Bridgeport California

Bridgeport appears to be a significant playground for the Silicon Valley crowd, and maybe just Californians from all over the nearby area. It is surrounded by gorgeous, very rocky mountains, some of which still have a considerable amount of snow even in mid-September.

And the alpine lakes here are gorgeous as well. Nestled high in among the peaks they made a perfect base for some fresh air hiking. We visited the Virginia Lakes and the Twin Lakes, looked at the hundreds of summer cabins, had some lunch at the lodge, found some caches and just took in the beauty. It’s easy to see what draws the hordes from the cities.

We managed to finally visit Bodie California. In 1859, W S Bodey, a prospector from Poughkeepsie NY, discovered gold here, and a couple of decades later a full-fledged gold rush hit the area. The town that developed was named after him, even though the spelling wasn’t quite right. In the 1880’s it was considered one of the most lawless towns in California.

The town exploded after the word got out. By 1879 the population topped 8,500 and there were well over 2,000 buildings. There were bars, brothels, gambling halls, general stores, but not one single church. The first church was not built in Bodie until 1882, and then there were two of them, one Catholic and one Methodist.

When the gold played out in the early 1900’s, the towns crash was spectacular. What made the town explode was the large number of large mining company mines and all the jobs.  As all the big mines closed and there were no jobs, people just abandoned their homes leaving most things behind. Because the crash happened so fast and was so complete, hundreds of buildings still stand in Bodie, in an eerie state of arrested decay.

Bodie Ghost Town is now a State Historic Site. You can walk all over town, enter a few of the buildings, and others just look in the windows to see what folks might have been doing the day before they fled Bodie. We’ve been to many ghost towns throughout the West, but those always had a couple of prominent buildings as well as lots of empty foundations. The number of standing structures in Bodie makes it feels like you are visiting a post-apocalyptic setting.

We had been wanting to visit for years, but in our last two serious attempts we were either in late fall or in early June. Because of its elevation and mountain location, snow prevents visiting until late June, so last year when we came by here we were shut out. We can finally now cross it off the bucket list.

An interesting technology event happened here in Bodie in the early days after Edison’s inventions. In the 1890’s Thomas Leggett agreed to build a hydroelectric power plant on Green Creek, about 13 miles from Bodie. In 1892 the plant and electric lines were built running to the stamp mill in Bodie. In October of 1893, the switch was thrown, and Bodie may have become the first electric powered stamp mill in the World using power that was transmitted from a long distance.

We got a bonus here as well. Near Bridgeport on two different BLM managed sites are some natural hot springs. Buckeye Mineral Hot Springs are on the west side of Bridgeport, sort of on the way to the Twin Lakes area. Travertine Mineral Hot Springs are just outside town on the south side.

We decided to hit the Travertine Hot Springs if, for nothing else, just to be able to say we did it. It turned out to be a good call. While not nearly as massive and awesome, the area reminded us of the hot springs and paint pots in Yellowstone. I submerged myself in two different pools, of course already occupied by the knowledgeable locals. The first was maybe around 100 degrees. But the second was easily maybe 105 degrees – what a treat!

Talk to you soon!