Rosa May was born of Irish immigrants in 1855.   At the age of 16 she ran away from her Pennsylvania home to New York City where she began a life-long career as a prostitute.  Rosa worked her way west ending up in brothels in Carson City, Reno and Virginia City, Nevada before settling in the upstart mining town of Bodie, California.  According to official 1902 land records she bought a house in the red light district for the tidy sum of $175.00.
image via wikipedia – House in present-day Bodie, California

Bodie started out slowly until some miners, including W.S. Bodey, discovered gold in 1859.  Bodey died the following November after being caught in a blizzard returning from the present day Mono City.  Although the town was named for him it was alternately spelled Bodey, Body and finally Bodie.  Population climbed from 2 in 1860 to a peak of 6,000 in 1879.
             image via wikipedia – boarding house

The town had two banks, four fire companies, a brass band, railroad, two union halls, churches, a Chinatown, two newspapers and a jail.  Over 2,000 structures had been erected.
image via wikipedia – Bodie Methodist Church today

At its peak one could choose from 65 saloons along the mile-long Main Street.  Lawlessness was said to be rampant.

An unknown epidemic struck Bodie at the height of its boom.  Rosa May is credited with giving lifesaving care to hundreds of miners and townspeople during the outbreak resulting in her receiving the title “Hooker With a Heart of Gold.”  She, however, contracted the disease and succumbed to it during the winter of 1911-12.  No legal record of her death exists nor for that matter; her birth, either. 

Because of her profession she was not permitted to be buried insided the town’s cemetery.  Instead her grave was dug 100 feet outside the graveyard’s fence and she was laid to rest without a headstone.  A marker was erected years later but at the wrong site.  
image via wikipedia – present day Bodie, California

Since 1961 Bodie, California has been declared a National Historic Landmark–an authentic Wild West ghost town.  Only 170 buildings remain in a state of “arrested decay.”  Open to the public it was scheduled to be closed last year but emergency funding kept it open until at least June, 2010.

More can be learned about Rosa May in the book “Rosa May: The Search For A Mining Camp Legend” by George Williams III.