through the looking glass of a Ghost Town…

“And now my comrades all are gone;

Naught remains to toast.

They have left me here in my misery,

Like some poor wandering ghost.” 

-Joaquin MillerThe heyday of Bodie was between 1877-1881. The California gold rush of 1849 had fizzled out, yet prospectors were still finding their fortune in these hills below the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains.

But not for long. As the 20th century was born, Bodie started to die. Today you can walk the empty streets and peer through the dusty and scratched windows to glimpse into the past.It’s a fascinating insight of antiques preserved from this era; coffee tins and school desks, liquor bottles and bibles. I think about what I have collected and laying around my own home, and wonder, will someone one day wander through where I used to live and be just as curious by what I’ve left behind?