Aurora, Nevada... Is there anything there?

[dperez]

I will be in the Bodie area from September 11-14. Wanted to know what anyone has to say about the ghost town of Aurora. I have read reports that there isn't much to see there, but I would be more inclined to pay attention if that info came from a photographer.

If anyone has other suggestions for ghost towns in that area I would be all ears (or eyes I guess). I'm willing to go to the Tonopah area, but not too much farther south if it can be avoided this time around.

Thanks.

-DP

[EdWorkman]

I'd like to know also- AFA I do know there is zilch, but...
My to-be-parents lived in Aurora in the depths of the depression, my dad worked a goldmine, along with a couple of AAF buddies after they had completed flight training and their ROTC obligations- you are excused, there's a depression on. Back then, Bodie was the Big Town, and they went to Saturday Nite dances there. Ore was delivered over Lucky Boy Pass to the railroad at Hawthorne, using the lowest gear, reverse. They left Aurora in 1933, and this world in the 1980s.

[Merg Ross]

I visited in the very early 1950's and there were still buildings standing. Shortly thereafter, the town was vandalized and the used brick hauled off for home construction elsewhere. I did return once, and there was very little to photograph, although the cemetery was interesting. Perhaps Jim Galli will chime in here, he probably knows the current status and road condition.

[dsphotog]

DP
Are you enrolled in a photo workshop at Bodie?
I've done them twice, with interior access, its the best way to shoot Bodie.
David Silva
Modesto,Ca

[dperez]

DP
Are you enrolled in a photo workshop at Bodie?
I've done them twice, with interior access, its the best way to shoot Bodie.
David Silva
Modesto,Ca

No not at this time... Which one would you recommend?

[dsphotog]

They are listed on Bodie's website...
The one i used was Bob Cumming, for enrollment call Bob 714 688-9744.

[Drew Wiley]

My mothers uncle was a circuit preacher in the mining boomtowns from the 1880's
until around 1910. His daughter walked around with a box camera as a little girl, and
I have inherited cyanotype prints from a child's point of view of places like Big Pine and
Silver City from that era. Really fascinating seeing these town under construction and
how a child viewed the frontier. Things like a snowplow composed of oxen dragging a
log with a chain, women in hoop skirts climbing the Palisade glacier, etc. Perhaps even
more interesting were her fathers recorded sermons, in highly polished East coast prose, presented to half a dozen grubby miners each Sunday in a town which is reputed to have held almost two hundred bars and brothels in its heyday. Two of the
little Victorian churches remain, one in Big Pine and the other in Lamoille, Nevada.

[Jim Galli]

Nothing much to photograph in Aurora although the country is beautiful. You can thank California's inane property tax laws for that. About 1948 as the story I've heard goes, the fellow that literally owned the entire town was getting charged taxes by the building. He let people come and dismantle them for the bricks. From photos even in the 1940's it was a town that would easily have rivaled Bodie. There are some mining buildings extant in Monarch though.

I have a love / hate relationship with Bodie. I love it but it's so overphotographed that you can flip to photo.net and not only pick out the Bodie photos, you can tell which building they were in and what angle they were shooting.

By way of a free tip, the light in Bodie is also quite unique. Combine the 8500 foot elevation (think blue) with 4% humidity and it's easy to get 5 stop spreads between your shadows and your direct sunlight areas. It can be brutal.

I was in Bodie one day up in the parking lot and a guy with a big Stetson hat pulled in with a 1959 Ford Thunderbird converted to 4WD and 7:00X15 truck tires. I said out loud, I can die now, I've seen everything.

[John Jarosz]

I was in Bodie one day up in the parking lot and a guy with a big Stetson hat pulled in with a 1959 Ford Thunderbird converted to 4WD and 7:00X15 truck tires. I said out loud, I can die now, I've seen everything.

I didn't know that Ansel liked T-Birds.......

[Drew Wiley]

Jim - I've taken a couple shots in Bodie that I'm quite certain no one will ever
duplicate, and prints of one of them are in several major private collections. There
are always opportunities, whether due to the uniqueness of somone's personal
viewpoint or some special lighting conditons, or whatever. If one arrives there early
AM or late in the afternoon, the crowds will be light. And it's just off 395 near Mono
Lake and other tempting areas. The dirt road the opposite direction to Green Creek
watershed is also very nice. But as you know better than most, there are plenty of
other places with rusty buildings and so forth in the Great Basin. And given the choice, I prefer solitude. Haven't been back to Bodie per se for over 25 yrs, but have driven past the entrance about a hundred times, so have a decent clue what the tourist traffic is doing. Tonopah must have many opportunties too!

[tgtaylor]

Has anyone been to the Bodie train station?

[Merg Ross]

When I think of Aurora, Bodie, and the Mono Basin as they were, I recall my favorite book as a teenager. Check out "Roughing It" by Mark Twain. His observations of Mono Lake are excellent, and a contrast to present day.

[tgtaylor]

When I think of Aurora, Bodie, and the Mono Basin as they were, I recall my favorite book as a teenager. Check out "Roughing It" by Mark Twain. His observations of Mono Lake are excellent, and a contrast to present day.

Have you been to MArk Twain's campsite about 20 miles out of Bodie? Angel Camp I think they call it but I may be wrong on that.

[Drew Wiley]

Merg - I remember Tioga Pass as a one-lane dirt road, with my dad loading his pipe
while steering with his knees in order to freak-out my mom. Mono Lake was still full
enough that the tufa towers weren't visible. I grew up with Mono Indians, and had
long interviews with one elderly individual who recounted stories of how he had
crossed Paiute Pass barefoot, with only a rabbit-skin blanket, to trade with the east
side Mono. This transpired when he was a teenager. A neighbor of ours, who is still
alive, is featured as a little girl in the classic Sierra Club book of early Calif Indian
photos called "Almost Ancestors". Her nephew and I climbed cliffs and waterfalls
together, and somehow both survived. When I was in grammer school, at the start
of each school year, some of the Indian kids would be a couple of weeks late to
school because they were still helping their grandmothers harvest Autumn acorns
from our yard. Now some of them are casino multimillionaires!

[Brad Rippe]

Taylor, I was in Bodie last week for the first time in 35 years and it hasn't changed much. The train station (up the hill) as well as all the extremely interesting mine tailing piles are all off limits! They are very strict too. Visitors are limited to the fenced-in area not too far up the hill. One ranger told me he gave a group $600 citations for going up the hill past the signed fence!
I remember walking all over the place years ago with no restrictions, but it is still a very interesting site.
I was there showing my daughters the place, so no LF photography for me. I'd like to go back with a photographers group early and late in the day, that would be incredible.
As far as Jim Gallis comment that it is over-photographed, he's probably right, but even though I have seen hundreds of Bodie photographs, there is still something compelling about each one.
-Brad

[Merg Ross]

Have you been to MArk Twain's campsite about 20 miles out of Bodie? Angel Camp I think they call it but I may be wrong on that.

No. However, Angel camp was made famous by Bret Harte, a good friend of Twain's.

So much history in those hills and mountains, and so little evidence remains. My first visit to Bodie was in 1951, long before it became a State Park. It was a wonderful place to camp and photograph, very few people. However, without it becoming a State Park, it would no doubt have suffered the same fate as Bodie.

[tgtaylor]

Thanks for the reply Brad.

The train station has been off limits as far as I can remember. I understand that it is good condition.

I was in Bodie for Friends Day last week and, although Bodie has been photographer to death, it always looks worthy for several box cars more of negatives! In fact, I just received a box of 4x5 Rollie IR and am seriously thinking of returning in the near future.

BTW, my trip last week to Bodie was with a Pentax 67 soft focus lens which I am now appreciating along with Jim Galli's soft focus work. Pictorialism has something to say.

Thomas

[dperez]

Thanks for all the info about Aurora and Bodie. I have avoided it for years for the reasons that Jim Galli mentioned. But after a trip up to Silverton, CO a few years ago I decided I would make a go at Bodie since it was much closer and I could make return trips a little easier.

I found elements of Silverton to be kind of touristy with a lot of the buildings in town sporting fresh coats of paint and the like... But there was a charm to it as well that I picked up on after a couple days there. I’m also interested old painted advertisements that adorn the exterior walls of old brick buildings of the early 1900s. Of course the ruins 11 miles into Silverton’s main dirt road are nice and I didn’t see too many people there.

Although it’s not really a ghost town (yet), one of the places that has always intrigued me was Holbrook, AZ. I used to drive through Holbrook once a week when I lived in Flagstaff. Unfortunately, I didn’t own a LF camera then. I will go back eventually, as the town is stuck in the 50s and 60s.

[EdWorkman]

Speaking of literature- Mark and Mono Lake, read Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin- it can be found for free on the internet. The house she lived in is in Lone Pine or Independence or one of those in the Owens Valley, and her descriptions of the eastern side of the Sierra are exquisite.

[tgtaylor]

No. However, Angel camp was made famous by Bret Harte, a good friend of Twain's.

So much history in those hills and mountains, and so little evidence remains. My first visit to Bodie was in 1951, long before it became a State Park. It was a wonderful place to camp and photograph, very few people. However, without it becoming a State Park, it would no doubt have suffered the same fate as Bodie.

Years ago, back when I was all of 18, I had orders to report to Oakland Army Base for overseas deployment. Being from New Orleans and having never been out west (this was "the sticks" to me back then) I arrived in SF a few days early to tour the city and see the sights. I stayed in a rather pricey (for me) hotel named The Mark Twain. A hotel with name like that out here was a surprise to me as I was sure at the time that Twain had never set foot way out here - far away from the Mississippi. Guess back then I had never progressed beyond Huckleberry Finn in Twain literature.

Interestingly, Mark Twain didn't have anything to say about Bodie even though he lived 20 miles away; and Bodie is equally silent on Mark Twain. Surely he visited Bodie as their campsite is located on a dirt road (definitely high clearance) that either starts at or continues thru Bodie. Surely Twain and his diggin' buddies came to town occasionally to party.

If my memory is correct, the last resident left Bodie ~ 1948 after which the town was completely abandoned until it became a State Park. In 1951 you must have had unrestricted access to the interiors. I'd bet you "camped" in one of the hotels or houses.

Thomas

[tgtaylor]

Thanks for all the info about Aurora and Bodie. I have avoided it for years for the reasons that Jim Galli mentioned. But after a trip up to Silverton, CO a few years ago I decided I would make a go at Bodie since it was much closer and I could make return trips a little easier.


It's a mistake to avoid Bodie just because it has been discovered by the photography world. Unlike Silverton, which I have never been to or Calico which I have, Bodie is real ghost town and the largest remaining in the US.

Gold is being successfully mined just over the hill from the train station and the mining company tried to buy the mineral rights to mine Bodie itself a few years back. They were rebuffed back then but California is in a financial jam and the price of gold is currently hovering around $1,000/oz and expected to go much higher - $2,000/oz is being mentioned. Go while Bodie is still there.

[John Kasaian]

omission requested by John Kasaian

[tgtaylor]

omission requested by John Kasaian

Omission granted John but what was the joke? Don't be bashful, let's hear it! I'm always up for a good joke.

[Merg Ross]

If my memory is correct, the last resident left Bodie ~ 1948 after which the town was completely abandoned until it became a State Park. In 1951 you must have had unrestricted access to the interiors. I'd bet you "camped" in one of the hotels or houses.

Thomas[/QUOTE]

Yes, it was as you suggest, quite a different place in 1951. That was a time when one could rent a "cabin" (vintage 1900) in Rhyolite, Nevada for $5 a week. Such a luxury was free at Bodie, and fortunately there were those who respected and apprecited the historical significance of the place and made efforts to preserve it. I have read that as many as 1,500 visitors pass through on a weekend, but at least there is still a feeling of the mining camp era.

This thread has strayed from Aurora, but since there is little that remains of that town, an earlier thread was devoted to Bodie.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=37674&highlight=bodie

[tgtaylor]

Thanks for the link Merg - I enjoyed viewing the images that were presented - especially yours of the morgue which I have yet to visit. Bodie is truly a fantastic place one which everyone, including photographers, should see. The last poster, Paul, hit it on the head stating: "There's definitely a million great shots waiting to be had at Bodie."

Actually, Bodie is not too far of the mark as it is only about 20 miles from Bodie and is either near or same site where Mark Twain camped while in the area. As you say, there's a lot of history (and still gold!) in those hills.

[Jim Galli]

For penance I offer these shots (http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/EasternSierraWorkshopOct2006/PerVolquartzWSsierras.html) made the last time I visited Bodie and the surrounding region.

[dsphotog]

On the idea of ghost towns....
I can't remember the name of the semi ghost town north of Owens lake...
Is it Keeler?
Or Cerro Gordo?

[John Jarosz]

Cerro Gordo. I was there 14 months ago. Difficult road to get there, nice view from the top but we didn't see much because of all the smoke in the air. It's owned by one guy. There is a caretaker that we talked to for a while. It didn't have the kind of images I was looking for, but it has an interesting history.

John

[dperez]

It's a mistake to avoid Bodie just because it has been discovered by the photography world. Unlike Silverton, which I have never been to or Calico which I have, Bodie is real ghost town and the largest remaining in the US.

Gold is being successfully mined just over the hill from the train station and the mining company tried to buy the mineral rights to mine Bodie itself a few years back. They were rebuffed back then but California is in a financial jam and the price of gold is currently hovering around $1,000/oz and expected to go much higher - $2,000/oz is being mentioned. Go while Bodie is still there.

Yes I realize this now. With the information everyone has provided including Jim Galli's photographs, I plan on visiting Bodie, the Chemung Mine, Conway Ranch, Dechambeau Ranch, and Bennettville.

By the way, I would highly recommend Silverton, both the active community and the ghost town, Animas Forks, 12 miles in on Animas Forks Road (unpaved). If you have a high clearance vehicle you can continue on the dirt roads through some high elevation passes-Cinammon Pass to the east (above 12,000'), California Pass to the west and Engineer Pass (12,800') to the north.

-Daniel

[John Jarosz]

Animas Forks is in a very nice setting. The road from Silverton is not that difficult and only really requires a high clearance vehicle. Going up higher from Animas Forks requires 4wd WITH a low range because the 4wd roads are extremely steep. And if you go during popular times on those 4wd roads you may need to back up a significant distance to permit oncoming traffic to pass. It's not all that difficult but you should be aware of what you're in for.

Most of the town of Animas Forks is gone, but the 6 or 7 structures still standing provide some very good photo ops. You may think it would be easy to be there alone, but the site always seems to have traffic.

John

[evan clarke]

On the idea of ghost towns....
I can't remember the name of the semi ghost town north of Owens lake...
Is it Keeler?
Or Cerro Gordo?

Try North Dakota, my pals and I visited about 50 Ghost Towns there earlier this year...Evan Clarke

[tgtaylor]

There's a bunch of ghost towns in Nevada as well. Most are small - just a couple of structures remaining.

[Kevin Crisp]

Getting back to the original question, you can reach Aurora by driving through the Bodie parking lot and straight out the back. It will wind around past some well spaced abandoned buildings and eventually get you there. I enjoyed the drive and found it scenic, especially when it narrows down and the rocks get colorful. I found it no big deal in a Ford Explorer and a Volvo wagon on two different trips. If you tell them at the Bodie gate you are just passing through they won't charge you the state park fee. At least they didn't charge you but these days, who knows?

There is a really nice smelter when you get near Aurora but other than the small cemetery and a mine headframe and some tailings, not much there. I vaguely recall the remains of a stamping mill, rusty cans and of course the obligatory parts of a rusty stove, but not much else. (All the usual stuff, except the blown safe.) The cemetery has a Nevada state senator in it and a touching father/daughter pair of graves. At one time Aurora was the county seat (in California) until someone figured out it wasn't in California at all but in Nevada. Some jerk has dinged up the white marble headstones with rifle shots.

I don't mean to discourage you from seeing it but if you are expecting big open streets lined with buildings you are in the wrong place or at least at the wrong time. In the Laws Railroad Museum in Bishop, in the library, there is a hanging oil painting of Aurora in the 1940's and it was something to see back then, with rows of brick buildings that are now somebody's patio. You can keep going on the road to the Laws museum and you can take the white knuckle road up to the Bristlecone Pines. It is a road your family will remind you of for a long, long time. Trust me.

The Chemung mine (over by the Bridgeport reservoir) is a great one to visit, but winter is taking its toll and the main building with the machinery in it won't last much longer. I haven't seen it in two years. The place has been shot to pieces but is still well worth the trip. From the Bodie parking lot you can hang a left instead of going to Aurora and you will eventually get to the Chemung mine. If you head in the other way from up north and go past the reservoir, turn right, then go past the Chemung (on your right) you eventually get to remnants of what I believe is called Mormon. Foundations and fallen timbers for a huge mill remain, with some collapsed cabins. Some great aspen groves are there and up high on the surrounding hills you can see remnants of mining tram systems and towers.

Keeler is next to Owens Lake and it has a train station too, painted a faded purple. It was a private home for some time. On the lake side of town you can make out the abandoned town swimming pool, built by the local dads for their kids. If you are in this area Darwin is worth seeing too.

Cerro Gordo is across the highway and up a very steep climb with spectacular views. Cerro Gordo has a website and you can make reservations and stay in the restored bunk house or the mine foreman's house.

Cerro Gordo was owned and run by a saint named Jody Stewart, one of the most gracious people you ever wanted to meet, with encyclopedic knowledge of local history. She also made the best french toast ever cooked on planet earth. I had called Jody before my first trip up there. I arrived late as she was leaving and she gave me the keys to open all the buildings and then she took off down the hill. She passed away a few years ago, and her partner (husband, I think) is named Mike Patterson and he is charge of the place now. I've had limited contact with Mike over the years (Jody would do the talking) but he was pleasant and seems to be carrying on as Jody did. Cerro Gordo has the American Hotel building, which is often photographed and several other interesting buildings as well. When I stayed there Jody gave me directions for seeing other mines in the area and we had a great time exploring. There is plenty to photograph in Cerro Gordo but it is not quite the postcard perfection of Bodie. They have a museum with lots of interesting artifacts.

If you drive through Cerro Gordo and hang a left, you go past what I think is Jody's grave then wind around the hill toward the side of the mountain closer to US 395. The views from 9000+' of the back side of the Sierras are impressive especially in the morning when the sun is at your back. The road eventually leads to the famed Salt Tram Station, though it is steep and narrow and slippery and treacherous in every sense of the word you better know how to drive a 4X4 or you will end up like the International Harvester Scout that slipped off and rolled down the hill and remains there. I can't overemphasize how bad this road is. (There is another way to reach the tram from Swansea at the bottom of the hill and that road is supposed to be bad too, but not as bad.) If you don't turn left at Cerro Gordo but go straight, you will end up down in the Saline Valley.

[Drew Wiley]

Ah, now you're stirring up some memories...Stuck a couple hundred miles back on a
jeep road in a brand-new Chevy station wagon, patching a ruptured oil pan with sticks and toilet paper ... watching a coyote snatch my venison steak straight off the
hot Coleman stove on the tailgate ...scrambling over the cliffs between Keeler and
Cerro Gordo collecting Ordovician reef fossils for my term paper in Invertebrate Paleontology .... marveling at the sheer insanity of the men who built that tram over
the ridiculously rugged Argus Range just to transport salt from Saline Valley, and then watch their get rich dreams evaporate when the Salton evaporation pits were
soon opened in the SF Bay ...visiting the parents of my college roomate whose little
mobile home in Keeler was washed eight miles away onto Owens lakebed during a
flashflood - and they survived inside! Anyway, the best websites for where to locate
ghost towns in the Cal and Nevada deserts belong to the 4-wheel clubs, which
often provide directions and pictures of what's left, if anything. Hope you like to eat
dust!

[srbphoto]

If you like old mining towns on the Eastside, a good book to find is called High Mountains & Deep Valleys by Lew and Ginny Clark. Great info and stories. It was written in 1978 so some of the info on what remains may not be accurate.
I have done some work in western Nevada. There are some great opportunities there.

[dperez]

Kevin, thanks for your detailed information. I will most likely drive into the Aurora area in a subsequent trip.

[Kevin Crisp]

I would certainly put Bodie, Darwin, Keeler, Cerro Gordo, the Chemyung Mine, Panamint Valley, and Death Valley all ahead of Aurora if I had limited time. Have a great trip!

[tgtaylor]

Are reservations required to photograph Cerro Gordo or can you just drive in?

[Kevin Crisp]

As a courtesy I always call and see if it is convenient. His contact information is on the website for the town. They (now Mike) do live there in the main house. I am sure that on hundreds of occasions people have just shown up and started poking around like they just found a ghost town and it is private property.

They have a foundation to try to restore and maintain the place. I always contribute for the privilege of visiting. You can stay overnight if they offer that, buy something in the museum/store or just leave a donation. Keeping that place in good shape is a tough job in a difficult environment for many months of the year.

[Jim Galli]

Kevin, I love the understatement in driving through Cerro Gordo and hanging a left. Anyone that's ever been there can appreciate that. The road is like straight up for miles of severe rocks that will challenge any modern 4WD vehicle. The town such as it is sits on a 20+ percent incline. Mike has an apricot tree that is the eighth wonder of the world. Some miner spat out a seed a hundred years ago and this tree at the most harsh environment possible at 8160 feet produces apricots. My wimpy tree in Tonopah at 6000 feet can't get the job done.

I now return you to Aurora. If you do make it to Aurora the little cemetary will cause some sympathy. Some plague took the lives of half the kids in town so there's all these little grave stones with kids that died within days of each other. Entire families.

[tgtaylor]

Mark Twain lived and worked in Aurora for time.