CANDELARIA - BODIE

Another sunny morning. Wednesday would be the last time in Nevada on the trip, unexpectedly.
The road to...
Candelaria. Similar to the story of Metropolis. Candelaria's decline was due to the lack of water.
There are no markers out there (that I noticed) that tell you what any of the ruins are.
But Candelaria was one of those standard mining boom towns thar had a hotel, post office, shops and lots of saloons.
I cropped it from the photo, but there were people working nearby. Maybe doing a little mining or something?
The Moonlite Bunny Ranch is the Taj Mahal compared to the Playmate Ranch. Not sure it is even open. I read that all of the brothels in Nevada were shut down during the pandemic for obvious reasons.
Some buildings on the road to Hawthorne.
There are roads in Nevada that are just on open range. You have to be careful to look out for wandering cattle.
On the road through the mountains to...
California. These mountains are mere pimples compared to those snowy ones in the distance.
Won't be dealing with those mountains just yet.
Instead we're on the dirt road (don't tell Budget) to the best ghost town I've ever visited.
Bodie State Historic Park.
Until now, Rhyolite in Nevada was my favorite ghost town. But the buildings there, while very interesting, are fewer and a lot of it is just open space. Bodie has a lot of the old buidings of the town preserved. Being a state park, I guess they can do that.
The Methodist church (1882) is the only remaining church left standing in Bodie.
According to the park guide, an oilcloth with the Ten Commandments on it was stolen. So much for that eighth one I guess.
I didn't get the guide until I was on my way out of the park, so I am not positive what some of these things are. I'm taking my best educated guess based upon how I think I walked through the area. I believe this was the Metzger house, Henry Metzger was the mill's foreman when the Standard Mining Company closed in 1913.
A row of houses on Park Street.
The James Stuart Cain house. Cain became a banker and kept the Bodie Bank open until 1932. He also bought the Standard mining properties in 1915 through court action and soon became the principal property owner in town. Maybe that's why his house has all those glass windows.
The Boone Store and warehouse. Built in 1879, it was one of several general stores in Bodie. Harvey Boone was a distant cousin of Daniel Boone. Those are some old gas pumps on the right.
I think what we are looking at here are the Loti and Eli Johl house on the left and Sam Leon's Bar and Joe Hahner Barber Shop on the right.
The Wheaton & Luhrs Store was built in the early 1880's. As was the case with so many of these things, it later became other things. It was also a U.S. Land Office, the offices for the hydroelectric company that transmitted electricity to the town and likely lastly a hotel/boarding house.
A look through the window.
The building with the brick facade, after serving as the post office, was the DeChambeau Hotel. In the town's final years it was a bar and cafe. The building next door was the hall for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge No. 279. The lodge used the upper floor. The first floor was used by Henry Ward for his undertaking/furniture business.
There were some patches of snow here and there.
Originally the Bon Ton Lodging House, this became a school after the first school was alledgedly burned down by an early-day juvenile delinquent.
In 1879-80, the school saw its highest enrollment of 615 students. It closed in 1942.
This is the Standard Consolidated Mining Company's stamp mill. Standard was the most successful of the thirty mining companies operating in the Bodie district.
This firehouse was rebuilt by the Civilian California Corps in the 1930's.
A look farther up Green Street.
I don't know whose house this was.
The only thing remaining from the site of the Bodie Bank after the fire of 1932 is the brick vault.
The ruins of the Moyle warehouse, one of several constructed to store supplies for the Bodie winters. The wooden structure was the Kirkwood Stable and Blacksmith Shop.
The Miller house is next door to the Cain house. It is more modest.
The building is open to visitors. And with that, we will bid farewell to Bodie. On a warmer day one could spend hour upon hour just wandering all over the town.

NEXT