DEATH VALLEY DAYS: DINAH, BORAX & TWENTY MULE TEAMS

The words to the childhood song popped into my head as soon as I made Old Dinah’s acquaintance.   

Wow! That's quite a smokestack you got there Dinah.

I've been working on the railroad

All the live long day

I've been working on the railroad

Just to pass the time away

 

Can't you hear the whistle blowing

Rise up so early in the morn

Don't you hear the captain shouting

Dinah, blow your horn


Dinah, won't you blow

Dinah, won't you blow

Dinah, won't you blow your horn

Dinah, won't you blow

Dinah, won't you blow

Dinah, won't you blow your horn

Here's Dinah, blowing her own horn.

I smiled as childhood memories came flooding back, the years adding a patina of fondness I lacked back in the day, up to my elbows in household chores.  Most days, my sisters and I shared kitchen duty (sans dishwasher) following evening meals.  One washed, one rinsed, one dried; we all bickered, unless we were singing.   

Yes, the classic American folk song, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” was one of the dozens of songs that helped pass the time away for this someone stuck in the kitchen.        

Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah

Someone's in the kitchen I know

Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah

Strumming on the old banjo


Singin' fee, fie, fiddly-i-o

Fee, fie, fiddly-i-o-o-o-o

Fee, fie, fiddly-i-o

Strummin' on the old banjo.

It was satisfying to put a face to a name after all these years.  Some might say Old Dinah was simply full of hot air (back in the day, circa 1894, Dinah worked very, very briefly as a steam tractor), but I found her backstory added an interesting layer to the history of Death Valley and my own childhood memories.  Yes, she was a bit 

Old Dinah "spoke" fondly of the Old West during my visit.

rusty when it came to recall, but who was I to be pointing fingers.  Besides, Old Dinah pointed me in the right direction. The Borax Museum, right there at Furnace Creek Ranch, had enough information and memorabilia, both inside 

Lots to dust inside the Museum.

The borax was also known as white gold.

and out back to make Francis Marion “Borax” Smith, founder of the Pacific Coast Borax Company, proud of his place in the history of Death Valley.  

Ore car used for hauling . . . ore.

The Borax & Daggett Railroad.

The Museum building was originally constructed in 1883 by Smith and used as an office, bunk house and ore-checking station for miners in Twenty Mule Team Canyon.  It was moved in 1954 to its current location and holds the distinction of being the oldest house in Death Valley.

Date palms were part of the Furnace Creek desert oasis.

Before there was a Pacific Coast Borax Company, there was a Greenland Salt and Borax Company.  Owner William Coleman was the nation’s top borax distributor in the 1880s following Dr. John Veatch’s discovery of this naturally occurring mineral in 1856 near Red Bluff, California.  The Furnace Creek Ranch, our home for the night during our recent trip to Death Valley, had once been the site for Coleman's mining

Our home away from home for one night in Death Valley.

enterprise – several adobe and stone buildings, warehouses, a boiler, and 36 crystallization tanks for extracting the borax.  Coleman purchased the mineral rights for $20,000 from Rosie and Aaron Winters and established his Greenland Salt and Borax Company (later called the Harmony Borax Works).   It was here the forty men Coleman had hired to extract and haul borax lived when they weren’t out driving their 20-mule teams through Death Valley’s Windgate Pass and on across the desert to Mojave, California.  

Actually, each team had 18 mules and 2 horses; horses were used to get the mule team moving.

The 165-mile route one way required a grueling 10 days in the hot desert sun hauling 24 tons of borax in two oak plant wagons.  Each wagon measured 16 feet long, 4 feet wide and 6 feet deep; the rear wheels measured 7 feet in diameter, the front wheels, 5 feet.  

My brother Chris spending a grueling 10 minutes in the sun.

With the cast iron 1,200-gallon water wagon bringing up the rear, each 20-mule team hauled an enormous 36.5 tons (that's about 73,000 pounds).   

One of the original 20-mule team wagons sits out front of Furnace Creek Ranch.

The teams only ran for six years, from 1883 to 1889, before Old Dinah came along, followed within a few years by the real deal, the Borate-Daggett Railroad; but those mules made an enduring impression when it came to the pioneer spirit of the Old West, one even I vaguely remembered years later as a child thanks to one of the most successful syndicated radio and then television Westerns in America, Death Valley Days.  Actor Ronald Reagan hosted the television show for one year, also starring in a few episodes before going on to his premier role as the 40th president of the United States.

The Pacific Coast Borax Company, the next generation of the now defunct Harmony Borax Works, was the sole advertiser for Death Valley Days.  As the story goes, in 1892, Stephen Mather worked in sales for Pacific Coast Borax, the same Mather who eventually went on to be appointed the first director of the National Park Service in 1917.  But I digress.  

At his urging, Mather convinced company President Francis Marion Smith to hire a reporter from the New York Sun to visit unique desert area and write a book detailing the history of Death Valley (and borax, of course).  Sales improved considerably as the American public embraced their past, and borax.   

In 1904, sixteen years after the last mule-driven freighter had hauled its last load out of Death Valley F.M. Smith went one step further, propelling history off the page and into the streets with the debut of his 20-mule team at the St. Louis World’s Fair.  The mules and borax cleansers became one and the same, both the product of a rugged pioneering spirit that had shaped this country.     

Here’s a charming piece of that past from the early years of television, followed by  

a truly original “word from our sponsors.”  

Borax has a long history of human use.  As early as the 10th century AD, borax was used in ceramic glazes in China; regular imports of tincal (from the Sanskrit word for borax) occurred along trade routes used by Marco Polo during the 8th century AD.  During the same century, Arabian gold and silversmiths were also using borax.     

Today, borax is used in (1) detergents, soaps, and personal care products such as cosmetics, teeth-whitening and eye solutions (3% of world demand); (2) insulation fiberglass, textile fiberglass and TFT/LCD heat-resistant glass (43% of world demand); (3) ceramic and enamel frits and glazes, ceramic tile bodies (19% of world demand); (4) agricultural micronutrients (10% of world demand); (5) other uses that run the gamut from amorphous metals to epoxy, pest control, swimming pools and wood treatments (25% of world demand).  

Thanks Wikipedia!

While borax is often touted as a safe, “green” cleaning product, direct exposure to the substance through skin contact, eye contact, inhalation or ingestion can cause vomiting, eye irritation, skin rash and respiratory problems.  Ouch!  High doses have been shown to affect the reproductive system and fetal development in animals.  It is unclear what risks the substance poses for normal household use. 

Today the 20 Mule Team Borax brand is manufactured by the U.S. soap firm Dial Corporation.  Who knew?   

In 1956, the Pacific Coast Borax Company merged with United States Potash Corporation to form U.S. Borax, which in turn was acquired by Rio Tinto Minerals (Rio Tinto Group) in 1967.  As a wholly owned subsidiary, the company now is called Rio Tinto Borax and continues to supply nearly half the world’s borate, operating the largest open-pit mine in California next to the company town of Boron, in the Mojave Desert east of Mojave, California. 

As for Old Dinah; I think she should consider a dose of her own medicine.  I’m convinced a boron bath would eliminate that rust.  Go on girl!  Blow your horn! 

My skin looked this dry and crinkled after one day in the sun at Death Valley.