20 Mule Team Borax is a brand of cleaner manufactured in the United States by

The Dial Corporation Henkel Corporation, doing business as Henkel North American Consumer Goods and formerly The Dial Corporation, is an American company based in Stamford, Connecticut. It is a manufacturer of personal care and household cleaning products and is a su ...

, a subsidiary of

Henkel Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Henkel, is a German multinational chemical and consumer goods company headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany. Founded in 1876, the DAX company is organized into two globally operating business units (Cons ...

.Hildebrand, G. H. (1982) "Borax Pioneer: Francis Marion Smith." San Diego: Howell-North Books. The product primarily consists 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.

, 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 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 ...

's company to move borax out of

Death Valley, California 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 hottest place on Earth during summer. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevat ...

, to the nearest

rail spur A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...

between 1883 and 1889.

Related products

Bleach, Borateem Plus bleach substitute, and 20 Mule Team Borax were all once manufactured by United States Borax & Chemical Corporation (now known as US Borax, Inc.). Borateem products originally contained over 98% borax. Borateem, now manufactured by Dial Corporation, is a chlorine-free, color-safe bleach powder but contains no borax. , also originally a 20 Mule Team product, was a borax-based powdered hand soap first manufactured by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, later by US Borax via merger, and finally acquired by Dial. The Boraxo line expanded to include powdered and liquid hand cleaners but was discontinued by Dial in 2021 or 2022.

History

20-mule teams were first used by

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 " ...

to transport borax from the desert. Smith subsequently acquired Coleman's holdings in 1890 and consolidated them with his own to form 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 ...

. After the 20-mule teams were replaced by a new rail spur, the name ''20 Mule Team Borax'' was established and aggressively promoted by Pacific Coast Borax to increase sales.

Stephen Mather Stephen Tyng Mather (July 4, 1867 – January 22, 1930) was an American industrialist and conservation movement, conservationist who was the first Director of the National Park Service, director of the National Park Service. As president and ow ...

, son of J. W. Mather and administrator of the company's New York office, persuaded Smith to add the name ''20 Mule Team Borax'' to accompany the sketch of the mule team already on the box. The 20-mule team symbol was first used in 1891 and

registered Registered may refer to: * Registered mail, letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and in need of a chain of custody * Registered trademark symbol, symbol ® that provides notice that the preceding is a trademark or service ...

in 1894. In 1988, just over 20 years after the acquisition of U.S. Borax by

Rio Tinto Group Rio Tinto Group is a British-Australian multinational company that is the world's second largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP). It was founded in 1873 when a group of investors purchased a mine complex on the Río Tinto, in Hu ...

, the Boraxo, Borateem and 20-Mule Team

product line In marketing jargon, product lining refers to the offering of several related product (business), products for individual sale. Unlike product bundling, where several products are combined into one group, which is then offered for sale as a uni ...

s were sold to

Dial Corporation Henkel Corporation, doing business as Henkel North American Consumer Goods and formerly The Dial Corporation, is an American company based in Stamford, Connecticut. It is a manufacturer of personal care and household cleaning products and is a su ...

by U.S. Borax.Rio Tinto Borax: About Borax : History
Dial is now an American consumer products unit of

References

External links

Dial's product information pageRio Tinto's 20 Mule Team Borax official site
{{Henkel Cleaning product brands Death Valley Dial Corporation brands Products introduced in 1891 Borates