Happy Halloween - The tales of trick or treat

16. Bodie California

Bodie is a ghost town in California. W.S. Bodie discovered gold here back in 1859. Unfortunately he died in a snow storm that winter and never saw the town that took on his name. Bodie was abandoned some years later when the gold mine played out. Bodie is now a cursed town, inhabited only by ghosts.

The ghosts of Bodie guard against thieves and protect its treasures. It’s the Bodie Curse. If you take anything from this old ghost town – even a pebble, you will be cursed with bad luck. The only way to lift the curse is to return the stolen item. Every year, park rangers in Bodie receive packages sent by people who are returning stolen items to rid themselves of the Bodie Curse.

The J.S. Cain house is haunted by the ghost of a Chinese maid. People sleeping in the house wake in the middle of the night to find a fat Chinese woman sitting on them. Feeling suffocated, one woman fought so hard that she fell out of bed. Others have reported seeing the bedroom door opening and closing on its own.

The Gregory House is haunted by the ghost of an old woman. Guests and staff have reported seeing her sitting in a rocking chair, knitting an afghan. At other times, the rocking chair has been seen rocking on its own.

The Mendocini House is haunted by the ghost of Mrs. Mendocini who loved to cook Italian food. You can still smell the aroma of her cooking when you enter the house. Others have reported hearing strange sounds and the laughter of children coming from the house.

At the Dechambeau House, visitors have seen a ghostly woman peeking out an upstairs window even though the house is empty.

The ghost of a 3-year old girl haunts Bodie Cemetery. Locals call her “The Angel of Bodie,” because her grave is mounted with a white marble angel. The poor little girl was accidentally killed when she was hit in the head by a pick-axe. One day, a man was visiting the cemetery with his young daughter. He turned his back for a second and his daughter went missing. He searched the entire graveyard and eventually found his daughter playing happily with an invisible friend. When he asked his daughter what she was doing, she told him she was playing with a little girl who had a hole in her head. The man grabbed his daughter and fled the cemetery.

There’s an old mine shaft up on the ridge overlooking Bodie, called the Lent Shaft. One night, some park rangers were patrolling the area. One of the rangers claims he threw a rock down the abandoned mine shaft and heard a voice calling out from down below. When he researched the history of Bodie, he discovered that there had been an explosion in this mine in 1879. Four miners were killed in the explosion and their bodies were never found. Could he have heard the voices of the dead miners, calling out from deep below?