Cal Poly Geology Club Death Valley Field Trip – 2004

Harmony Borax Works – Twenty Mule TeamsThe first form of borax to be found in Death Valley was white crystalline ulexite called“cottonball”, which encrusted the ancient Lake Manly. Cottonball of this kind had beenfound earlier at Columbus Marsh and at Teel’s Marsh, in western Nevada.The first man to try to market Death Valley cottonball was an unsuccessful goldprospector named Daunet. In 1875 he could interest no one in his discovery. Fate madehim six years too early.In 1881 Aaron Winters, who lived in Ash Meadows with his wife, Rosie, offered anight’s lodging to a stranger, Henry Spiller, who was prospecting through the desert. Hishospitality was well rewarded. The stranger spoke of the growing interest in the mineralborax and showed him samples of cottonball. One look told Winters that he saw the samecrystals every day, covering acre upon acre of the floor of Death Valley.The next morning, as soon as his visitor left, Winters rode off to the Valley, scooped up abagful of cottonball and rode back to Ash Meadows. The stranger had told him about thetest for borax: pour alcohol and sulfuric acid over the ore and ignite it. If it burns green,it’s borax. At sundown, Aaron and Rosie tried the test on the bagful of sample: “Sheburns green, Rosie”, shouted Aaron, “We’re rich, by God!” And they were. Winters soldhis Death Valley claims to William Tell Coleman, a prominent San Francisco financierfor $20,000.Word of the Valley’s cottonball quickly spread. Daunet came back in 1882 and set up theEagle Borax Works, but quit the business when he found that borax could not beprocessed by simple recrystallization during the intense summer heat. By the timeoperations could resume in the fall, the price of borax had fallen and he was never able tomake the operation profitable.In 1882 Coleman began construction of theHarmony Borax Works. In 1883 he hiredChinese laborers to scrape borates from theancient lake bed for $1.50 per day. In fulloperation, the Harmony Borax Worksemployed forty men. "Cotton ball", an oremade up of the borate minerals ulexite andproberite, was then dissolved in boilingwater. As the solution cooled, borax wasprecipitated. The hardy workers (notice noChinese labors in the photo to the right)produced three tons of borax daily. Findingthat summer processing in the Valley was indeed impossible, he built the AmargosaBorax Works near Shoshone, where the summers were cooler. The ruined remains ofthese three early borax plants still stand in the desert. The borax was hauled to the nearestrailroad by the use of Twenty Mule Teams hitched to ponderous wagons. Coleman was