Mono Mills

After lingering for nearly 17 years as a tiny, insignificant mining camp, Bodie finally boomed. Like its once-booming predecessor Aurora, Bodie needed milled wood for construction, square beams for mineshafts, fuel for stamp mills, and cordwood for heating. With little or no wood in the vicinity, the cost of bringing wood to the barren Bodie Hills was high. Wealthy men in the Bodie mining community formed the Bodie Railway and Lumber Company in 1881. Like other railroads in the West, the Bodie Railway and Lumber Co. hired inexpensive Chinese labor, much to the outrage of locally unemployed miners! By 1882 a 32 mile-long railroad was in service between Bodie and Mono Mills, running along the east shore of Mono Lake. The new narrow-gauge railroad was built specifically to bring wood to Bodie. Mono Mills harvested the big Jeffrey Pines growing to the north and east of the Mono Craters, and the railroad brought the wood to market. Though the metal rails have long since been sold as scrap, you can still see the old railroad grade not far from the remote eastern shores of Mono Lake.

www.monolake.org/naturalhistory/pioneers.htm