The three B’s

Borax, Boron, and Borates.
Borax= Borax is a company, and a common name for the mineral.
Boron= the 5th element in the periodic table, and a town in California.
Borates=  minerals containing boron, commonly used in many household products.

When I was a kid I remember Borax being a soap (Borateem) but really it’s more of a performance enhancer.  43% of all Boron is used to make glass-   fiberglass, Pyrex, insulation, crystal etc. 17% is used in detergent, bleach, soaps etc. 12% is used in ceramics, enamels, glazes, etc. and 5% is used in fertilizer. It’s an essential ingredient for plant growth.  It’s even used as a flame retardant, in circuit boards and in cosmetics.  Quite a versatile mineral.

I mention Borax because huge quantities of the stuff have been found in this area of California, (including Death Valley National Park) and we have spent the last two days learning about it. Actually, this place is loaded with minerals and ore, including gold and silver.
     In 1881, Aaron Winters, of Death Valley, was told that the white stuff all over his land might be Boron. He heard from a stranger that if he were to pour alcohol and sulfuric acid on the ore and ignite it, if it’s boron, it will burn green.  It did, and the frenzy for Boron began.  Really, I want to know, in a time when cell phones, or even regular phones, didn’t exist, there was no internet, no cars, etc., how does someone find out that if this thing burns green, it’s worth a lot of money??  And how do they figure out how to even use it in products??
      Anyway, the land was soon sold to prospectors, and eventually fell into the hands of Francis “Borax” Smith, who consolidated the properties with his own and created Pacific Coast Borax Co.   Now all he had to do was figure out how to get the borax out of the valley and over to the railroad in Mohave.  It was 165 miles of desolate, road less, barren land, with summer temperatures reaching 130-150 degrees.

The solution was the 20 Mule Team. 

The wagons were custom built, at a cost of $900 each.  They were the biggest, heaviest and strongest wagons ever seen. Weighing in at 7800 lbs, each could carry 12 tons of borax.  There were two wagons  in each “train”, followed by a water wagon.  The most experienced drivers, called “skinners” were hired to haul the borax, and the mules were well trained for the job and even responded when called by name.  In order to turn corners without cutting it too tightly, 6 of the mules were taught to jump the rope and walk sideways  (depicted in the picture)  so that the wagons would follow the path behind the team. They could cover 16-18 miles a day, making it a 10 day trip through the desert to deliver the borax.

The mule teams were used for 5 years to bring the borax out of death valley, until the railroad was brought into the valley.

Although times have changed,  borax  is still  being mined  in  this area.  The mine  is  now owned  by U.S Borax Inc. and it’s one of  the two  largest borax mines in  the world.
After  spending quite a while in the Twenty Mule Team Museum,  we drove out to the mine and spent an hour or so in the visitor’s center.  They charge a $3 entrance fee per car, which we thought was pretty strange, but then we saw that they donate all the proceeds to local charities. 
Here, instead of mules, the borax is trucked out of the open pit mine in massive trucks  that can each haul 240 tons of material. The tires alone  are 11 feet tall.