, those who went to Bodie used to say "Goodbye, God, I'm going to Bodie". To counter its profane reputation, they decided to raise money for a Methodist Church, but no pastor ever wanted to come because the money came from brothels and opium bars. In Bodie everyday someone got killed, so much that the miners jokingly used to say "Well, have we got a man for breakfast this morning?"

In 100 years the mines of Bodie made 100 million dollars, until, in 1942, the War Production Board had the town abandoned. Only a dozen of “forgotten souls” kept living there, and 10 years later a fire set by a boy laid it to waste. 95% of Bodie burned, but a number of houses, now restored, a church, hotels, banks, the firefighters’ house, the funeral home, a school, a prison, the old mines and the lavatories (now the only available toilette for tourists!) survived. Luckily the renovation wasn’t overdone, and since then nothing has changed: it will really feel like being thrown back to the legendary Old West. Placed in a barren land, Bodie manages to be eerie and at the same time peaceful, immersed in the deepest silence, broken only by the occasional passing tourist. Most of the buildings are closed, and from the dirty windows some objects are visible as if frozen in time. In the houses in which it’s permitted to enter there’s crumbling wallpapers, dust, old gnawed armchairs, sinking floors, set tables, old Coca-Cola bottles and shop windows still dressed. The best-conserved building is the church, inside which is still kept an old organ. Everything is there but the townsmen, buried in the cemetery just out of town, often still wearing their boots.

Today Bodie and its surrounded are protected as a State Historic Park and taken care of by rangers. This writer visited Bodie 4 years ago and can confirm that the authentic ghost town charm and the feeling of breathing the air of the true Far West resides here, and is something that must be experienced.

TOURIST INFORMATION (map)

Bodie is along Route 270, 13 miles from Highway 395, near Bridgeport, north of Lee Vining towards Lake Tahoe. The final 5 kilometres to get there are on a dirt road, but easily practicable even without an off-road (taking precautions to avoid puncturing, because there are no services for miles around). In winter the road might be inaccessible due to the snow, so it’s best to go there between April and October. Be sure to have enough gas with you because there are no stations in the area. There are also no restaurants or fast foods, so bring along something to eat. Bodie can be visited in the summer period (May 15^th – October 31st) from 8am to 6pm and in the winter period (November 1^st – May 14^th) from 9am to 15pm. The price of admission is 7$ for adults and 5$ for kids. It’s also possible to partake in a guided tour by going to the Visitor Center in the city centre, inside an old building with a museum.

If heading to Lake Tahoe, one can stop for lodging in Bridgeport, a few miles north along route 270. If you’re instead going to the Yosemite Park and/or the Death Valley, Bodie can be reached within a day from both, even including a stop by the wonderful Mono Lake, one of the oldest lakes in North America with a saltiness level three times higher than the sea. The east entrance (Tioga Pass Entrance) of the magnificent Yosemite National Park is about thirty miles south of Bodie, and it takes about three hours by car to reach the centre of the valley passing through breathtaking landscapes. The incredible Death Valley National Park is a bit farther (about 5 hours by car), so it’s advisable to stop by LonePine, a small village deep in the wonderful Alabama Hills, where many Hollywood western movies were set. Here you may stay in the Dow Villa Motel, where John Wayne himself used to sleep.

For more information, visit the official website: Bodie State Historic Park.

For more pictures of Bodie, visit the gallery on our website and the video from the town’s official website.

Source: Routard.

Translation by Marco Salvadori

LINK TO ORIGINAL POST

Silent Hill: the real ghost town

ORIGINAL POST: SILENT HILL, LA VERA GHOST TOWN

The Silent Hill from the homonymous and renowned videogame franchise of psychological survival horrors, is described as an holiday resort on the Toluca Lake, divided into various areas, amongst which stand the residential district and the old part of the town. Built on an ancient Indian cemetery, the town had a troubled past that led it to be populated and abandoned many times, and then to become the place where a sect practised human sacrifices and necromancy. In the game, Silent Hill is constantly shrouded in thick fog, with rain, snow, and ashes coming down all year long. At the sound of air raid siren, the town turns into the “Otherworld”, a distorted parallel dimension where everything takes the aspect it would have after a terrible fire: everything burned, blood everywhere, and bodies hanging from the wall. A purgatory to cross and where one must face their inner demons or die. 

In 2006, a film based on the videogame was made, directed by Christopher Gans, in which the plot follows loosely the first and third episode of the series. In the film, Silent Hill is a West Virginia Ghost Town abandoned in 1974 due to a devastating fire. But in this case, the script does take inspiration from a real story… 

The nightmarish has, in fact, really existed. Its name isn’t Silent Hill, but Centralia, and it stands in Pennsylvania. The city rose in the first years of the XIX century over a deposit of anthracite, a 95% pure coal, that was extracted in huge quantities until the end of the century. During its golden age, Centralia was home to over 2.000 inhabitants, but in May 1962 a fatal accident scarred forever their fate…the coal-vein suddenly caught fire, blazing everywhere underground, and any attempt to put it out proved useless.

“This was a world where no human could live, hotter than the planet Mercury, its atmosphere as poisonous as Saturn’s. At the heart of the fire, temperatures easily exceeded 1,000 degrees. Lethal clouds of carbon monoxide and other gases swirled through the rock chambers.” – David DeKok (1986) 

The real causes of the fire are yet unknown. Apparently, it started from the introduction of burning wastes into a disused deposit. What’s certain is that the consequences were disastrous. Clouds of ashes and smoke covered the city, the trees died, the asphalt melt and everywhere formed cracks and chasms. In the following twenty years the population was progressively evacuated. In 1979 a thermometer inserted into the ground to check the petrol level of a malfunctioning station, and much to everyone’s surprise it showed 77.8°C. In 1981 a twelve-years-old fell in a 46 metres chasm that suddenly opened under his feet; luckily, thanks to his brother’s help, he survived. 

Today, Centralia is a ghost town were only about ten people live. Many buildings were pulled down and dangerous carbon monoxide flows out from some of the cracks in the road. The fire underneath Centralia is still active and it is estimated it will be for hundreds of year. Its tragic fate turned it into a gloomy and sadly instructive touristic attraction.

Translation by Marco Salvadori

Image gallery on ORIGINAL POST

Gunkanjima: the ghost island

ORIGINAL POST GUNKANJIMA: L'ISOLA FANTASMA

Hashima, one of Nagasaki prefecture’s 505 deserted island, in Japan, is a creepy and charming place, destination of an usual kind of adventurous and alternative turism.

The island is also known as Gunkanjima, which means “battleship”, due to the appearance of its profile on the Ocean: a grey and decadent island surrounded by a concrete wall, with buildings on the brink of collapse outlining the shape of large warship. This mysterious island was built on an important coal mine (owned by Mitsubishi) which, between 1887 and 1974, contributed heavily to Nagasaki’s energy production. It was such an important mining centre that there were built apartments for the miners, and schools, hospitals, gyms, cinemas, bars, restaurants and shops for their families. Japan’s first buildings in reinforced concrete were built there, as defence against the frequent typhoons hitting the area. In 1959 the island came to be the place with the highest population density in the world, with 3.450 inhabitants per square kilometre. The apartments were like monks’ cells, narrow and suffocating, and the inhabitants were divided in “classes”: unmarried or married miners, and Mitsubishi managers and teachers, who could even have the luxury of a private kitchen and bathroom. Hashima’s survival depended entirely on the supplies from the mainland, so if a typhoon hit the island its inhabitants had to try and survive for days before the successive cargo ship.

In its period of fullest activity, the island produced 410.000 tons of coal every year, an intense rhythm kept at the expanse of human life. For this reason, mostly Corean and Chinese prisoners were employed in the mine. Many lost their lives due to starvation or bad hygienic conditions. Here’s an excerpt from the account of Suh Jung-Woo, a Corean who was forced to work on the island interviewed in 1983:

“Even with such a exhausting work, our meals consisted for the 80% of beans and 20% boiled rice with a few sardines. I suffered from diarrhoea almost every day, and gradually my forces abandoned me. I tried to rest, but the guards would come and force me to work…I don’t know how many times I thought about throwing myself into the sea to drown…Forty or fifty of my Corean companions committed suicide or drowned trying to swim to Takahama. I can’t swim. But I was lucky. After five months I was transferred to the Mitsubishi Saiwai-Machi factory in Nagasaki, and thus managed to leave the island. If I had remained there, I wouldn’t be alive now. Now they call the place “Battleship island”, but for us it was “Prison Island”, with no way to escape.”

Hashima Island was abandoned after petroleum started to substitute coal as source of energy. Since 1974, Gunkanjima is a ghost town. 

Even tough it was a place of suffering and death, Hashima now represents an important place in Japan’s post-war development’s history. The island is today a cemetery of buildings on the brink of collapse, but, maybe because of this ghostly charm, it’s a destination for urban exploration enthusiasts and film directors. It’s been the set for such movies like “Battle Royale II: Requiem” (2003) and “Inception” (2010), and for the music video “My Lonely Town” of Japanese rock band B’z. In 2009 it has also made an appearance in BBC’s documentary “Life after people”.

In 2005 a few journalist were permitted access to the island and then the world has come to know of the existence of this incredible place. Up to 2009 setting foot in this ghost town was punished with imprisonment but, in that year’s April, part of the island was opened for visitors, even if, due to sea conditions, it’s possible to reach it only for 160 days a year.

Those who’d like to take on this adventurous trip on the ghost island can take a look at this site, unfortunately only in Japanese: Gunkanjima website. For additional information in English, visit the site Gunkanjima mini-tour.

Image gallery on original post.

Other link:

Documentary on a miner of Hashima

Photogallery 

( Translation by Marco Salvadori )