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Bodie
California's best-preserved gold-rush ghost town
Bodie sits at 8,375 feet in the high desert east of the Sierra Nevada, a gold-mining boomtown that swelled to nearly 8,000 people in the late 1870s and then emptied as the ore ran out. Today it is the best-preserved ghost town in California, kept in a state of "arrested decay" as a State Historic Park — some 100 weathered wooden buildings standing exactly as they were left, furniture and goods still inside.
At its peak Bodie had dozens of saloons, a Chinatown, a red-light district, and a reputation for lawlessness. The last residents left by the mid-20th century. Its remoteness and dry climate have preserved it far better than most abandoned towns.