California · Ghost town
Bodie
Eight thousand people and two thousand buildings in 1879, called a ghost town by 1915, and now held in arrested decay.
Position Mono County, California · 38.2122, -119.0122
Bodie sits at 8,379 feet in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada, about seventy five miles southeast of Lake Tahoe and twelve miles from Bridgeport. A profitable gold vein turned it into a boom town in 1876, and by 1879 it had roughly eight thousand people living among two thousand structures.
The decline was steady rather than sudden. By 1915 it was already being described as a ghost town, and fires later took much of what remained.
What makes Bodie unusual is the preservation policy. The state park maintains it in what it calls arrested decay: buildings are stabilised so they do not fall down, but they are not restored. Paint stays peeled, furniture stays where it was left, and a shop window still holds its goods. The effect is much stranger than a restoration would be.
The elevation matters practically. Snow closes the approach road for months and the site is cold and exposed even in summer.
Facts checked against the Wikipedia article Bodie, California. The words above are ours.