Ghost Duster : Ranger Helps Keep Deserted Town in Condition of Arrested Decay

Russ Guiney strolls along the wooden sidewalk, past weather-beaten buildings and old freight wagons in what was once one of the toughest towns in the West. Sunlight sparkles off his badge and his arm brushes the pistol on his hip.

But Guiney, 35, is not on his way to a showdown with a gunslinger. He’s the top lawman in Bodie today, but his duties as state park ranger are primarily to watch out for light-fingered tourists, assess the sag of the aging buildings and run off stray cows.

A minister a century ago called this old gold mining camp “a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion.”

The miners, gamblers, gunmen, vigilantes and prostitutes who made Bodie notorious are gone, but the tales of their lives and a surprising number of the town’s buildings and furnishings remain.

“I talked to a guy who has been to 200 ghost towns and he said this is the best,” Guiney said, surveying Main Street, once a solid mile of one- and two-story frame and brick buildings.

Three-Mile Dirt Road

Bodie is situated near the California-Nevada border in a small valley on the high desert, just east of Yosemite National Park. It’s 13 miles from California 395 via a road that’s paved for 10 miles, then becomes dirt, rocks and holes for the final three.

In its heyday in the late 1870s and 1880s the town had more than 10,000 residents, 65 saloons, 30 mines, a Chinatown and a busy red-light district.

Today only about 170 structures remain. Major fires in 1892 and 1932 destroyed much of the town’s business district.

There is still a treasure trove of furniture, clothing, merchandise and tools left behind by the original residents.

There are pews, a pipe organ and a wood-burning stove in the Methodist Church, built in 1878-79. But an oilcloth inscribed with the Ten Commandments is gone--stolen.

Old beds, clothing, magazines, dishes, tables and rocking chairs litter many of the houses.

“All of the things were left here,” Guiney said. “People’s jobs ran out with the mines. They didn’t have a lot of money. It was cheaper to leave things and buy new things later.”

Essays from former students are pinned to a board near one of the school’s windows. One, by a boy named Victor Cain, decided that girls of his day had an equal chance with boys to become famous. Another observed that “Bodie isn’t much of a town but us kids like it.”

100,000 Visitors a Year

More than 100,000 people a year visit the old town to walk the streets, peek in windows and inspect the few buildings that are open. The park is open to visitors year-round, but heavy snows during the winter at Bodie’s 8,375-foot elevation make it reachable only by snowmobiles or cross-country skis.

Bodie remains in relatively good condition because the family of James S. Cain, the town’s chief businessman and property owner, kept a watchman at Bodie until it became a state park in 1962, Guiney said.

So it survived the wanton appetites of antique buffs, souvenir hunters or people looking for free lumber. But Guiney says he and the park’s other rangers must still be on the lookout for vandals and people who want to take home a memento.

The town is named after Waterman S. Body, who discovered gold in the area in 1859. An illiterate sign painter is sometimes blamed for the change in spelling to Bodie, but state officials say the switch was made by Bodie residents to ensure proper pronunciation of the town’s name.

Some mining activity continued in Bodie until World War II. The Standard Mill, built around the turn of the century to replace one destroyed by fire, still looms over the town, but it is off limits to visitors. The school was in use until 1941.

After the war, efforts to revive mining ended in 1946 when a mill built to process low-grade ore burned down.

‘Arrested Decay’

The state keeps the buildings in a state of “arrested decay.” It makes some repairs on the structures, but doesn’t plan to restore them.

“The idea is to keep it looking like a ghost town,” Guiney said. “Like everybody just got up and left.”

Guiney, the park’s supervising ranger, is one of three year-round staff members. Late in July, in the midst of the heavy tourist season, there were 11 workers at the park.

Guiney lives with his wife and two young children in James Cain’s home, a three-bedroom house built in 1877. It doubles as the park office.

There is no television and only one reliable radio station, but Guiney says that he and his family are “never bored.” Board games and books provide much of the entertainment in the winter.

“If you are the kind of person that needs external entertainment, you probably would not like it here,” he said.