Twenty-four photographs of the ghost town of Bodie, California, are on display at the Walnut Creek downtown library as the latest exhibit in its Community Art Gallery.
The photographs by Walnut Creek photographer Tom Donahoe were taken in 2009. With the assistance of the Walnut Creek photography store, Camera West, and the rangers of California State Parks, Donahoe had access to the site during first and last light and careful access to the interiors of several buildings.
In the late 1870s Bodie was the second largest city in California with 10,000 people and more than 2,000 buildings. At an elevation of 8,375 feet east of Yosemite on the eastern side of the Sierras, Bodie was fueled by the mining of silver and gold. It faded into a ghost town in the 1940s. The town’s more than 100 original, surviving buildings are preserved in a state of “arrested decay” by California State Parks.
The exhibit will be on display until January 30, 2012.
