Cultural Landscapes

Cultural landscapes portray how humans have used and adapted natural resources over time, whether through agricultural, mining, ranching and settlement activities, or traditional Native American cultural practices.

One of the most dramatic examples of a cultural landscape within State Parks is found at Bodie State Historic Park. The wide range of historic properties located within its boundaries portray western mining history of the late 1800s and early 1900s. At the core of the landscape is the town site itself, now only a relatively small collection of vernacular buildings and structures preserved in a state of "arrested decay." But the town tells only a part of the story. It is in the surrounding high-desert terrain where we find the physical remains of nearly 100 years of mining extraction and processing and processing activities- mineshafts, road traces, mill sites, tunnels, tailings ponds and artifact scattered.

Mining landscape, Bodie State Historic Park