The Story of Bodie

Book excerpt: First published in 1956, this is a history of California’s official state gold rush ghost town, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 became Bodie State Historic Park. The account is written by Ella M. Cain, a native of Bodie, whose father-in-law James S. Cain and family owned much of the land the town is situated upon and had hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town’s structures following its decline in 1914. “Bodie deserved and sustained its reputation of being the most lawless, the wildest and toughest mining camp the Far West has ever known.”—Ella M. Cain