March, 2009
The Bad Man
from Bodie:
A Frontier
Legend Rediscovered
By
Michael
H. Piatt
Bodie
is a ghost town—perhaps the West’s best preserved ghost town, where abandoned,
weather-beaten buildings stand stoically against encroaching sagebrush. But years ago, the remote mining camp east of
the Sierra Nevada Mountains
in California became the object
of a gold rush that gave rise to one of the West’s wildest boomtowns. Saloon brawls, stagecoach robberies,
vigilante justice, and spontaneous eruptions of gunfire earned Bodie a
reputation for violence that rivaled Tombstone
, Deadwood, and Dodge City.[1] Those boomtowns are famous today, recognized
largely for celebrated gunmen who stalked their streets. While Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Wild Bill
Hickok became icons of American folklore, Bodie’s killers, depraved and
otherwise, were quickly forgotten.
Still, Bodie’s penchant for trouble gave rise to one legendary figure,
though his fame was short-lived. [2] Evoking peril and doom, the “Bad Man from
Bodie” was a name recognized across the country. The title drew upon “bad man,” a popular 19th
century expression that meant “ruffian,” “tough guy,” “gunfighter,” or
“cold-blooded murderer.” [3]
After prospector W.S. Bodey
and his companions discovered gold in 1859, the Bodie Mining District (named
after Bodey with a slight change in spelling) remained nearly unpopulated until
a mine caved, exposing an ore body that inspired San Francisco speculators to finance
industrial-scale mining. Their gamble
paid off. In late 1877 the mine produced
$784,523 in gold and silver bullion and investors received four consecutive
monthly dividends. The company’s good
luck stunned the mining world and infected the nation’s investing community
with gold fever that aroused fortune hunters who headed for Bodie. As the population swelled past 1,000 restless
souls, the mining outpost’s startup newspaper summarized the situation.
Gold — But a few short
months ago Bodie was an insignificant little place, now she is rapidly growing
in size and importance and people are crowding in upon her from far and near,
and why? Because of the rich discoveries
of gold — yellow, glittering, precious gold.[4]
Except
for a few minor fisticuffs and knife fights, Bodie remained peaceful during the
early months of the excitement. But on January 15, 1878, gunfire pierced the
wintry air. In the initial moments of
the exchange James Blair, age about 28, received a bullet in his left arm near
the shoulder, but he continued firing until John Bresnan, age 30, lay
dead. A week later doctors administered
chloroform and operated on Blair’s arm.
They removed the shattered upper portion of his humerus bone, but the
patient died 26 days after the street fight.[5] Some twenty miles away in the county
courthouse at Bridgeport, the
recorder wrote the names Bresnan and Blair on a clean page in the spanking new Mono County Register of Deaths, an
impressive leather-bound volume adorned with gold lettering. [6] The official record of deadly violence at
Bodie had begun.
Boomtown
Bodie churned with activity in Spring 1878, when newly discovered bonanzas
attracted even more gold seekers, multiplying the camp’s population five times
over before year’s end. Spoofing the
distant mining town’s rough-and-tumble inhabitants, the San Francisco Argonaut published a tall tale by journalist and
humorist E.H. Clough. Titled “The Bad
Man of Bodie,” the story told of Washoe Pete, a “bluffer” known for wild and
amusing exaggerations. “He swaggered and
boasted to his heart’s content,” the yarn began. Whenever Pete drew his revolver and shot out
the lights, he only evoked onlooker smiles and remarks of “purty fair
shootin’.”
One day
Pete entered a saloon, where he encountered a timid, peaceful mining expert.
“You
are an expert, eh?” shouted Bodie’s baddest bad man, eyeing the pint-size
newcomer menacingly. “You’re one o’ them
fellers as allows he knows payin’ mines, are ye? Well, ye’re the wust I ever saw.”
“I
don’t want to quarrel with you, sir,” responded the expert meekly.
“Ye’d
better not, young feller, ye’d better not.
I’m a whirlwind in a fight, and don’t ye forget it.”
“I’m a
man of peace,” cried the well-mannered visitor, cowering from his
tormenter. “I carry no weapons, and of
course I could not hope to stand before an untamed whirlwind.”
Pete leaned over the
stranger and shook his fist in the man’s face.
“I’m bad; I’m chief in this
yer camp, an’ I ken lick the man who says I ain’t. I’m a ragin’ lion o’ the plains, an’ every
time I hit I kill. I’ve got an arm like
a quartz stamp, an’ I crush bones when I strike.”
“Please don’t joke so
roughly,” pleaded the helpless expert.
“Let’s take a drink and call it square.
I’m very sorry that I have offended you.”
“Ye think I’m jokin’, do
ye?” hollered the bad man. “Ye take me
for a josh, eh? I’ll show ye what I am
afore I git through with ye. Ye don’t
play me fur no tenderfoot.”
By this time a crowd had
filled the room; all smiling and enjoying the drama.
“This has gone on ‘bout long
‘nough,” bellowed Bodie’s bad man.
“Square yerself — I’m goin’ ter kick, an’ a Comstock mule ain’t no match
for Washoe Pete — d’ye hear me?”
The bully raised his
ponderous boot. But just then the little
man straightened himself and his left fist struck Pete between the eyes like a
locomotive piston. The blow sent the
surprised bully sprawling onto the sawdust-covered floor. The expert pounced on his victim, then drew
back and struck again, delivering more blows that fell like thunderbolts. Pete reached for his knife and six-shooter,
but the stranger flanked his moves and planted more punches on the braggart’s
prostrate form.
“Let up!” the tyrant
howled. “I was only foolin’—can’t yer
take a joke, dern ye? I give in, dern
ye, I give in!”
The sight was too much for
the onlookers, and their laughter echoed through the hills beyond Bodie Bluff.
“All hands to the bar for
drinks,” the mine expert called out, rising from his victim.
As the jovial crowd gathered
for a toast, the “Bad Man of Bodie” crawled away in disgrace.
“I didn’t lay out to fall up
against batterin’ rams,” he muttered to himself.[7]
The yarn played upon Bodie’s growing reputation for
violence. After the Reno Record reported that in December 1878 a man was cut to pieces
in Bodie, the Gold Hill News queried,
“Why can’t a man get along in Bodie without fighting?” Bodie’s press answered whimsically, blaming
the district’s 8,500-foot elevation.
Really, we can’t say. It must be the altitude. There is some irresistible power in Bodie
which impels us to cut and shoot each other .... The clashing of revolvers up and down Main street can be constantly heard,
and . . . a man cannot go to his dinner without getting a bullet hole in his
hat, or the seat of his unmentionables cut away by the deadly knife of the
desperado. Yes, it is sad, but only too
true, that everybody must fight that comes to Bodie.[8]
The Tybo Sun added intrigue by reporting, “a Bodie man never has two
disputes with the same man. This is
explained by the fact that he kills him at the first quarrel.” One wit tendered absurdly, “the Bodie man
always eats his victim after killing him.”[9]
Tall
tales of the West that portrayed its inhabitants as unsophisticated, ornery,
and dangerous were popular across America. Even the Boston
Daily Globe amused East Coast readers in July 1879 by describing a brute
who staggered into an upscale drinking establishment.
“Everybody
come up and have something to drink,” demanded the newcomer as he lurched up to
the bar.
He
gave a furious whoop and smashed a bottle over his head. Then he performed a war dance.
“I’m a
bad man,” declared the intruder, “and always make it a practice to strew upon
the floor the bowels of any person who declines to drink upon my invitation.”
Affirming
his remarks, he drew an 18-inch “Arkansas
toothpick” from the back of his collar, sending patrons stampeding for the
exits.
"Who
is he?” muttered a terrified spectator, taking cover behind the bar, “From
Bodie, I suppose.”
“Bodie,
hell no!” thundered the bartender. “He's
from Boston. He belongs to that Sunday-school excursion.”
[10]
Americans have long enjoyed playful exaggeration for entertainment’s sake,
elevating leg pulling to a national art form.
The frontier and its heroes were frequent subjects, and amusing fictional characters, such as Paul
Bunyan and Pecos Bill, remain popular today.
But when the West was wild, Bodie’s bad man was an image recognized
across the country, based on the remote gold town’s perceived disregard for law
and order. Even New
York’s prestigious Engineering and Mining Journal departed from printing mining news
to disclose with touches of hyperbole and humor that, “Bodie contains about
6,000 inhabitants, who support 156 drinking places, several newspapers, and
many attorneys-at-law, without a single church.”[11]
Newspaper
editors far and wide seemingly took pleasure in embellishing stories of
deviltry and attributing them to any passing stranger who could be conveniently
labeled a “Bad Man from Bodie.” In a San Francisco courtroom, a defendant
arrested for “vulgar language” argued that the city’s press had unfairly dubbed
him the Bad Man from Bodie. “I have been
mortified by glaring headlines,” complained W.H. Branch. “I am suspected of carrying nitroglycerine in
each pocket, of having a large and ugly-shaped knife in each boot, and a brace
of pistols in my belt.” The accused begged
for leniency, arguing that negative reporting had harmed his case. “Yes, your honor,” he implored. “Despite the implication, I have never been
in Bodie in my life!”[12]
The expression “Bad Man from
Bodie” had become nationally recognized by 1880, when the writer who coined the
term two years earlier published a second tale that appeared in Sacramento’s Daily Bee. “Having made a
close study of the peculiar class of ‘bad men’ generally known as Bad Men from
Bodie,” proclaimed E.H. Clough, “I am prepared to add my plethora of wisdom in
this respect to that already extant in the world at the present time.” Dropping Washoe Pete from the story, Clough
spun a yarn about another improbable character.
One of the peculiarities
of a Bad Man from Bodie is his profanity.
A Bad Man from Bodie who never used an oath is as impossible as perpetual
motion or an honest election in Nevada. This trait is especially noticeable whenever
he kills a man or endeavors to kill one. . . .
Meeting an eligible candidate for a place in the graveyard, he emits his
stereotyped oath and blazes away.
The columnist claimed to have actually witnessed
a Bodie bad man enter a saloon and leap upon a billiard table.
“Here I am again,” the make-believe thug roared,
“a mile wide and all wool. I weigh a ton
and when I walk the earth shakes. Give
me room and I'll whip an army. . . . I
was born in a powder house and raised in a gun factory. I'm bad from the bottom up and clear grit
plumb through.”
From atop his improvised podium, the bad man
ranted, “I’m chief of Murdertown, and I'm dry!
Whose treat is it? Don't all speak
at once for I'll turn loose and scatter death and destruction Hell bent for
election. Your treat, is it? Well, come up everybody. Pass the old rat poison.”
Whenever
a Bodie bad man visited another mining camp, according to Clough, the locals would
wring their hands and say, “Recon it’s goin’ to liven up around here; I see the
bonebreaker’s in town.” Meanwhile, the
undertaker dusted off his hearse and groomed its black plumes; the coroner
engaged a physician to carry out autopsies and convened a jury to hold
inquests; the gravedigger purchased another spade; and the stonecutter would
order new chisels to epitaph victims in marble.[13]
Clough’s
wild stories motivated other writers who drew inspiration from the bonanza
town’s lawless inclination. The Stockton Mail joined the fun with a line
of clever fiction. “There is even talk
in Bodie’s upper circles of forming a society to exclude from high-toned
gatherings everyone who has not killed his man.”[14]
Another
far-off columnist spun a tale about an inebriated loudmouth who entered the
Fern Leaf concert hall in San Francisco.
“I'm a
chip from the side of Bodie Bluff,” the stranger yelled as he upset a table and
jumped onto the stage, driving a terrified soloist into a corner. “I'm an old stager myself, and capture whole
camps with my actin’.”
The
intruder pulled his gun and fired a shot, extinguishing the footlights and
sending musicians and the audience fleeing toward the doors.
“This
is what I call fun,” proclaimed the bad man.
“This old town needs shaking up a little; the boys seem to be sort o'
low and need a boom.”[15]
Violent stories, both real
and fabricated, gave Bodie an air of
danger, an aspect of the camp's far-flung fame that delighted some but troubled
others. One Bodie editor challenged the
motives and accuracy of distant-city reporting.
When the witty paragrapher
of one of our metropolitan contemporaries has touched up all the live topics of
the day, and still lacks a little filling of the space in his paper, he dashes
off a few lines about the “bad man of Bodie,” and his exploits in the way of
“cleaning out” a saloon full of city loafers, blowing out lights with his
revolver, or other equally improbable performances. In brief, we do not enjoy having our town
pointed out either as a murderer's paradise or the chosen headquarters of the
Angel of Death, because neither proposition is true. The fact is, the “bad man of Bodie” is as
much a myth, and is as unreal as “the baseless fabric of a vision.” He does not exist.[16]
The columnist
later admitted that killings actually did take place in Bodie, but only among
its rowdy citizens.
As to the occasional
homicides which occur here, there never has been yet an instance of the
intentional killing of a man [that] was not a verification of the proverb that
“He that liveth by the sword shall perish by the sword.” As to the health of Bodie, there were about
111 deaths in this place [during 1879], out of a population varying from 5,000
to 8,000 people. A very considerable
number of these were killed by accidents in mines. [17]
The San Francisco Bulletin summed up the situation: “The Bad Man from Bodie is a sort of a
generic term for all the bad men in the State.”
An offended Bodie newspaperman recoiled at the insult. “Bodie is one of the quietest, most
law-abiding mining districts” in both California and Nevada, he bragged, asserting that
no one had been convicted of murder there in more than a year and a half. Although factual, his boast concealed a
disturbing truth. Twenty or so homicides
had been tried in court during that time, without a single guilty verdict. Accused killers consistently won acquittals
by merely blaming the deceased for starting the trouble. Mono County juries, the columnist
revealed, “have in every instance found the killing was done in self defense.”[18]
One Bodie resident visited
the Bay Area and tried to improve his town’s image by appealing to the San Francisco Daily Report. “People living at a distance from our mining
district often do us a gross injustice in commenting on our fighting affairs,”
he complained.
[They] assume that Bodie is
a terribly wicked place. . . . The “Bad
Man from Bodie” has become a popular phrase and every time a fatal shooting
scrape occurs in the town some paper heads its account with “Another Bodie
Fighter Gets His Man For Breakfast.” [19]
Also objecting to
unflattering reports, a newsman in Bodie remarked, “But Bodie is much
misunderstood by those outside. They
have met with an occasional ‘Bad Man from Bodie,’ and have been too ready to
judge the entire community from the bad man’s standpoint.” [20]
While law-abiding citizens
sought to change outside opinion, their efforts did little good. Bodie’s violent reputation would not subside
until years after the boom. The town’s
population decreased precipitously after mid-1880, then leveled off at around
800; comprised mostly of wage-earning miners and their families.
As the camp matured, its
once-famous Bad Man faded into the mists of forgotten folklore,[21] overtaken by a more
powerful legendary figure — the cowboy.
An article in the New York-based National
Police Gazette anticipated the popularity of cowboys and compared them to
the Bad Man from Bodie.
The untamed
cowboy generally sports a large six shooter, a belt, a knife, repeating rifle,
and a huge pair of spurs, while the mustang which he rides is supplied with a
Spanish saddle and held in check and guided by a huge Spanish bit. Herding cattle being his vocation, nothing delights
him more than a wild chase after an untamed steer, and, being a splendid rider,
neither an Apache nor a soldier can get the best of him on the plains. Sometimes he is an American, sometimes a
Mexican, a half-breed, or Indian, but no matter what his nationality may be he
is as uncivilized as a grizzly bear and reckless as a savage. . . . Quick, wiry, and intrepid, often generous and
humane, he [stands apart], and many are the stories told of his bloodthirsty
career. . . . He it is who does the
shooting in most of our frontier towns, and is fast becoming a terror to the
citizens of the region where he chooses to visit. Like “the bad man from Bodie,” fear to him is
an unknown quantity, and the greater the danger the more desperate he seems to
become. [22]
Marking the
early stages of America’s
fascination with cowboys, the nationally read tabloid portrayed troublesome
ranch hands as equals to Bodie’s hard drinking, reckless mining men. Cowboys, however, gained popularity after
Wild West shows, then motion pictures and television, cast them as galloping
do-gooders. Based on the entertainment
value of fast-shooting buckaroos on horseback, action-packed adventures
followed phony story lines and depicted cattle driving as if it were the West’s
highest calling. Ranching now symbolizes
America’s
frontier past, suggesting that no other occupation—including gold mining—ever
existed. As for the once fabled “Bad Man
from Bodie,” he faded into obscurity, while cowboys now symbolize the nation
and the West that wasn’t. [23]
For a thoroughly researched, documented account of violence in boomtown
Bodie, see: Roger D. McGrath, Gunfighters,
Highwaymen & Vigilantes: Violence on
the Frontier (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984),
102-271.