Bodega is not a ghost town - it is a small unincorporated community in Sonoma county with about 200 people living in it. Bodega and Bodega Bay are named for discoverer of the bay, Juan Francisco Bodega y Caudra, who first sailed into the harbor in 1775.
“Town of Bodega started in 1853. George Robinson went up from Bodega port and opened a saloon at this point that year. It was a place where three roads met, hence the name of Corners was applied to it. A man named Hughes soon followed and built a black-smith shop.
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The town has grown into a fine village of perhaps three hundred inhabitants.The post office was first established at this place September 29, 1854.”</i> (2)
Only after I returned home and started looking for the Bodega history I found out the buildings I made pictures of were starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”(1) filmed in 1961. Here is the Potter schoolhouse now and in the movie:
Watson school
Watson School is a Sonoma County Regional Parks Department historic park. The land was donated by James Watson in 1855, for a school to serve the communities of Freestone, Bodega, and Valley Ford. Open from 1856 to 1967, it served as a public school for 111 years, longer than any other one room school in California.
The schoolhouse remains today in its original condition on its original site.