One of the country’s best-preserved ghost towns is hidden in a California state park — but if you visit, beware the “Bodie curse”

This California outpost may be abandoned, but it’s got plenty of spirit.

Tucked high in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains sits a state park where a once-booming gold mining camp has been frozen in time — dusty, deserted and eerily untouched.

Scores of weathered buildings still stand, including a saloon, church and stores still stocked with goods and furniture, making it one of the best-preserved ghost towns in the country. 

But before you wander its historic streets this Halloween season, there’s something you should know: Bodie has a curse.

Located northeast of Yosemite National Park, Bodie State Historic Park sits 13 miles east of Highway 395 on SR 270, seven miles south of Bridgeport.

The area was long inhabited by local Native American tribes before the California Gold Rush transformed it into a flourishing mining town.

By 1879, roughly 8,500 people called Bodie home. More than 2,000 buildings had sprung up across the community to provide services and entertainment for miners and their families, including dance halls, saloons and even a red-light district.

Over time, the boomtown developed a reputation for lawlessness, with gunfights, stagecoach holdups, robberies and street brawls becoming part of daily life.

Chinese settlers also established a Chinatown on Bodie’s outskirts during this period, where they supplied firewood to the community and local railway company after being barred from working in the mines.

By the early 1880s, however, the boom was fading. Economic decline and devastating fires took their toll on the town, while residents began leaving in droves.

The portion of Bodie that survived was designated a State Historic Park and National Historic Landmark in 1932.

Today, what sits frozen in a state of “arrested decay,” the community preserved as though the last residents simply walked out and never came back.

Visitors can explore around roughly 100 surviving buildings, including gambling halls, family homes, a schoolhouse and a morgue filled with a macabre collection of Victorian coffins.

There’s even a stamp mill open for tours, where millions of dollars worth of gold and silver were once processed.

But as you wander, watch those sticky fingers.

According to local legend, taking so much as a rock or rusty nail from Bodie can bring terrible bad luck. The curse supposedly doesn’t lift until the stolen item finds its way back home.

And apparently, plenty of visitors have learned that lesson the hard way. The park regularly receives packages containing items people have taken from the site and later returned, per KQED.

Bodie is open year-round, although reaching the site can be difficult during the winter months, when sub-zero temperatures, high winds and heavy snow are common.

Entry costs $8 for adults and $5 for children, while admission is free for children ages 3 and under.

Complimentary history talks are offered daily, while paid photography workshops take place throughout the year.