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Borax Visitor Center

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Borax Visitor Center

The Borax Visitor Center sits atop a large pile of overburden rock removed from one of the largest open pit mines in the country. The Visitor Center has four main parts, a set of original Twenty Mule Team wagons and fiberglass draft animals, a museum, other mining artifacts outside, and an observation platform for viewing the open pit mine.

Sign. US Borax ® has done a beautiful job building the Visitor Center. I hope they spend a few dollars to touch up the paint on this sign. Photo date: 5-1-04.

The visitor Center site atop a pile of stored overburden. The front yard is quite large. Photo date: 5-1-04.

20-Mule Team on the left, Museum at center. Photo date: 5-1-04.

Boron ore. Photo date: 5-1-04.

One of the 12 foot diameter tires from the trucks...
Photo date: 5-1-04.

... with woman for scale. Photo date: 3-6-04.

Old equipment on display. Photo date: 3-6-04

Old equipment on display. Photo date: 5-1-04.

Ore cars. Photo date: 5-1-04.

Display of the hundreds of uses for Borax ® products. Photo date: 5-1-04.

As a former professional model maker, I always appreciate well built models like these. Photo date: 5-1-04.

The Twenty Mule Team and Wagons

Two ore wagons and one water wagon.
Photo date: 5-1-04.

Actually, eighteen mules and two horses.
Photo date: 5-1-04.

The history of the Twenty Mule Team was short, only five years, yet the fascination endures today. Borax was first discovered in California in 1881. Borax had been important in small quantities for thousands of years in gold smithing and ceramics. Suddenly the use of borax mushroomed and countless new uses were found . The first discoveries were in Death Valley, 165 miles from the railroad in Mojave. William T. Coleman, owner of Harmony Borax Works, experimented and found that a hitch of 20 mules, actually 18 mules and two horses, were able to haul 36 tons of borax across the desert. A route was selected and prepared.

John W. S. Perry of the Harmony Borax Company designed the largest, heaviest, and strongest wagons ever built until that time. John A. Delameter built ten wagons, each capable of transporting ten tons of borax. The 7,88 pound wagons cost $900.00 each and measured 16 feet long, four feet wide, and 6 feet deep. Each wagon train consisted of two borax wagons and one water wagon pulled by 18 mules and two horses with a crew of two men.

Ed Stiles is credited for being the first man to haul borax out of Death Valley using a 12-mule rig to haul borax from the Eagle Borax Works to Daggett. The Amargosa Borax Works, owned by William T. Coleman, acquired the company that Ed worked for. Stiles and Perry hitched a twelve-mule team with an eight-mule team and Stiles was probably the first man to drive a now famous twenty-mule team.

The trip took ten days, covering about 16 to 18 miles a day.

After all this effort to devise a way to transport borax from Death Valley to Mojave, the twenty-mule teams only ran five years. (The famous Poly Express to carry mail to California from the east, only ran a few months.) Coleman's Harmony Borax Works failed and new deposits were found closer to the railroad. Pacific Coast Borax Company, predecessor to United States Borax and Chemical Corporation, began mining borax in Death Valley some time later and adopted the twenty-mule team as it corporate trademark.

Eventually a large deposit was discovered about 20 miles east of Mojave, about 6 miles west of present day Boron. It began as an underground mine, but eventually became an open pit mine. This open pit mine is now viewable from the Borax Visitor Center.

Full team and wagons. Photo date: 5-1-04.

Wagons. Photo date: 5-1-04.

20 mule team wagons with the museum beyond. Photo date: 3-6-04.

There was little water along the 165 mile route, so a water wagon was included. Photo Date: 3-6-04.

Photo Date: 3-6-04.

The muleskinner (driver) drove from the "box" of the lead wagon or sometimes when driving in difficult terrain, he would ride the "nigh wheeler" which is the left hand of the two draft animals closest to the wagons. The two "mules" closest to the wagon are the wheelers and were actually horses. These were the only two animals hitched to the yoke of the wagons. The others eighteen, all mules, were hitched to single-trees and double-trees attached to an eighty foot long chain that ran the length of the team and attached to the lead wagon. These animals are fiberglass.

The front wheels are five feet in diameter and the rear wheels are seven feet in diameter. They were wrapped with an eight inch wide band of steel rim an inch thick. Photo Date: 3-6-04.

Detail. Photo Date: 3-6-04.

Water wagon. Photo Date: 3-6-04.

Detail of the hitch between the wagons. Photo Date: 3-6-04.

Detail of the axil of the wagons. Photo Date: 3-6-04.

Single-trees and double-trees Photo Date: 3-6-04.

Pulling the wagons on straight level terrain wasn"t too difficult for the mules, turns and down grades were another matter. When making a sharp turn, the chain would naturally cut a chord (a straight line) across the curve, pulling the mules off the path and then the wagons. To prevent this, the three mid-team pairs needed to step over the chain and pull the chain back to the curve by pulling at an almost a right angle to the chain. These mules, the "eights," the "sixes," and the "pointers" had to step sideways in a forward direction until the turn was complete. Down grades were dangerous as sometimes the brakes would fail and the mules had to desperately outrun the wagons.

First Tree of hitch. Photo Date: 5-1-04.

Second Tree of hitch. Photo Date: 5-1-04.

Note the bells on the lead mules. Photo Date: 5-1-04.

Look closely at these two rows of draft animals, especially the head and ears. The two animals hitched directly to the wheels, the wheelers, are horses. Photo Date: 5-1-04.

Front. Photo date: 5-1-04.

Photo date: 5-1-04.

Photo date: 5-1-04.

The Pit

The museum contains displays of borax mining, production, and use. A 17 minute film explains the Borax story at the end of which, the curtains open to reveal the pit.

This desert was once the floor of the ocean. Various minerals and salts were deposited over millions of years. One of these minerals was borax. The California deserts are one of the few places in the world where borax deposits are significant enough to make mining profitable.

The Borax Visitor Center looks down on the largest open pit mine in California, measuring one and a half miles long, three quarters of a mile wide, and 650 feet deep. U. S. Borax is working the second largest deposit of borate on Earth. U. S. Borax ended it's borax production in Death Valley in 1927 when it began this mine. The mine began as an underground operation (1927-1957), but eventually became an open pit. The Visitor Center shows a 17-minute film and showcase the hundreds of products that use borax.

The pit began as several vertical shafts and horizontal excavations. Eventually the open pit mine began to allow greater quantities of ore to be removed. The deposit is built of layers of ordinary rock, called "overburden", and various ores of boron. The overburden is scraped away and stored in large piles surrounding the pit. The visitor center is built atop one of these piles of overburden. The extent of the deposit has been determined by the use of exploratory cores drilled vertically into the surrounding areas. The Company, US Borax, expects to complete the excavation in about 2037, at which time all the ore of high enough mineral content will have been removed. There are two basic types of boron ores in the pit, each requiring a different refining and processing method. The second type of ore is currently being stored in large piles north of the pit. When the first type of ore is exhausted, the plant will be converted to refine and process the second type of ore. While the second type of ore, which has been stored all these years, is being processed, the piles of stored overburden will be returned to the pit. By the time the last of the second type of ore has been processed, the hole will be filled in. The factory will be dismantled and the desert winds will slowly hide the scars.

Boron is an element (symbol B) and naturally exists as a compound with other elements such as oxygen and elements in salts forming borates.

To see this gigantic hole, take the Borax Road exit from State Highway 58 and go north to the gate. The Visitor Center is open seven days a week generally from 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. depending on the season, except some holidays, weather permitting.

Photo-comp of the pit. Photos taken: 3-6-04.
Click on photo for a larger image

The remains of the original underground mine.. Photo date: 3-6-04

Shovel and truck. . Photo date: 3-6-04

Processing plant.. Photo date: 3-6-04

Processing plant.. Photo date: 3-6-04.

Trucks. Photo date: 3-6-04.

Two hundred and forty-ton trucks, with 12 foot diameter tires, haul ore out of the mine. Photo date: 3-6-04.

Sources: various leterature and signs available at the Visitor Center.

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This page last updated: Thursday, 20-Sep-2007 00:30:46 CDT

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