Bodie (Mono County)California.

THE FENCES SURROUNDING THE GRAVE PLOTS

Fences were built around newly dug graves to keep out wandering, grazing cattle and to deter smaller animals from digging up the contents below the ground. Graves were dug pretty shallow and the small fence was never originally intended to “mark a grave.”

With the deterioration of the wood-board-markers, the remaining metal fences purpose changed from protecting the grave, to being a “distinctive plot marker” and being the only remaining grave-site or burial-plot “identity marker.” 

The fences lasting duration has marked the grave-site plot, and its location. These fences made forgotten unmarked graves a location, and today  “recognizable as a grave-site” without a headstone to give identification of the burial.