Dunes and Gold!

As I mentioned in the last blog, our first stop was at Mesquite Dunes located on Highway 190 East, very close to our campground.  There are four or five dune areas in Death Valley, but none as accessible as this one which is right off the road.  You can walk all over the dunes if you want to.  Don't let these photos fool you.  Some of these dunes were very tall; the pictures just don't show it very well.

 

 

Back into the car, our next stop heading south on 190 East was Harmony Borax Works.

 

 

Borax was called the “White Gold of the Desert” and it ranks as the valley’s most profitable mineral.  Harmony Borax Works was the valley’s first borax operations and it operated from 1883 to 1888.  San Franciscan businessman William T. Coleman built the plant in 1882 to refine the “cotton ball” borax found on the nearby salt flats. The high cost of transportation made it necessary to refine the borax on location rather than to transport both the borax and the waste 165 miles across the desert to the railroad.

These photos look out from the refining location to the salt flats. 

Borates—salt minerals—were deposited in ancient lake beds that uplifted and eroded into the yellow Furnace Creek Badlands. Water dissolved the borates and carried them to the valley floor where they crystalized as borax.  Who used borax?  Blacksmiths, dairy farmers, housewives, meat packers, and even morticians.

Here’s Gary reading about the refining operation.

 

Here I am in front of the refining operation.

For more than a century, the 20 Mule Team has been a symbol of the borax industry—on product labels, in history books, and on television. The status is well-earned as mule teams helped solve the most difficult task that faced Death Valley borax operators—getting the product to market. The mule teams pulled loads up to 36 tons including 1200 gallons of drinking water. The rear wagon wheels were seven feet high and the entire unit with mules was more than 100 feet long.

 

The financial problems of Coleman and discoveries of borax in other parts of California forced the closure of Harmony Borax Works in 1888, after only five years of operation.

Do you remember when Borax was so popular?  I wondered where it went so I did some Internet research.   You can actually still purchase 20 Mule Team Borax!  It is not only still available in laundry and/or soap detergents, but it is still used in a variety of processes.  If you're really interested, you can click on this Wikipedia link to learn more about Borax:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax

Next adventure?  We go from White Gold to a Golden Opportunity … it awaits you!

Psalms 139:17-18 // How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.