Furnace Creek, California

The history of Death Valley records many names, but one of the most important is BORAX! This useful white mineral was discovered on the flats of the valley floor in 1873. Twenty-mule team wagons like this one were soon hauling huge loads of borax more than a hundred miles across the desert to the railway at Mojave, ultimately to be used in such diverse products as fertilizer, pottery glaze, and cleanser. By the 1920's, the discovery of borax deposits at other locations, and the coming of the railroads, brought the era of the twenty-mule teams to an end.

This wagon is on display in front of the Borax Museum at Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park. The ruins of an actual borax mining site can be toured at the nearby Harmony Borax Works.