[S2E2] Gold Rush Ghost Town \/\/FREE\\\\
Bodie State Historic Park is a genuine California gold-mining ghost town. Visitors can walk down the deserted streets of a town that once had a population of nearly 10,000 people. The town is named for Waterman S. Body (William Bodey), who had discovered small amounts of gold in hills north of Mono Lake. In 1875, a mine cave-in revealed pay dirt, which led to purchase of the mine by the Standard Company in 1877. People flocked to Bodie and transformed it from a town of a few dozen to a boomtown. Only a small part of the town survives, preserved in a state of "arrested decay." Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Designated as a National Historic Site and a State Historic Park in 1962, the remains of Bodie are being preserved in a state of "arrested decay". Today this once thriving mining camp is visited by tourists, howling winds and an occasional ghost.
[S2E2] Gold Rush Ghost Town
Bodie is a ghost town. Today it looks much the same as it did over 50 years ago when the last residents left. To preserve the ghost town atmosphere, there are no commercial facilities at Bodie, such as food or gasoline. There is a bookstore inside the museum where you may also inquire about daily tours.
As the Gold Rush swept through Alaska in the late 1800s, hopeful future gold tycoons rushed from location to location with the hopes of building their wealth. Unfortunately, this meant that many towns were abandoned as the residents moved quickly to the next gold strike discovered.
Today the town is all but deserted and resides within the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, a division of the National Park Service. Hikers hoping to complete the Chilkoot Trail find their way through this ghost town.
This historical site also represents the Three Saints phase of the Kachemak tradition, a late prehistoric culture on Kodiak Island. There are no remains in this ghost town, so unfortunately there is nothing to explore, and it is not open to public visits.
Fort Egbert, located in Eagle, Alaska, was established in 1899 by a population of just under 1,800 miners and residents that were hoping to find gold. As we have seen demonstrated with other abandoned towns, it was abandoned when other cities had more auspicious opportunities for striking it big.
The discovery of gold set off two great rushes, the Klondike rush to goldfields near Dawson City and the rush to the hills beyond Cape Nome. Fueled by the economic depression of the mid-1890s, the dream of untold riches caused a mass migration to the north country from the United States and Canada. Beginning in 1897, argonauts set off by ship from Seattle or San Francisco and headed north to Dyea or Skagway, after which they headed up trails, then floated down the Yukon River to the Klondike goldfields. Two years later, thousands would head up to Nome by ship to take advantage of the second gold rush.
The federal government created a series of garrisons, such as Fort William H. Seward, to maintain order in the territory. The gold rush also affected Alaska Natives. In Southeast, the Tlingit and the First Nations groups in Canada had a long-standing tradition of trade. The Tlingit brokered goods between the fur companies and the First Nations of the Canadian Interior. After the gold strike, fur companies went farther into the Interior to establish posts which cut off the trade relationship between the Tlingit and the First Nations. The Tlingit continued to trade, but by the 1890s the way of life of many Alaska Native groups had changed dramatically as the miners strengthened their presence.These stampeders shaped the settlement of the land, the history, and the spirit of the north country for generations.
The city engineer, Frank Reid, killed Smith in a blazing shoot-out on July 8, 1898. In the spring of 1898, an Irish contractor persuaded English investors to build a railroad over White Pass to Whitehorse in the Canada. Crews began construction on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad in 1898 and finished July 1900. Yet, the rush had peaked and many prospectors moved on. The population decreased as gold production declined, dropping from 3117 people in 1900, to just 872 in 1910. Skagway survived as a shipping and supply center for the miners and trappers of the Klondike and other Canadian mining districts. It later became a supply point during the construction of the Alcan Highway.
NowThe Secretary of the Interior designated the Chilkoot Trail and Dyea Site a NHL on June 16, 1978. The visible remains of the gold rush are foundation ruins, decaying old boat docks and pilings, wagon roads, the remains of the aerial tramway system, and the Slide Cemetery, where the 65 victims of the April 3, 1898 avalanche are buried. Dyea remains a major historic archeological site and is part of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. From 1900 to 1960, very few people hiked the Chilkoot, but since then the trail has witnessed increased numbers of recreational hikers.
A visit to Dyea provides a great opportunity to experience the nature and wildlife of Southeast Alaska, but this scenic area in the Taiya River Valley is a far cry from what Dyea was like at the turn of the 20th century. Dyea became a boomtown during the Klondike Gold Rush because it was the start of the famous Chilkoot Trail. Thousands of people poured through Dyea on their way to the gold fields.Visiting Dyea TodayToday the original townsite is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and is managed, along with the Chilkoot Trail, as a unit within Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Take the self guided tour of the townsite to learn more about the history, flora and fauna of the area, or spend a night or two at the National Park Service campground.
I had heard the story long before our family road trip took us to the Gold Rush-era ghost town of Virginia City, Montana, the town Fairweather founded just a few weeks after he discovered gold in Alder Gulch.
We picked up round-trip train tickets and walking maps in the neighboring ghost town of Nevada City, where we had rooms for the night. It is one of nine boomtowns that appeared almost overnight in the gulch.
Today, Virginia City is one of the best-preserved placer mining boomtowns in the Rocky Mountains. Rough wooden buildings along Wallace Street still stand much as they did at the height of the gold rush, their tall false fronts emblazoned with hand-painted signs and vintage goods on display behind shop windows.
The entrance to the Nevada City Museum is in the Music Hall, across the road from the train depot, next to the Nevada City Hotel. On summer weekends, living history reenactors bring the town to life, but we visited on a weekday, and the reimagined ghost town was nearly deserted.
We had wanted an authentic Gold Rush-era place to spend the night, and who can resist a night in a ghost town? Still, I will admit we were relieved that the antique-filled Victorian suites we had booked included their own compact bathrooms.
We enjoy dialogue with our readers, especially when they share off-the-beaten-path destinations and useful travel tips. Have you ever visited the Montana ghost towns of Virginia City and Nevada City? If so, we would love to hear about your experience. We invite you to leave your comments and questions below, and we always respond!
In 1870, Hornitos became the first incorporated city in Mariposa County. Though not verified, it is said that during this period nearly 15,000 fortune seekers called this mineral-rich mecca home. Over a hundred years later (and with the gold long extracted) the population of Hornitos dwindled and the city became unincorporated in 1973, thus forging its ghostly status.
The town of Calico was founded near the site of a major silver strike in 1881 and at the height of its glory claimed over 20 saloons and hundreds of nearby mines. The exact value of silver that was mined is estimated to have been between $13,000,000 and $20,000,000 by the end of the boom years. In the mid-1890s the price of an ounce of silver dropped over half in value from what it had been in 1880. This event caused a loss of demand for silver and by the early 1900s Calico had become a deserted ghost town.
Street in ghost town Bodie, California; photo courtesy of Free Public Domain Photo Database: Bodie Ghost Town. Official Gold Rush Ghost Town of CaliforniaBodie was designated the official state gold rush ghost town of California in 2002 to acknowledge the importance Bodie played in California's history. California also recognizes an official silver rush ghost town.
After gold and silver was discovered in Tonopah and Goldfield in the early 1900s, prospectors flooded in to try for their piece of the pie. While those two towns drew the largest influx, many other mining camps sprang up around the region, including Gold Point, where (somewhat ironically) a boom was sparked by Silver. However, while plenty of people never struck it rich in Nevada, the oh-so-Nevadan story of Gold Point features a man who did, in a much different way.
Prospectors out exploring often look for, or stumble onto, old ghost towns left behind by the gold rush. These can be fascinating to explore whether they are truly abandoned, preserved, or even still in use. In my book I give directions to visit virtually every significant gold mining ruins area in Colorado. My wife and I visited a few in summer 2019:
In many areas in the world, some towns and cities got deserted after the cease of gold rush or the depletion of materials. Natural or human activity plays an important part in its forming. This paper will try to find out what ghost towns are, how they were formed, and possible solutions to help revive these towns.
The turn of gold town into ghost town occur often rapidly and quickly, as fast as the way it gets popular. In the mid-1800s, the gold rush gripped California like a wildfire, sparking the rises of towns and cities and attracting approximately 300,000 gold-hunters to seek fortune from the rest of America and from abroad over a very short period (n.d., 2001). The sudden increase of population has brought many problems to the state, and after the gold rush could no longer serve its large population, some cities and towns turn into ghost towns. It was not just the gold rush that brought people to these once gold towns, mining was another attraction and other resources like car-making are also on the list. Places, including Calico, were once densely populated, but now were among the least populated places. People could hardly imagine the beauty and richness of these places based on the remains. 041b061a72