Twenty Mule Team

Inevitably, even in the desert, there is a local history, of which much is made. In Death Valley the big thing is Borax. Borax was discovered and uses for borax were discovered in the 1870’s. A borax mining company was set up in Death Valley in 1881. Fortunately it was close to Furnace Creek, which had a year round spring, so water was available. The major problem was that the borax had to be hauled out to a railhead, the closest being at Mojave 167 miles away. To do this large wagons pulled by huge mule teams were developed, capable of hauling twenty tons of borax. Thus was born the Twenty Mule Team, a name that has become synonymous with Borax for the past 130 years. In America it is a brand name that stands alongside Coke Cola, although it is a much smaller company. During the 49'er Encampment we have been lucky enough to see a twenty mule team in operation, it is quite long and quite impressive. Considering the standard of road in 1881 (almost non existent) we are impressed that these wagons not only were able to operate and carry borax that distance, but that some of them are still around today (though the operating wagons were built later, around 1920. Not only did we see the wagons in operation, but also went to a talk about how they operated and their history, very interesting.We were very impressed with the famous (in the USA) Twenty Mule Team, so we have included a few pics of it.