Gold ... this is what the boom was all about. The three white samples show gold veins in quartz. The leaf gold specimen is very rare. The middle rusty, dirty looking sample is what current mines work with. The grade is poor but with massive open pit mining operations it is enough to be profitable.

The wood of the buildings has aged over the years and glows in the late afternoon sun.

An old hotel and early wagon.

Bodie is a ghost town and many of the old buildings are said to be haunted.

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This is the hotel and bar that housed many miners. In addition, the assay office was located toward the rear of the building.

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J.S. Cain lived in this house. He was a major property owner in Bodie and build his fortune by transporting timber across Mono Lake by barge. Timber was in short supply here but was needed to stoke the boilers that ran machinery, supported mine shafts and heated homes.

The back of the brick Dechambeau Hotel and bar and the IOOF (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) hall on the left.

Winters in Bodie can be brutal. At over 8300 feet in altitude ... well above the tree line... wind can sweep down the hills bringing bitter drops in temperature. In 1999 Bodie registered the nation's lowest daily temperature 71 times.

The Methodist Church was first built in 1882 and was one of the two churches in town.

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The Swazey Hotel is being shored up to keep them from falling down. This is an example of "arrested decay" in progress.

The sawmill in town was one of the busy places. Bodie is above the tree line and big logs were hauled into town where they were sold and cut up for construction or firewood to power the stamp mill or other steam powered machinery.

When a prospector thought he found ore, he would bring it to the Assay office to be tested. Samples were heated it in the assay furnace to melt the gold ore in the rock samples.. By melting the ore, they could weigh the gold and determine the mineral content of the ore.

Part of the equipment in the assay office.

Strong light came in from the window in the assay office painting these interesting beakers and tubes in gold.

The Standard Stamp Mill ran 24 hours a day crushing rock and extracting gold and silver. It is estimated that over $34 million in bullion was produced here. Bodie Bluff behind the mill shows the slag heaps near the mine shafts.

The mines had a variety of bell signals to help the miners communicate what was needed in the mine shafts.

Carts with ore were loaded at the mine and sent to the mill by ore carts. They got checked in here and then continued on to the mill.

The ore carts would bring in the rock at the top of the mill and then it would be shoved down shafts to waiting equipment below.