The „White Gold” was one of the few commercially valuable products to be mined in the forbidding saltpan deserts of Death Valley. After distilling the borax, trains of wagons with 16 mules were classically used to transport it out of the valley to the nearest road or rails. It is still a brand name today.

Katrien

April 27, 2025

Harmony Borax Works and the famous Twenty mule teams brought the desert of Death Valley to homes across America.

After borax was discovered near Furnace Creek Ranch (then called Greenland) in 1881, William T. Coleman built the Harmony Works and began processing the ore in late 1883 or early 1884. When fully operational, the Harmony Borax Works employed 40 men, producing three tons of borax daily. The little evidence that remains indicates that the majority of this workforce were Chinese laborers. The Chinese workers collected the impure mineral fragments from the valley floor and loaded them into horse-drawn wagons for transport to the borax works.

Translated by Google •

Eric 🖖

September 27, 2020

Borax (Salz Minerals) were deposited in ancient lake beds that uplifted and eroded into the yellow Furnace Creek badlands and carried by water to the Death Valley grounds, where they recrystallized as Borax.
For centuries, Borax was used for various important uses by potters, blacksmiths as well as housewives (😂 ....no kidding, as explained on one of the exhibit boards).
Today, Borax is still an important raw material for the production of various boron compounds, which are used in the glass and ceramics industry (glazes, enamel) and as a flux for soldering.

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Location: Furnace Creek, Inyo County, California, United States

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Harmony Borax Works

1. Harmony Borax Works loop from Furnace Creek

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