The collection consists mainly of court and financial records from Bodie, California, as well as some later articles and notes with information on Bodie’s history.

Bodie, California, is named after William S. Bodey, who discovered placer gold there in 1859. The first mill was established in 1861 and the town that once consisted of 20 miners grew to an estimated 10,000 inhabitants by 1879. However, by 1882 the boom was over and the town started to decline as many of the mines paid out and the mining companies went bankrupt. Major fires in 1892 and 1932 destroyed much of the town’s business district and by the 1940s Bodie had become a ghost town. In 1964 Bodie was made into a California state park. .

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