Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Bodie's Heroes: The School

I wanted to be sure to mention some things about the school at Bodie. Here is an old picture with the students out in front.
While it was used as a school it was the highest elevated school in California at an elevation of 8,300 ft. The original school was burned down by a bitter student not too long after it first opened in the late 1870's. This building you see was originally a living quarters, but was adapted into the school. The school in Bodie started off with a small amount of students, but eventually had over 600 students enrolled during the boom town years of the late 1870's to early 1880's. The average attendence was just over 100 students a day though. The reason being many families had chores to be taken care of around home, or they had to work to support their familes as well.
These pictures are a bunch I took a few years ago. The following are through the glass windows.
When I was young I remember looking through these windows and seeing the math problems on the chalkboard. You may want to click the picture above to see it at a bigger size for this. There are a couple of basic math facts that are obviously wrong. I had always wondered if those were just put up intentionally like that. My dad always told me that as far as he remembered they were always like that.
The teacher's desk above. A little further back in the classroom below.
I thought I would throw in a picture my dad took in the 1950's of the school looking north.
Around 1943 the school ended its program since most had moved away from Bodie. There was really no one left to teach.

Bodie's Heroes (Youtube Version)

Bodie's Heroes (Vimeo Version)