20-Mule Team Borax

Borax was first discovered in the dry lake beds of Tibet.  Arabians brought it west via the Silk Road. It was an uncommon commodity.  

You have to be a real old-timer to remember TV commercials advertising Borax - and a really, really old-timer to have ever seen a 20-mule team in action!  Gpa's grandmother claimed to have see one in Texas.  I mean, teams like this were used to haul more than Borax, so she probably did!

The discovery of Borax in the California and Nevada deserts, its easy accessibility and its large deposits turned one Francis Marion Smith into a rich man.  Suddenly, Borax became a common commodity!  Smith's Pacific Coast Borax Company began marketing "20 Mule Team Borax," and in the 1950's and into the 1970's advertised on a plethora of TV shows.  Seeing those twenty mules hauling a huge wagon coupled to another and yet another wagon loaded with a couple of tons of borax was pretty impressive.

This is one of the actual roads that those wagons traveled.  I can't believe I am actually seeing this!  I loved all the shows that they advertised on:  "Wagon Train," "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Death Valley Days," and on and on - to the tune of something like 700 episodes!

The deeper we go the prettier the scenery.  The beauty of Death Valley cannot be shared in photographs.  You simply have to see it in person!  Preferably in the wintertime!

In 1877, Scientific American reported that the Smith Brothers shipped their product in a 30-ton load using two large wagons with a third wagon for food and water drawn by a 24-mule team for 160 miles (260 km) across the Great Basin Desert from Marietta to Wadsworth, Nevada where the nearest Central Pacific Railroad siding was.  

Can you imagine?!  I mean, Death Valley (before satellites) held the world's record for the hottest recorded air temperature on earth - 134 degrees Fahrenheit !!  Now satellites have been measuring earth temperatures from space, and a spot in the Lut Desert in Iran has a recorded "land skin" temperature of 159.3 F (70.7 C) in 2005.  That spot also had record temperatures in 2004, 2006, 2007 ...  Well, you get the picture.  It's not always the hottest spot, and Death Valley is always in the running for that dubious distinction.

Can you imagine sitting on a wagon seat with no shade for days on end!  They only did this long enough for Smith to get a railroad line built to do the hauling - but still !  And as Smith bought mineral rights elsewhere, the mule teams would do the hauling from the new location until more rail lines could be built.

But as I mentioned, we were here in the winter and the weather was wonderful!  Death Valley drops to 282 feet below sea level and gets less than 2" of rain a year which is less than most desert environments.  We absolutely had the best time traveling through Death Valley.  Surprise, surprise, surprise!  Thank you, Lord!