Harmony Borax Works | |
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| Nearest city | Stovepipe Wells, California |
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| Coordinates | 36°28′48″N116°52′24.5″W / 36.48000°N 116.873472°W |
| Built | 1883 |
| NRHP reference No. | 74000339 |
| CHISL No. | 773 [2] |
| Added to NRHP | December 31, 1974 [3] |
The Harmony Borax Works is located in Death Valley at Furnace Creek Springs, then called Greenland. It is now located within Death Valley National Park in Inyo County, California. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.
After discovery of Borax deposits here by Aaron and Rosie Winters in 1881, business associates William Tell Coleman and Francis Marion Smith subsequently obtained claims to these deposits, opening the way for "large-scale" borax mining in Death Valley. [4] Coleman constructed Harmony Borax Works and production of borax started in late 1883. [5] In an effort to save money and achieve greater efficiency, Coleman had unique borax wagons designed to get the product to the closest railhead in Mojave, California. [5] [6] The wagons consisted of two box wagons and a water wagon [7] pulled by a team of twenty animals typically consisting of eighteen mules and two horses. While these methods were in use only for a short period of time, from 1883 to 1889, they gained great notoriety and became famous after the fact thanks to the advertising efforts of Stephen T. Mather, who later became the National Park Service's first director. [5]
During the summer months, when it was too hot to crystallize borax in Death Valley, a smaller borax mining operation shifted to his Amargosa Borax Plant in Amargosa, near the present community of Tecopa, California. The Harmony Works remained under Coleman's operation until 1888, when his business collapsed. [8]
William Coleman's original holdings in the works were subsequently acquired by Frank M. "Borax" Smith in 1890, to become the Pacific Coast Borax Company with the 20 Mule Team Borax brand. Activity at Harmony Borax Works ceased with the development of the richer Colemanite borax deposits at Borate in the Calico Mountains, where they continued until 1907. [9]
The Harmony Borax Works was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 31, 1974. They are part of the National Park Service historical site preservation program in Death Valley National Park. [10]
As part of Death Valley National Park, the site is generally open to the public and includes a loop trail and educational interpretation. [5]
Death Valley National Park is a national park of the United States that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern section of Eureka Valley and most of Saline Valley.
Furnace Creek, formerly Greenland Ranch, is a census-designated place (CDP) in Inyo County, California, United States. The population was 136 at the 2020 census, up from 24 at the 2010 census. The elevation of the village is 190 feet (58 m) below sea level. The visitor center, museum, and headquarters of the Death Valley National Park are located at Furnace Creek.
Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago—long before Death Valley came into existence.
Stovepipe Wells is a way-station in the northern part of Death Valley, in unincorporated Inyo County, California.
Twenty-mule teams were teams of eighteen mules and two horses attached to large wagons that transported borax out of Death Valley from 1883 to 1898. They traveled from mines across the Mojave Desert to the nearest railroad spur, 165 miles (266 km) away in Mojave. The routes were from the Harmony and Amargosa Borax Works to Daggett, California, and later Mojave, California. After Harmony and Amargosa shut down in 1888, the mule team's route was moved to the mines at Borate, 3 miles (5 km) east of Calico, back to Daggett. There they worked from 1891 until 1898 when they were replaced by the Borate and Daggett Railroad.
Death Valley Junction, more commonly known as Amargosa, is a tiny Mojave Desert unincorporated community in Inyo County, California, at the intersection of SR 190 and SR 127, in the Amargosa Valley and just east of Death Valley National Park. The zip code is 92328, the elevation is 2,041 ft (622 m), and the population is fewer than four people.
20 Mule Team Borax is a brand of cleaner manufactured in the United States by The Dial Corporation, a subsidiary of Henkel. The product primarily consists of borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, and is named after the 20-mule teams that were used by William Tell Coleman's company to move borax out of Death Valley, California, to the nearest rail spur between 1883 and 1889.
Francis Marion Smith was an American miner, business magnate and civic builder in the Mojave Desert, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Oakland, California. He was known nationally and internationally as "Borax Smith" and "The Borax King", as his company produced the popular 20-Mule-Team Borax brand of household cleaner.
The Pacific Coast Borax Company (PCB) was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis Smith, the "Borax King".
The Black Mountains are a mountain range located in the southern part of Inyo County and northern San Bernardino County, California, in the southeast part of Death Valley National Park.
The Borate and Daggett Railroad was a 3 ft narrow gauge railroad built to carry borax in the Mojave Desert. The railroad ran about 11 miles (18 km) from Daggett, California, US, to the mining camp of Borate, three miles (4.8 km) to the east of Calico.
William Tell Coleman (1824–1893) was an American pioneer and politician who served as the Chairman of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance. He later served two separate terms in the California State Assembly in 1859 and 1861. He was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in 1865, but lost to Republican Cornelius Cole.
The Oasis at Death Valley, formerly called Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch Resort, is a luxury resort in Furnace Creek, on private land within the boundaries of California's Death Valley National Park. It is owned and operated by Xanterra Travel Collection.
Smith Mountain, 5,915 feet (1,803 m), is a peak in the Black Mountains of the Amargosa Range in Death Valley National Park in California.
Lila C is a former settlement in Inyo County, California. It was located 6.25 miles (10 km) southwest of Death Valley Junction, at an elevation of 2562 feet.
Ryan is an unincorporated community in Inyo County, California that is now privately owned and stewarded by the Death Valley Conservancy. A former mining community and company town, Ryan is situated at an elevation of 3,045 feet (928 m) in the Amargosa Range, and is 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Dante's View and 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Furnace Creek.
Amargosa Opera House and Hotel is a historic building and cultural center located in Death Valley Junction, in eastern Inyo County, California near Death Valley National Park.
Bishop Mule Days is an annual festival celebrating the mule, held in Bishop, California over a six-day period leading up to Memorial Day. More than 700 mules compete in 181 events and the largest non-motorized parade in the United States. It started as a small show in 1969 with a few hundred attendees and has grown to Bishop's largest event, attracting as many as 30,000 spectators. Among mule shows, Bishop Mule Days has been described as "The Granddaddy of Them All".
The Eagle Borax Works in Death Valley, California was established near Bennetts Well in 1882 by Isidore Daunet, J.M. McDonald, M. Harmon and C.C. Blanch to mine the borate deposits that Daunet discovered there in 1880. The partnership established the first borax works in the valley. Partly refined borax was hauled to Daggett, California through the Panamint Valley using 12-mule teams hauling two wagons. The extraction business operated until 1884 when problems mounted and Daunet killed himself. The property eventually passed to the U.S. Borax Company, which kept it as a mining reserve, then to Borax Consolidated, Ltd. in 1922. The property was sold to the Death Valley Hotel Company in 1956, and finally to the National Park Service.
The Saline Valley salt tram is located in Inyo County, California, United States. The electric aerial tramway was constructed from 1911 to 1913 to carry salt from the Saline Valley over the Inyo Mountains and into the Owens Valley. Covering a distance of 13.4 mi (21.6 km), it operated sporadically from 1913 to 1935 for four different companies. During its operation, it was the steepest tram in the United States.
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