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When
interviewed for Marguerite Sprague’s book, Bodie Gold,
Bodieite Fern Gray Tracy was unable to conjure up any ghost stories
from her childhood in the infamous mining towns downward days of the
early 1900s. She did, however, recall the spooky tale of the miner
and the white mule who both tragically died in one of the old mine
tunnels not far from the house they lived in. The stories her father
told of the ghostly white mule appearing at the mouth of the mine
as anyone tried to enter it long after the accident had occurred,
were enough to scare the daylights out of Fern and her friends and
keep them out of the mines for the rest of their lives.
According to author and historian, Michael Piatt in
Bodie, The Mines Are Looking Well, there actually was a mule
named Jerry who worked in the Bodie Standard Mine that more than
likely sparked the white mule ghostly stories. Mules were often used
to pull the ore carts along the mine passageways, but a smaller mule
was needed to fit inside the shaft of the Bodie Standard so ore
could be taken from above and below the Bulwer Tunnel. Half grown
Jerry, was lowered into the 500 foot level, and lived in a stall
built just for him, underground. Food and water were brought down
regularly, and Jerry eventually grew too large to leave the mine. He
was doomed to spend his days toiling in the mines, never to come out
alive. The day the shaft caught on fire, miners escaped, but poor
Jerry was overtaken by the smoke and gas.
For four days firemen furiously fought the flames in the Standard
Mine. The fire battle was won at last, the hoist and shaft repaired,
and the miners returned to the lower levels. Jerry, the mule, was
found dead in his specially built stall. Jerry was buried at the
bottom of the incline the miners had built between the 500 and 600
foot level known as Mule Canyon. The incline that had served as
Jerry’s passageway once he had outgrown the cage that had originally
been used to lower him into the mine, would forever serve as his
burial ground.
In The Story of Bodie, Ella Cain relays Jim
Pender’s white mule story as told to ghost towning tourists that
happened into the Bodie Hills looking for a bit of history and
haunts in the early state park days. Let us borrow from Ella’s
romantic book, and tell the tale in Pender’s own words:
Once a miner told of seein a white mule in the mine, and when he was
killed the next day, Lordy God, how the story spread. The miners got
to joshin each other bout seein the white mule, but, just the same,
they was all a little afraid they might.
The story is told that there was a certain man in town who
was so lazy that he wouldn’t get out of his own tracks. His wife had
threatened to leave him if he didn’t go to work. He got a job in the
mine an asked the boss to put him on the 500 level. That night the
good-for-nothing old cuss came home with the story that he was
diggin a hole and as he was lookin down in it, just afore comin off
shift, he saw a little white mule in the bottom. Lordy God, his wife
started to cry an wouldn’t let him go back to work again. Course
nobody believed it much, only his poor wife, but from then on if any
fellow stayed off work the miners would ask him ‘Wha’ts the matter,
did you see the white mule in the Standard Mine?’
Bodieite Robert Bell worked in the Standard Mines years after
Jerry, the white mule. died in the fire. He claimed never to have
seen him, but sure heard him plenty of times. You could hear him
walking around down there in the dark. Those iron shoes make a hell
of a clatter, and you’d think he was headed right toward you.
The mines are off limits to the modern ghost town and
mining camp traveler who visits Bodie today, but the tales of the
ghostly white mule prevail. Friends of Bodie volunteers and park
rangers, remember Jerry in their historic talks, and the likes of
his ghost is forever immortalized by paranormal followers, along
with the those of twelve other Bodie Historic State Park spirits.
Bibliography
Bodie's Gold: Tall Tales & True
History From a California Mining Town
by Marguerite Sprague
University of Nevada Press
Bodie, The Mines Are Looking Well-The History of the Bodie
Mining District Mono County, California
by Michael H. Piatt
North Bay Books
HAUNTEDHOUSES.COM
Bodie State Park A Deserted Gold Town
http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/ca/house25.htm
The Story of Bodie
by Ella M. Cain
Fearson Publishing
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