Archivist fears development near gold mining ghost town

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1999 | 11:16 a.m.

But an official survey put the town on the California side of the state line.

Even so, residents of Nevada's Comstock Lode areas flocked to Bodie in search of the next big thing when their fortunes in the Silver State played out, and Bodie became an important link to Northern Nevada, said state archivist Guy Rocha.

"Many of the first new citizens of Bodie were Nevadans," said Rocha. "Many of those new residents were people who had lived on the Comstock, and they all saw this as the next great opportunity."

The timing of Bodie's first big boom year, 1877, coincided with a decline on the Comstock. Bodie was connected to Northern Nevada by several toll and freight roads, which made emigration easy for those who were so inclined.

More than a century later, Nevadans still are heading to Bodie, but they're doing it in one day, driving south to Bridgeport on Highway 395 and then catching California Highway 270 for the trip up to what Rocha says is one of the few true ghost towns.

But it may be getting some living company.

The Mono County Planning Department is accepting comments on the proposed Bodie Hills RV park, a seasonal resort which would include a general store, 10 motel rooms, a museum, 32 RV spaces, tent and cabin camping and laundry and shower facilities. A pair of single-family homes for employees also is planned.

Rocha is an ardent supporter of California's efforts to preserve the town, and he is skeptical about the RV park.

"It's truly a ghost town," he said. "No other place is like Bodie. It's not commercial. It's the real thing.

"How many Bodies are there and how many RV parks are there? Bodie is a shrine to the American western mining experience. You can't find another one."

Bodie, which peaked in the 1870s with the discovery of rich gold deposits, is now a state park. Rangers live in some of the old houses and have kept the town in a state of arrested decay - preserving its old wooden buildings without adding any noticeable improvements. Visitors can peer into a schoolroom where desks are still littered with books, a store with wares still arranged neatly on the shelves and homes still furnished with whatever their residents couldn't carry when they left.

Gwen Plummer, assistant planner for the Mono County Community Development Department, said the current version of the RV park is a revision of an earlier plan. Area residents raised concerns about impacts to the environment, as well as Bodie, even though the town is several miles from the proposed RV park.

"I think people kind of feel like when you start on that highway and travel in, it's kind of the Bodie experience," said Plummer. "We got a lot of comments."

The county will accept public comment on the proposal until Sept. 30.

Bill Lapham, whose family is proposing the RV park, says the plans take those concerns into account.

"I think (critics) are afraid this thing is going to look like a Knotts Berry Farm or a Disneyland, and it's not," he said. "This is going to be down to earth, just like Bodie."