The Harmony Borax Works is located in

Death Valley Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is thought to be the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth during summer. Death Valley's Badwat ...

at Furnace Creek Springs, then called Greenland. It is now located within

Death Valley National Park 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 sect ...

Inyo County, California Inyo County () is a County (United States), county in the Eastern California, eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the po ...

. It is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

Origin and twenty-mule teams

Twenty mule team wagon Harmony Borax Works sw

After discovery of

Borax The BORAX Experiments were a series of safety experiments on boiling water nuclear reactors conducted by Argonne National Laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s at the National Reactor Testing Station in eastern Idaho.

deposits here by Aaron and Rosie Winters in 1881, business associates

William Tell Coleman 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 De ...

and

Francis Marion Smith Francis Marion Smith (February 2, 1846 – August 27, 1931) 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 " ...

subsequently obtained claims to these deposits, opening the way for "large-scale" borax mining in Death Valley. Coleman constructed Harmony Borax Works and production of borax started in late 1883. 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 Mojave (formerly Mohave) is an unincorporated community in Kern County, California, United States. Mojave is located east of Bakersfield, and north of Los Angeles, at an elevation of . The town is located in the western region of the Mojave ...

. The wagons consisted of two box wagons and a water wagon 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. 20_Mule_Team_Terminus-Mojave

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 Tecopa is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Mojave Desert in southeast Inyo County, California, United States. Originally occupied by the Koso and Chemehuevi Indians, Pioneers began populating what would become the CDP in the late 19th ce ...

. The Harmony Works remained under Coleman's operation until 1888, when his business collapsed.

Frank M. "Borax" Smith

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 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". History The roots of the Pacific Coast Borax Company lie in Mineral County, Nevada, east of ...

with the

20 Mule Team Borax 20 Mule Team Borax is a brand of cleaner manufactured in the United States by The Dial Corporation, a subsidiary of Henkel.Hildebrand, G. H. (1982) "Borax Pioneer: Francis Marion Smith." San Diego: Howell-North Books. The product primarily c ...

brand. Activity at Harmony Borax Works ceased with the development of the richer

Colemanite Colemanite (Ca2B6O11·5H2O) or (CaB3O4(OH)3·H2O) is a borate mineral found in evaporite deposits of alkaline lacustrine environments. Colemanite is a secondary mineral that forms by alteration of borax and ulexite. It was first described ...

borax deposits at Borate in the Calico Mountains, where they continued until 1907. 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 The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

historical site preservation program in

Visiting Harmony Borax Works

As part of

, the site is generally open to the public and includes a loop trail and educational interpretation.

References

External links

*
NPS: Death Valley National Park - Harmony Borax Works of Death Valley
*
Death Valley Conservancy: Original Twenty Mule Team Borax Wagons at Harmony Borax Works
{{Authority control Ghost towns in Inyo County, California Geography of Inyo County, California Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in California Open-air museums in California Protected areas of the Mojave Desert Borax mines Former mines in California Historic American Engineering Record in California Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in Inyo County, California National Register of Historic Places in Death Valley National Park 1883 establishments in California

Origin and twenty-mule teams

Frank M. "Borax" Smith

Visiting Harmony Borax Works

See also

References

Further reading

External links