This town, due to the potential wealth of gold to be mined in the vicinty, had the money to bring in electricity from a generator operating on a
Sierra creek some 16 miles away. It was one of the earliest electrical networks, before 1900, and the engineers had some strange ideas about
how electricity travels on wires - a misunderstanding of Helmholz Laws. They believed that if there are any sharp bends in the electrical lines,
like to route them around a hill, the electricity would "jump off" the lines and be lost at the corners. So the poles were surveyed to a perfectly
straight line all the way to Bodie from the electricity source! 070619_36.jpg