Big Bad Bodie High Sierra Ghost Town

The mid-19th century mining town of Bodie, California located at 8,369 feet, atop the Sierra Nevada Mountains, just 3 1/2 miles from the Nevada border, was considered one of the richest gold and silver mining towns in the west. Geologists who know of its present rich ore deposits, say it could have been again, but since it became a California historic state park in 1962, that possibility was terminated. The old town, now the best preserved ghost town in the Nation, is maintained in a state of arrested decay by the State of California, meaning it will never be restored to its once rough and tough condition of the 1870s, but it is prevented from further deterioration through a system of constant repair. The public is encouraged to visit the old town, and this book is a compilation of stories, news items, historic information, and reports of its past, some true, some possibly true, and some probably outright lies by citizens of the past and news reporters who wrote for the many old newspapers that described life as it was lived in the years immediately following the Civil War. Authors Jim Watson, photographer, and Doug Brodie, former newspaper reporter, have obtained items heretofore never explained nor described in writings about the old town. Their research has made this book a one of a kind publication.

This three-volume reference set explores the history, relevance, and significance of pop culture locations in the United States—places that have captured the imagination of the American people and reflect the diversity of the nation. Pop Culture Places: An Encyclopedia of Places in American Popular Culture serves as a resource for high school and college students as well as adult readers that contains more than 350 entries on a broad assortment of popular places in America. Covering places from Ellis Island to Fisherman's Wharf, the entries reflect the tremendous variety of sites, historical and modern, emphasizing the immense diversity and historical development of our nation. Readers will gain an appreciation of the historical, social, and cultural impact of each location and better understand how America has come to be a nation and evolved culturally through the lens of popular places. Approximately 200 sidebars serve to highlight interesting facts while images throughout the book depict the places described in the text. Each entry supplies a brief bibliography that directs students to print and electronic sources of additional information.

A Photographic Look at the Old West That Is Alive and Well in California It was a thrilling time, when wagon trains and stagecoaches raced to the California goldfields – on the trail where the dust and campfire smoke met. In the shadow of the towering Sierra Nevada, the real Wild West was born. And it still lives today, in the extraordinary people who pack mule-strings into the mountains, race over mountain passes on horseback while recreating the Pony Express, and drive cattle out of the high country each fall. It lives on beneath the massive wheels of the twenty-mule-team wagons and teams of draft horses pulling historic wagons over a mountain pass. Sit back and enjoy this fascinating journey as the Old West comes alive in a book filled with unique western images, inspiring stories from the trail, memorable cowboy poetry, and some western history.

This volume explores how pluralistic communities thrived in California’s mining hinterland as well as how immigrants and California Natives mobilized and mitigated power inequalities through their daily experiences of identity expression, community cohesion, and labor relations.

For well more than a century, Western films have embodied the United States’ most fundamental doctrine—expansionism—and depicted, in a uniquely American way, the archetypal battle between good and evil. Westerns also depict a country defined and re-defined by complex crises. World War II transformed the genre as well as the nation’s identity. Since then, Hollywood filmmakers have been fighting America’s ideological wars onscreen by translating modern-day politics into the timeless mythology of the Old West. This book surveys the most iconic and influential Westerns, examines Hollywood stars and their political stripes and reveals the familiar Western tropes—which became elements in popular action, science fiction and horror films. This then sets the stage for the Western revival of the 1990s and a period of reinvention in the 21st century. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

The wild reputation of Bodie was unmatched in the Old West. The California gold-mining town attracted a rough crowd. Bodie had gamblers, drinkers, gunslingers, and robbers all after riches. This high-interest childrenÕs title includes a wealth of information about the gold rush that once made Bodie a Òget richÓ destination.