arrested decline

From Lake Tahoe we headed south on amazing scenic expansive highways and turned left to the genuine ghost town of Bodie, set 8000ft high in the hills towards Nevada. Bodie was one of the capitals of the gold rush, in its heyday the second largest town in California. Changes in industry and a couple of bad fires in the first part of the twentieth century meant it was eventually deserted in the 1940s, with only about 5% of its buildings still standing.

Since then it’s been protected as a state historic park, and managed in a state of ‘arrested decline’. There’s almost no visitor facilities, no fibreglass figures, no interpretation panels, no reconstructions. Instead you make your way round the 200 or so wooden buildings, from shacks to salons, peering through dusty windows into even dustier rooms. Everything has been left ‘as left’ more than sixty years ago, sometimes relatively in order, more often chairs upturned, broken chandelier glass on the pool table, or cleared out.

 

The non-domestic buildings – shops, diners, the hotel – generally had more contents intact, though some parts of town had been burnt down and disappeared altogether including the Chinatown and the prostitutes’ street.

 

The ‘arrested decline’ policy is an interesting one, and one most historic tourist attractions are not bold enough to follow. It calls for restraint. Information is simply provided in a standard leaflet, inevitably there are questions unanswered. Some intervention must be gently, carefully carried out to keep verandas safe and buildings secure.

But it allows the place to speak for itself, and to speak differently to different visitors. While information provides a framework of understanding; watching, touching, moving and quietness gives space for the imagination. Curiosity and unanswered questions lead you round the settlement, engaging thoughts and emotions. It’s a viscal, sensory experience; made intriguing by the mystery of the left traces of human activity. And mournful. Dusty beds, empty rooms, the bleak landscape. Of course this is in part a sentimental response to loss, to evidence of loss, that places and people that are busy and full of life do change, do die, do empty. But that’s history, that’s part of why history is important. Bodie, and being in Bodie, gives space and time to engage emotionally with this change. If you are ever in this part of the world, go and visit.