Christmas
of 1859, the mining camp that was to become
Bodie was barely a glimmer in the eyes of the few prospectors
that had wandered up the hills in search of gold. For Black Taylor,
perhaps alone in a tiny cabin on a gulch named after him, it would have
been a somber one. Thoughts
of his partner, W. S. Bodey whom he had buried in the deep snow after he
collapsed and died in the fierce November blizzards, would have haunted
him. It would be May of the
following year, before
Taylor
was finally able to return to the spot where Bodey had been abandoned.
Scattered bones were all that remained for
Taylor
to bury in the ground near where they were found.
As more prospectors inhabited the area, it became Bodey’s
Diggings, and by
July 10, 1860
, the “Body” Mining District was formed.
In the mid 1860’s Bodie was a typical mining camp, with most of
its fifty residents men who were miners.
They lived up on the hill close to the mines.
There were no stores or restaurants.
Supplies were brought in from Monoville or Aurora. One can only
imagine the harsh and lonely winters these miners survived. As the mines
became prosperous, the population expanded and Bodie slowly grew into a
real town.
1877
It was not until
1877, that the post office, telegraph office, and newspaper arrived.
Families and children were common enough to create a school
district. The Miners Union was organized and their great hall was built.
The first of what was to become many Christmas parties was held
in the hall, complete with
Christmas tree, Santa, and gifts for everyone. The Christmas tree was
lit with candles, while men stood by with wet sponges held on long
poles, in case of fire.
The newspaper reported of LIVELY
TIMES IN BODIE: “
Main Street
has presented a lively sight during this past week.
The weather has been all that could be asked for, and out of door
work has been pushed in every direction.
The stores, shops and saloons have been doing a big trade,
especially in the last five days, with nearly $70,000 in miner’s wages
circulating around. Wagons,
long trains and stages arriving daily with freight and passengers;
interested crowds eagerly discussing the latest strike, or some new
discovery; capitalists and prospectors joining forces or driving quick,
business-like bargains; the rush and stir of superintendents hurrying
their winter supplies to safe and convenient shelter while the favorable
weather lasts; all these are the sights and sounds of a prosperous
growing mining town, on a solid substantial basis.”
1878
By 1878, Bodie had become a boomtown, with reports of 3,000
people, 20 saloons, and 2 newspapers. Wood was the most precious
commodity, for all the building that was going on, and for heat in the
severe winter. Thousands
of board feet
was on hand in the lumber yards, with more arriving each day.
One man at the south end of town “borrowed”
from a neighbor’s stock pile.
It burnt very well until the giant powder cartridge in the end of
the wood went off along with the stove and a section of his cabin roof.
The neighbor was said to be laughing in his sleep as this
happened. Meantime, as the
holidays approached, the Miners Union Hall was the site of
an invitational entertainment by 50 young men of
the Bienvenu Club. Pistol
lovers amused themselves by
firing off shots as they stood in the streets.
Families enjoyed Santa’s arrival by sleigh at the Miner’s
Union Hall, and children were delighted to receive stockings filled with
candy.
Tragic events reported on December 17th in the Bodie
Standard News, with stories of failing
brakes on a cage holding a
car of tools in the Mono Shaft. Lawrence
Sheridan was crushed by the falling cage.
1879
As the year 1879 approached,
the population of Bodie soared
to 5,000.
Main Street
was a mile long, and lots were staked all over the hillside. One
traveling Grass Valley businessman wrote of
the 47 saloons, 10 faro tables, 2 banking houses,
and 5 wholesale stores that were amongst the “accessories of
civilization” that could be found in the Eastern Sierra mining camp.
Three days before Christmas The Daily Bodie Standard reported the
population had swollen to 7,000 with no deaths for nearly two weeks,
which was good news indeed, as the previous days had been filled with a
serious pneumonia outbreak.
The first snowfalls of December 1879 came a few days before
Christmas. A young store
clerk and sports enthusiast saw this as a chance to try out his winter
athletic skills at last. Anxious
to apply what he had first learned in a
San Jose
flower garden, the man donned his new pair of shoes as he stood at one
of the mines. The snow was
soft and smooth for the first 100 yards or so as he started the gradual
descent towards
Main Street
, Bodie. Suddenly, the
hill grew steeper, and the snow harder, and the snowshoes decided to
take on a mind of their own. For
a couple of hundred yards, the young man traveled at breakneck speeds,
and he managed to hold his balance until he came to the stable.
Just as he was to collide in to the stable he made a 25 foot leap
and crashed through the roof, nearly scaring the poor resident cow to
death. Upon his rescue, he
replied “Too smart, too cunning, and write on my tombstone:
He died in a successful attempt to put a skylight in a cow shed.”
The night before Christmas of 1879, the Grand Central, Bodie’s
finest hostelry, held it’s opening banquet. The men and women of Bodie
celebrated with an abundance of food and wine while a quartet played
Christmas Carols in the background.
Songs, merriment and dancing went on well into the night.
From there many may have gone on to celebrate the opening of the
Noonday Mining Company’s new 30 stamp mill on Christmas Day.
A group of ladies sounded the whistle for a prolonged time as the
machinery started up for the first time.
Corks popped, champagne passed around, and toasts were made in
celebration. The week
following Christmas snows closed most of the mines in what later became
known as “The Great Storm”. The
winter that followed was long and hard, with no traffic able to come in
or out of camp for months. Heating
stove wood was guarded carefully, and thieves were fore-warned that
giant powder cartridges would be hiding
in their wood piles as they had the year before.
1881
The Music Hall Roller Skating Rink opened sometime in November of
1881, so it can be imagined that many young and old alike enjoyed roller
skating during the month of December.
The Bodie saloons, however lost a bit business, as the unpopular
Sunday law forced
them to close one day a week for the first time in history.
A. I. Weiler kept his cigar store open in spite of the law
and was soon sent to the judge.
Santa
Brings A Grandpa
The San Francisco Call of
December 25, 1898
, tells the story of Christmas
Eve in 1889 when two Bodie men traveled through snow falling so thick
they could barely see. They
were headed for mining property 28 miles away, and managed to travel for
at least 10 miles before being thrown out of the sleigh when
the horses jumped to one side to avoid a man lying in the snow.
Although the man appeared to be dead, efforts to resuscitate him
proved successful. The man
had been traveling to Lundy when he became exhausted and had given up in
despair He was very distraught, and kept telling his rescuers that he
had no friends and would be much better off dead.
The two men pulled him into their sleigh, intending to take him
to his original destination which just happened to be on the way to
theirs. With the added
weight of an additional passenger the horses moved considerably slower.
At
9PM
that evening they found themselves at the junction of the main road and
Mill Road
, where the George Barnes and his family lived.
Here they were granted permission to spend the night.
Meantime, they watched as Mrs. Barnes decorated the family
Christmas tree, after her husband and daughter had retired for the
night. She also cooked
supper for her three weary guests, and prepared bed and blankets for
them.
Early Christmas morning, the two Bodie men watched as the little
Barnes girl opened her presents. The
older man, who had been bedded down in the barn for the night, was
brought in with the others for breakfast.
The girl intrigued by the old man, began sharing her toys with
him. She showed him a book
with her name Jessie Barnes, inscribed in it.
As her father, George walked in, the older man stood up and held
out his hand. “Don’t you
know me?” he said. “If
you are the son of Jessie and Richard Barnes, you ought not to have
forgotten my face.” George
immediately put his arms around the old man’s neck and called out “Father!”
It had been twenty years since father and son had seen each
other. George was happy to
care for his father in his old age, and little Jessie noted that Santa
Claus not only brought lots of presents, but a grandfather, too.
Winter in the 1930’s
As time wore on Bodie
went through booms and busts, and a few disastrous fires.
By the 1930’s little
activity was going on in the mining camp, and the few citizens were
hoping for better times. Leasers
came in to work the old mining properties and the Standard mill was
being used for reducing and extracting gold and silver values.
Those who did remain
spent winters skiing, sleigh riding, and congregating at friends homes.
Preparations began in advance to keep families through the long
season. Arena Bell Lewis’s
family would go to
Reno
before the snow started to buy fruit and salmon for the winter ahead.
Parents would ski great distances to pick a Christmas tree, tie
it to their backs and bring it back to the failing mining town of Bodie.
In 1936, Mrs. Zady Kriel came home from college for Christmas in
Bodie with her parents
Clyde
and Annis Harvey. She hopped
on the Greyhound bus to
Bridgeport
and hitched a ride with the
postman on his sled. A
kerosene lantern under a lap robe kept their feet warm, as they traveled
through the deep snows to Bodie.
That night in her parents living room, she slept on the guest
couch, all toasty and warm with several comforters and an oil stove
burning nearby. A
traditional fierce winter storm raged outside.
She watched as snow blew in
the front door keyhole, and spots of frost on the wallpaper marked the
nail heads in the walls.
In 1962 the abandoned town of
Bodie
was turned over to the state park system destined
to forever remain in arrested decay for people from all over the
world to get a glimpse of the what it once
was, and what it had now become.
The great winter storms arrive most years, preventing anyone but
a few ranger caretakers, hearty skiers and snowmobilers and the ghosts
of the past from enjoying a Bodie Christmas.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Big
Bad Bodie: High Sierra Ghost Town
by
James Watson & Doug Brodie
Robert
D. Reed Publishers
Bodie
Bonanza: The True Story of a Flamboyant Past
by Warren
Loose
Exposition
Press
Bodie’s
Gold: Tall Tales & True History From A California Mining Town
by
Marguerite Sprague
University
of
Nevada
Press
Bodie
Boom
Town-Gold
Town
!
by
Douglas McDonald
Friends
of Bodie
Nevada
Publications
East
of the High Sierra, The
Ghost Town of Bodie-A
California
State Park
by
Russ and Anne Johnson
Chalfant
Press, Inc.
Mining
Camp
Days
by
Emil W. Billeb
Nevada
Publications
|