Bodie California |
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Bodie is a ghost town east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, about 75 miles (120 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe. Bodie began as a mining camp in 1859 and remained a sleepy town until 1876 when gold was discovered and overnight Bodie was transformed into a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people and by1880 Bodie had a population of 8,000. As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including two banks, a brass band, railroad, unions, a Chinatown, several newspapers, and a jail. At its peak 65 saloons lined Main Street and murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences. Bodie had a popular, though clandestinely important, red light district on the north end of town. From this is told the unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She was credited with giving life-saving care to many, but was denied burial within the gates of the town cemetery, remaining a social outcast even to her death. Bodie is a National Historic Landmark.
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