Bodie

The town is named for a man who never saw it, and it does not spell his name correctly either. W. S. Bodey found gold in these hills in 1859 and died that November in a blizzard on a supply run to Monoville; his body was recovered the following spring. The camp stayed small until a mine collapse in the mid-1870s exposed rich ore beneath it, and the rush that followed threw up some two thousand buildings. The spelling is said to have come from a signpainter.

What the plaque says

Gold was discovered here in 1859 by W. S. Bodey after whom the town was named. Once the most thriving metropolis of the Mono Country, Bodie's mines produced gold valued at more than 100 million dollars. Tough as nails, "the Bad Man From Bodie" still carries his guns and Bowie knife down through the pages of western history.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bodie State Historic Park — 0.4 mi
  A gold town of ten thousand left exactly as it emptied, held in arrested decay at 8,375 feet.
• Mono Lake — 14 mi
  A saline lake older than most of the Sierra, with tufa towers and a water fight it eventually won.

More markers nearby

• Dog Town — 10 mi
• Trail of the John C. Frémont 1844 Expedition — 21 mi
• Carson and Colorado R.R. Freight Depot — 30 mi
• Hawthorne — 30 mi