The Twenty Mule Team

video courtesy Ted Faye, Gold Creek Films

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AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMOUS TWENTY MULE TEAM

© 2008 The Old Trailmaster

It was early, still dark and cold outside, yet Yu Hao groggily realized it was nearing the time to arise from his bunk, the comfortable evening reprieve from his daily reality on the salt playa. With the enduring soreness of his back and arms relentlessly causing his precious sleep to be interrupted nearly every night, Yu Hao wished for an easier path. But life’s circumstances had seemingly conspired in ways that kept him in harsh working and social conditions.

From his first work on America’s Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, where many citizenry of European lineage saw his Chinese ethnicity as a threatening “yellow peril”, to equally laborious toil constructing levees on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in central California during the 1870s, earning money had not proven an easy task for this hard working emigrant from China’s Guangdong province city of Taishan. And now, his employment under William Tell Coleman near Furnace Creek in California’s ominous Death Valley seemed yet another character-building chapter in his book of carving out a sustainable life.

Yu Hao had been hired as a physical laborer for the Harmony Borax Works, in a vastly rugged and implausibly remote setting, below the level of the sea that he had traveled by boat when he first came to the United States in late 1868, via the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. He was one of approximately thirty Chinese workers seeking to earn money for his family in China, and he toiled ten hours every day of the week for the sum of a buck and a quarter to a buck-fifty a day. Much of what Yu Hao earned was ultimately paid back to his employer however, through his purchases at Coleman’s company store, where he obtained essentials like rice and tea.

Living at this outpost, far away from the culturally disorienting urban areas, at least minimized treatment from many insensitive people who looked down on Asian men as coolies, a lowly class of workers not worthy of much consideration. A certain peace was to be found by Yu Hao for this, despite the back-breaking work that sent most men packing after their first year out here on the salt flat.

The year was 1887, and not one to give up easily, Yu Hao had stayed the course, remaining on Coleman’s payroll since 1884, when he sought to continue his American existence. At thirty-four, he was the oldest worker, the one with the most experience, and often sought out by fellow countrymen for advice. The job these men labored at daily involved scraping what some termed “white gold” from the surface of the inhospitable Death Valley playa with shovels, and tossing it into a wagon, which then transported the ashen substance to the main operations at Harmony, where it was refined into borax – itself an uninviting job, but one where the workers earned fifty dollars a month. Borax meant money –big money– to entrepreneurs like Coleman, as it had many uses to the American public. The 1883 Grocer’s Companion Handbook claimed that borax was good for such things as preventing moths, removing cockroaches, smoothing rough faces or chapped hands, dressing ulcers, wounds, bruises, and sprains, and bathing.

Borax, while a rather mundane material compared to the eagerly-sought minerals of gold and silver in Death Valley, formed the basis for an enduring memory of a five year period of the latter nineteenth century in western America, where epic tales of a long laboring line of twenty mules pulling enormous wooden wagons across the dusty and hot Mojave Desert still live in the minds of regional enthusiasts. It is amidst this legendary setting of virtually insurmountable odds that this tale unfolds, a chronicle of men, mules, freighters, and dreams that once held the collective American consciousness in its clutches, and earned millions for the borax companies that made it all happen. This is the story of the fabled twenty mule teams, five white gold freighters that, at the time, defined the forefront of technological transportation methods.

The wagons at Harmony Borax Works, north of Furnace Creek

These borax freighters would be the equivalent of today’s eighteen wheelers, the big rigs we call semi-trucks, churning out the miles on our paved highway system that crisscrosses the country. Only back then, roads were primitive dirt, two-track affairs of unbearably slow going, over grades and in conditions that tested the mettle of even the most determined young men engaged in driving and operating these massive rigs. A trip of 165 miles would take about ten days, compared to what we see as our present reality!

Yu Hao and his labors represent one of many aspects of the total operation that brought the twenty mule team to its legendary position in American history. As in all successful enterprises, there are those who faithfully work behind the scenes, under the radar of common perception, yet their contributions are critical for the accomplishment of the whole. Yu Hao of this story is a fictional leading actor who represents all the Chinese men who did historically perform the initial Herculean work that enabled the process of borax production to get started, so that consumers could use the products in their own homes. Men like Yu Hao are not forgotten, for without their monumental efforts, the tale of the twenty mule teams may have taken other turns. That same mineral he tediously scraped off the barren ground day after month after year in the late 1800s is the same powder that we can still go to our local supermarket and buy today, and even now see the logo of the famous borax mule freighters on the box.

The foundation of this story has its roots in 1873, over two hundred feet below sea level, during the final melt of the snows in the Panamint Range high above to the west. Here, in a frightening valley called Death by the gold seekers of the 1849 California rush, is a massive and desiccated accumulation of salty sediment, built up over the eons of time as the lake that once existed here dried, and then waters from snow above continued to fill the area and dissolve. Minerals precipitated out of solution, and formed a colossal mineral pan of impressive dimensions, a bit of perpetually sun drenched earth that blinds the eyes of those who walk across, or takes the lives of some who venture out during the summer months of deadly heat and virtually no humidity. This is considered by most as hostile and lethal land, yet it forms the basis of our fascinating tale.

Even though a few folks knew of the sprawling deposits in Death Valley in the 1870s, this knowledge was not acted upon because it was determined that even at high prices paid for the mineral, the extreme desolation of the accumulations, along with unthinkable difficulty in getting it out, were insurmountable. It simply would not pay to attempt an extraction. It was not worth the trouble, or so they thought, therefore, they set about refining it over to the southwest and across two mountain ranges, in the Searles Valley, now home to the remote town Trona. Compared to Death Valley, Searles was a snap. Death Valley borax potential faded from thought … for the time being at least.

As noted by historian Richard E. Lingenfelter: “Although it was the lure of gold and silver that drew most men to Death valley and the Amargosa, the country’s greatest mineral wealth was not in the precious metals that lay hidden in the surrounding hills, but in the lowly salts that lay right underfoot.”

Then, as the 1880s dawned, word in the grapevine had it that perhaps a new extension of a railroad through the area could happen, and a few began to recall talk of some potential in Death Valley. There are always those who think ahead and try to predict the next significant bonanza before it hits, hoping to position themselves on the ground floor of financial freedom. Thus, the seeds of this tale really begin to sprout.

To the east of the rugged Amargosa Mountain Range in Nevada’s Ash Meadows area, lived a couple by the name of Winters, Aaron and his wife Rosie, in a crude stone structure that sufficed as home in the largely uninhabited Amargosa Desert while Aaron sought his fortune, hoping for a gold strike someday. Gold was not to be Aaron’s claim to fame however, and his wife Rosie, although faithful, was short on hope by this time. It wasn’t much of a life if measured by conventional standards. Even the name of the desert where they scratched out their primitive living meant “bitter water” in Spanish. Their existence was on the fast track to bitterness too.

Then late one afternoon, a borax prospector by the name of Henry Spiller happened by their simple abode for a hopeful place to spend the night in such secluded lands. After dinner, he told of his search for a white mineral, something far different than what Aaron sought, and he demonstrated to the couple how to test for borax using alcohol, sulfuric acid, and a flame. It was a simple test. The next morning, after the visitor bid them goodbye, Aaron and Rosie wasted no time packing up some camping supplies and heading on west through the Furnace Creek Wash to a large white dry lake in Death Valley, which they reckoned was composed of the same substance as the prospector’s descriptions of borax deposits. Since something gold wasn’t revealing itself to the Winters family, maybe something white may work instead.

That first evening, after collecting a sample of the deposit, Aaron performed the test, the flame burned the tell-tale green color, and the joyful couple realized that their fortunes had indeed changed for the better. Well folks, to move this story along, Aaron claimed the ground and then notified a couple of important fellows of what he had found. Turns out those men were William Tell Coleman, the nation’s top borax distributor, and Francis Marion Smith, the nation’s largest borax producer. Aaron and Rosie received $20,000 for the claims, enough to purchase a nice ranch at Pahrump Spring in Nevada, apparently the largest ranch in the area at the time, built a few years earlier in 1875 by Charles Bennett. Aaron also was successful in locating another borax claim not too far from Saratoga Springs, and sold it to Coleman not long after his first sale for another $5,000. Unfortunately, Rosie passed away soon after this financial windfall, Aaron couldn’t make the ranch pay, he eventually lost it to back taxes, and spent the remainder of his days lonely in the isolated local mountains of despair.

William Coleman wasted no time setting up his new borax production business, seeing the potential for becoming a true mover and shaker in the wild white-powdered west. In 1882, he hired Rudolph Neuschwander, a 45 year old Swiss pioneer who had experience working in the Nevada borax fields, and John Perry, a San Francisco druggist and chemist, to oversee the operations. Neuschwander would be the Superintendent, and Perry would be the Foreman. The two men proved loyal and hard working, moving Coleman’s interests forward quickly. Equipment necessary to run a borax refining venture was hauled to Daggett, a small rail stop south of Death Valley, by train, and then methodically transferred the remaining and rough 150 miles on dirt trails to the Furnace Creek area. Key to borax refinement were the dissolving, settling, and crystallization tanks, which the men installed in the stone and adobe structures of the new refinery. This was all to become known as the Harmony Borax Works.

Other borax finds and mining also existed here, such as the Eagle Borax Mining Company, a smaller venture located about twenty-three miles south of Coleman’s outpost, and owned by Isadore Daunet, a 32 year old French fellow who became the first to actually realize profits from the valley’s huge salt lake in 1882. He began shipping borax south to the Daggett railhead in wooden freight wagons drawn by twelve mules and driven by Ed Stiles from San Bernardino, California. Each shipment carried around 12,000 pounds of borax and took about eleven days. Daunet soon found out to his dismay however, that during the infamous summer in Death Valley, the borax would not crystallize onto the rods in the crystallizing tanks due to the intense valley heat, and so he shut down operations, intent on beginning refinement once the weather cooled in the autumn. By the time Daunet ramped up that fall, borax prices had fallen some, Coleman had successfully captured more market share with his plan that allowed him to continue through the summer’s heat, and Daunet’s wife had left him fearing his financial downfall. This series of events led the Frenchman to close his company, and he ultimately buckled under the mental pressure, ending his life.

Isadore Daunet’s 320 acres of the Eagle Borax workings can still be viewed today, by driving the graded dirt West Side Road south of Furnace Creek. There is not much to see however, primarily large piles of solidified white minerals, along with a placard posted by the National Park Service commemorating the spot where a determined and innovative European pioneer tried to find his financial future. The route of Daunet’s shipments to Daggett can no longer be traveled in its entirety, even on foot, due to military land closures, but it went through Wingate Wash and over the pass, past Lone Willow and Granite Springs, Black Ranch, and then south to the railhead, where it was loaded onto the train cars of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad.

Some large borax deposits were also located in Furnace Creek wash, east of the salt flats, and successfully worked by others in the early 1880s, but none to the extent of Coleman’s well-run operation. William Coleman made it a point to purchase every claim to borate minerals that he could. He was successful but for Daunet’s spread.

Coleman also set up what was then known as the Greenland Ranch, a forty acre site where his business grew crops with the water that flowed from Furnace Creek. Today, this is commonly known as Furnace Creek, the location of the main visitor’s center. Greenland Ranch provided food and a place to stay for the company employees, amid a virtual oasis in a stark land of otherworldly realities. Alfalfa was the main crop, sharing space with vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and melons.

From this headquarters, forty men were hired, about 75 percent of whom were from China. The labor that these fellows were expected to perform around the clock was to test their abilities to withstand extreme conditions, and Coleman reportedly told his hiring boss, “Screen the men carefully. I want nothing to do with tramps.” That statement apparently was made after some of the prospective employees were transported at Coleman’s expense to Death Valley to begin their work, when a number of them took one look at the desolate badlands and promptly beat a hasty retreat to other, more hospitable jobs. It was also not uncommon that those who did hire on, left after their first year was complete.

Men such as Yu Hao began the extraction process by using their shovels to scrape the white sediment from the great white blinding expanse that exists across much of the length and width of Death Valley. For ten hours each day, they shoveled it into transportation wagons that hauled it to the Harmony facility nearby. There, other men would dump the salty and crusty minerals into boiling tanks, where it was stirred, and eventually transferred into cooling vats where the precious borax would crystallize onto special rods. Once the crystallization rods were heavily laden, they were removed, allowed to dry, and then the borax was scraped from them into sacks, ready for transportation.

Transportation! This was the one unavoidable issue that could make or break any mining concern this far out into the hinterlands. And break them it did, as many companies, regardless of what they mined, be it gold, silver, copper, lead, or borax, could not sustain a profitable business model if transportation costs exceeded the profits from the mineral itself. For any bold entrepreneur willing to risk a venture in lands that were essentially off the map in the world of geographical obscurity, transportation had to be answered well if the bank rolls were to swell.

William Coleman kept up his borax refinement year round, ever heading for his goal of complete market domination. He couldn’t afford any solution less than state of the art. His ability to process borax during the same deadly heat of the summer months that had ended operation of the Eagle Borax company was due to the fact that he shut down Harmony Borax Works from June through September, and transferred the operation to his Amargosa Borax Works to the southeast, about six miles south of the present day hamlet of Shoshone – he was still mining and refining borax, just at a different plot of ground.

Coleman’s equipment was transported by wagon through the serene Greenwater Valley, an area that was to witness a copper frenzy a little more than twenty years into the future. Amargosa was over 2,000 feet higher in elevation than Harmony, and while it was still exceptionally hot, it was cool enough to allow the borax to crystallize onto the rods. Harmony Borax Works was about 190 feet below sea level, and Isadore Daunet’s Eagle Borax Works was considerably lower than that! To get a feel of what these businessmen were up against, schedule a visit here at Badwater this coming July –the picture will immediately become clear.

During this era of borax fever, Coleman was a very busy man in other arenas also, not the least of which was his Democratic run for President of the United States. He was a Kentucky man, in his late fifties, and reportedly had a penchant for complete dominance in any field that he entered. He was driven to say the least, a man of strong conviction, and unparalleled ability to achieve that which he set out to accomplish. Harmony Borax Works in lowly and feared Death Valley was William Tell Coleman’s bid to become the borax tycoon of the United States and the world. Anyway, back to the story …

Yes, transportation was the most pressing concern for Coleman’s Superintendent Rudolph Neuschwander to solve, because borax prices were falling, and shipping was their largest single cost consideration. Yet they were exceedingly successful, forming a borax freighting paradigm that brings us to the core of this dramatic tale. I named this story as I did to highlight the renowned twenty mule team, the transportation solution used to haul borax from Harmony and Amargosa to the railroad depots 165 miles distant at Daggett and Mojave. Interestingly, these freighters weren’t pulled by twenty mules though, despite the famous moniker of twenty mule team. Eighteen mules were in the line, followed by two powerful and large draft horses. Well, more on that little tidbit in a while. Before this prominent icon got its start, another fellow hauled for Coleman.

Charles Bennett, who had recently sold his Pahrump ranch to Aaron and Rosie Winters, accepted a one year contract with Coleman’s company to haul the borax for them, a tough line of work, but one that paid handsomely. Considering that Bennett had just made a profit on his ranch sale, and was now hauling for William Coleman, this fellow was doing quite well for himself! During Bennett’s contracted time hauling out of the Harmony facility, he had the diligent Chinese laborers hack out a better road across what we now call the Devil’s Golf Course, just north of Badwater. With sledgehammers, workers like Yu Hao hammered down the tall, jagged, and rough salt spires that were the obstacle of this dry lake bed, all the way south to the Eagle Borax site. This newly formed road was roughly six feet wide and eight miles long, and provided an improved route south to Wingate Wash. If one is so inclined, the route can still be driven today, even in a standard passenger car if the weather is dry. It is part of the West Side Road. Imagine the task of using sledgehammers to execute such a undertaking!

Bennett’s fortune with Coleman didn’t last however, because as borax prices still were falling, in part due to Coleman’s own efficiency at flooding the marketplace with it, and Coleman’s desire to expand the business operations, the boss figured it would just be cheaper to create his own freighting model within the company itself rather than contract out the work. So, at the expiration of the hauling contract, Charles Bennett was not to be renewed, and upon the shoulders of Foreman John Perry fell the task of creating a borax freighter prototype that could easily expand with the company without breaking the bank. Enter the twenty, or make that eighteen, mules and two horses.

On a side note, other long line freighters had been in use for quite a while elsewhere in the west. Two and three tandem wagon configurations were operating in Arizona and Nevada during the 1870s, hauling equipment and supplies as mining ventures came and went, using anywhere from 8 to 12 to 20 mules. In the Searles and Panamint Valleys, west of Death Valley, an enterprising man named Remi Nadeau found that he could make much more money with a freighting business than trying to scratch out a living with fickle mining, so he perfected the craft there. His legacy is the famous Remi Nadeau shotgun road that we can still travel in our backcountry vehicles today – it’s straight as an arrow, and slices right up the Panamint Valley. Studying these other examples, the gents at Coleman’s enterprise got the great idea to hook up 12 mules from one team to 8 mules from a smaller team, and presto … a legend was born!

Essentially, William Coleman wanted larger wagons that could haul far more borax per trip, thereby reducing the number of trips to transport a given amount of refined mineral. He wanted the fewest number of freighters necessary to haul the greatest amount of borax in the shortest amount of time … no small order! And, like most bosses throughout history, he wanted it now.

These wagons had to be capable of carrying many tons of borax 165 miles to Mojave, California, over a remote desert wasteland that most people would consider merciless, waterless, and lifeless. Perry studied the day’s largest commercial wagons, such as the huge Murphy Wagon from St. Louis. The Studebaker Company of South Bend, Indiana also produced bulky wagons with cavernous storage areas, but buying a fleet from established commercial manufacturers would prove more costly than just building them from scratch, so Perry set out to do just that – create what was to become known and famous as the twenty mule team!

Mojave was the location for construction. Based on specifications provided by Perry, crews produced ten massive freight wagons that were each capable of hauling at least ten tons of borax, along with five water wagons, each capable of carrying 1,050 U.S. gallons, which were necessary to provide the precious liquid on a hot and dusty trip through often waterless terrain. The cost of each freighter wagon was somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 to $1200, depending on the historical source of the information.

One freight rig would consist of two of the massive freighters and one of the water wagons. Each freighter cargo box, which was constructed of wood, was 16 feet long, 6 feet high, and 4 feet wide. Distance from the outside of one wheel, across the wagon to the outside of the opposite wheel was 6 feet, what may be called the track width. The rear wooden spoke wheels were 7 feet in diameter, and the front wheels were 5 feet in diameter. Steel tires covered the rolling edges of these wheels, and were 8 inches wide and 1 inch thick, weighing at least an incredible 600 pounds apiece – some accounts place them at 1,000 pounds! Imagine changing that tire. Each freight wagon weighed in at roughly 7,800 pounds. These were as large, or larger, as any wagon of the 1800s, could carry up to 11 tons of borax, and they dwarfed the humans who operated them. Even the rear wheels towered above a six foot tall man, topping out another 14 inches above his head (that includes two inches for the thickness of the steel tire, top and bottom).

The twenty mule team in Death Valley

Of course, all that explains the three wagons that made up each freighter, but does not mention the driving force behind it all (or should I say in front of it all). One freighter consisted of two borax freight wagons and one water wagon. At approximately 36 tons when the three wagons were all fully loaded with their cargo, this staggering amount of weight had to be pulled, and for this job, Perry stuck with what was normally used during the era … mules. Each outfit consisted of 18 mules and two large horses, not the commonly thought 20 mules. The two large horses, each weighing as much as 1,800 pounds, were hitched closest to the lead wagon, for they could handle the extra forces imposed as the behemoth wooden monsters turned corners. These horses were called wheelers. Hitched in a long line in front of them were the eighteen mules, weighing around 500 to 800 pounds less than the large horses. The smartest and most civilized pair of mules took the lead position, the next pair with the best manners directly in front of the horses, and all the rest tucked in between where they would happily fall in line with the order of the day, as they listened to the musical rhythm of the bells attached to the lead pair. This line of twenty animals was about 100 feet long.

Why was the name twenty mule team applied to these borax freighters? Well, I suppose it would be kind of awkward to call them the Eighteen Mule and Two Horse Teams, so it was simply a matter of convenience … and most folks never even gave it a second thought.

Since there were five of these new freighters continually in service for Coleman’s company, from 1884 to 1888, they required quite a few animals. All together, the five Harmony borax freighters had a total animal count of 90 mules and 10 horses, for a sum of 100 animals pulling the loads. Although I do not know for sure, I suspect that Neuschwander and Perry likely had a pool of backup animals for unexpected events like an injury or death that could prove detrimental to the business operations, and thus the bottom line – money. Imagine the care and food necessary for such a number of rugged creatures. Mules are a hybrid animal, resulting from the breeding of a female horse with a male donkey. Tex Ewell, a freighter driver for the Pacific Coast Borax Company in 1919, is reported to have made this famous statement about mules: “The mule is courageous and intelligent – and a dumb mule, if there is such a thing, is smarter than a smart horse.”

These twenty mule teams (I use the common term, with apologies to the horses), were operated by only two men while hauling the loads to Mojave and back on the twenty day, 330 mile roundtrip. The teamster was the driver of the outfit, and also cared for the mules. The swamper was the brakeman on the rear wagon, and also made sure all the equipment was in fine working order. Going down steep mountain grades on the old dirt roads required well functioning brakes to keep the 36 ton freighter under control. The swamper apparently got his name from the men who used to clear swamps in logging camps, although I still have difficulty seeing the connection. Teamsters, also called muleskinners by some, earned between $100 to $120 per month, money that had quite a bit of sweat and labor behind it. The swamper’s work earned him only $75 per month. At the end of each long day on the trail, at the overnight camps, the teamster would feed and water the mules, while the swamper would whip up some grub for himself and the teamster in the serene and secluded Mojave Desert. Rest at the end of the each day was well earned, and sleeping out under the stars was an added benefit.

The teamster rode on the front freight wagon, up top, or sometimes would sit astride the left wheeler horse if more control was needed. He had two operational rope lines to control the ponderous rig, one to operate the brake on the front wagon (swamper braked the rear wagon), and one that stretched to the lead mule, which was called a jerkline. A steady pull on the jerkline by the teamster signaled the lead mule to turn left, while a series of quick jerks caused the lead mule to jerk his head up and down, and sent the message to proceed on over to the right. The final motivation for the animals to keep on a steady pace, if other methods like tossing small pebbles at their rumps failed, was for the teamster to artfully swing his whip through the air, thereby creating a loud crack sound – who could argue with that? Even a mule realizes the inherent message.

John Randolph Spears, a newspaper reporter for the New York Sun, came out west once to gather his impressions of the legendary Death Valley territory, and thereafter wrote a book in 1891 entitled, Illustrated Sketches of Death Valley and Other Borax Deserts of the Pacific Coast. From that book is an interesting paragraph that perhaps provides our minds a little of the sensation that we would feel if watching a twenty mule team head out: “To see him soar up over the front wheel to his perch, tilt his hat back on a rear corner of his head, gather in the slack of a jerk line, loosen the ponderous brake, and waken the dormant energies of the team with ‘Git up, God damn you; git up!’ is the experience of a tourist’s lifetime. When the teamster pulls up beside the dump with the mules in a line so straight a stretched string would touch the ear of every mule on either side of the chain, as has often been done, one wanted to be introduced and shake hands.”

The summer of 1884 saw the commencement of the twenty mule teams from Coleman’s Amargosa Borax Works, since it was far too hot to operate down in Death Valley that time of year (some accounts put the first year of operation as 1883, probably late winter). When the weather cooled by the end of September, Harmony again began refining, and the teams started the long 165 mile trips to the railroad at Mojave from there. It took 20 days to make the trip from Harmony Borax Works to Mojave and then back for another load, as 330 grueling miles of primal desert terrain passed under the steel tires of the huge wooden wheels. Teams were continually on the earthen trail, with one leaving the borax refinery every four days, so these twenty mule teams were often passing each other on the road, being alerted to an oncoming freighter by the dust from the animal’s hooves and the wagon’s wheels, in addition to the sound of the bells worn by the lead pair of mules.

The teamster and swamper were paid each trip upon their arrival at Mojave, where they were allowed the afternoon off and a free night of rest on a real bed before again heading back out the next day for Death Valley. Trouble was, after all their hard work and seclusion through the parched desert, they were eager to relax and have fun at this half-way point of the haul, so, more often than not, they ended up drinking alcohol, playing a card game called Faro, and losing most or all of the pay they had just received hours before. Of course, from a company management standpoint, this sad state of affairs had a silver lining!

Now, the situation was one where these two guys were again broke, and of course, wanted more money. How would they get it? Easy … just drive the freighter back to Harmony, pick up another load of borax, and haul it on back to Mojave! The incentive of more money kept the crews from simply leaving their tough job right there, and thereby stranding the wagons 165 miles from the factory. John Perry, Foreman of Harmony, summed it up like this: “It was a good thing for us. For the teamster could go broke in one night and be ready to go out over the road in the morning.”

Another bit of wise management practice occurred shortly after the teams would pull in to unload their cargo at Mojave. The teamster and swamper would be taken aside individually and asked how they were getting alone with their partner out on the trail. If any significant emotional friction existed, the crew was split and reassigned a new partner. Coleman, Neuschwander, and Perry all realized that they could ill afford to have any bitter disputes between two men for twenty days out in the middle of nowhere – such action could slow or completely stop the progress of at least one freighter, throw off the finely tuned schedule of deliveries, or, in a worse case scenario, result in the destruction of the wagons if an accident overturned one. This is how the management saw it.

One teamster actually did get murdered by his swamper once, after an argument at Saratoga Springs, leaving the swamper to pilot the wagons the remainder of the journey. Being just one man, with no one to operate the rear brakes, and being unfamiliar with all the intricacies of the teamster’s methods, he overturned the wagons. With a broken leg, he managed to ride an animal the rest of the way, but his deed was discovered despite his cover-up. Different accounts tell things differently, but in the end, the swamper was not found guilty of anything.

Stories of the trips and men are plentiful, colorful, and interesting to read, yet there is not room here to recount them all. However, I want to include one more, a somewhat humorous tale that goes like this: During his overnight in Mojave, a teamster came to believe in a supernatural deity, and realized that his miscreant ways and foul language were not good things if he wanted to lead a righteous life. Remember how we learned that mules are smart? Well, they become very familiar with the verbal commands of their individual teamster after hundreds of miles on the trail day after month after year. As it happened, this newly converted, and now religious, teamster came out the next morning to get the great line of mules and horses started, but when he shouted his command to giddy-up to the lead pair, report has it that the mules just perked up their ears in bewilderment, not understanding the meaning of their handler’s new well-mannered and pristine tongue. That’s the story folks … makes for great reading, and adds to the many fine legends of this unique and untamed territory!

The 165 mile route from Harmony to Mojave was a long and demanding journey. The teams would leave Harmony Borax Works north of Furnace Creek at dawn, head south on what we now call the West Side Road, on the western edge of Badwater Basin, stopping at Tule Spring and Salt Wells for water. We can still visit these waysides if we don’t mind driving on a graded dirt road. Ed Stiles, the fellow who was reportedly the first man to haul borax out of Death Valley with a twelve mule team for Isadore Daunet prior to the twenty mule team, was quoted as saying about the water at Salt Wells: “Water was salty, but good enough for mules and tough mule drivers.” Other dangers on the long haul to Mojave included extreme desiccating heat (which apparently caused one teamster’s death), flash floods in the washes during times of intense thunderstorms, and high winds that blew blinding and stinging dust.

With a map in hand, please follow along here, and see that the teams then began the long climb up to Wingate Pass, where in some spots the grade became steep enough that the two men had to unhitch one wagon so that the animals could successfully pull them up one at a time – pulling the full unforgiving load was just too much for eighteen mules and two horses to bear in spots, especially considering that portions of ground were sandy in places. Thirty-six tons!

From Wingate Pass, they proceeded downhill for the most part to Lone Willow Spring, which was the half way point in days, so this would be day five. From here, the next stop was Granite Wells, where there “was good water if there were no dead coyotes in it” according once again to Ed Stiles. Feed boxes for animals and men existed at each of the stops, which usually had the expected grub in them. However, at times wandering prospectors would share in the sustenance, which could leave a freight team short. But, according to tales, enough of them had a guilty awareness of their theft that they restocked when they could, so as not to leave the borax freighters wanting.

After Granite Wells, the route headed like an arrow straight across the vast stretch of Mojave Desert towards the railhead at the small town of Mojave. Anyone wishing to personally experience this route, without going all the way to Death Valley, may simply drive north on Highway 395 from Kramer’s Junction (Four Corners), which sits at the 395/58 junction. Not too long before we arrive in the barely alive town of Red Mountain to the north, shortly before the abandoned wayside of Atolia, we will cross the famous twenty mule team road, a well-worn two-track dirt pathway that comes in from the northeast (right), crosses the pavement, and heads southwest (to our left). This road is marked by a sign on the highway for folks who love the history of this often-romanticized era.

Looking either direction, we will see the road disappear over the horizon with nary a bend, and we’ll realize that by the time the freighters and crew got to this point, they were on an easy downhill slide into their drop-off point at Mojave. Portions of the road are currently open to drive. Of course, taking it northeast towards Death Valley is a dead-end nowadays because of enormous military land closures between here and Wingate Pass in the southern Panamint Range.

Even though this final portion of the route is largely downhill, and was the last leg of the first half of the roundtrip, it was essentially waterless, requiring what was called a dry camp each night. This meant that the crew had to pull more water from the large steel water tank wagon that brought up the rear of the freighter. Good thing it held just over one thousand gallons! Although the elevation was considerably higher than Death Valley here, being considered high desert at nearly 3,000 feet above sea level, it still gets unbearably hot at times! But at least the end was in sight.

As the two fatigued men, eighteen mules, and two horses at long last pulled into Mojave with their mammoth freighter, another of the five freighters was pulling out for the trip back. On the return trip, with the two huge wagon cargo boxes empty of borax bags, they hauled necessary supplies that were needed at the Harmony and Amargosa Works. Every year, Coleman’s operation hauled about two and a half million pounds of borax to market. It was truly an amazing feat, the likes of which we shall never again see – but we can still experience these wagons at the Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center, the Harmony Borax Works ruins, and at Boron, California.

Things were going great for William Coleman, but his same personality traits that led to impressive successes in business, also led to his demise. Power is a strange master for some people, and in his attempt to corner yet another product market in 1887 – this time raisins – coupled with a continued fall of borax prices, he suffered a large financial shortfall totaling in the millions of dollars. Even the wealthiest of the wealthy have their limits, and they make their mistakes. Coleman attempted to sell off his borax operations to minimize his losses, had an offer, but the deal went sour at the last minute.

Finally, on May 07, 1888, after only five years of business, the borax works at Harmony and Amargosa permanently shut down operations. The days of the legendary twenty mule teams were over … or so it seemed. True enough, the actual days of hauling the borax from Death Valley had finally died because of newer and more financially viable borax deposits discovered much closer to the railheads, but this was just the beginning of the next memorable chapter with this amazing American icon!

Francis Marion Smith ended up purchasing all of Coleman’s borax assets, consolidated all of his holdings under the name of the Pacific Coast Borax Company, and essentially became the new and undisputed Borax King. Smith didn’t continue the Death Valley claims however, because the new mineral deposits only eleven miles from Daggett at Calico were more profitable for him. So, if the freighters didn’t continue in Death Valley, how did the legendary story continue? Well, it just took another turn, that’s all … one from reality into one of memorialized commercialization.

A visionary young man named Stephen Tyng Mather worked for Francis Smith in his east coast office as part of the sales force, and he had a brilliant idea. By the way, if the name sounds familiar, it is because Stephen Mather was later to become the first Director of the National Park Service in 1917. Anyway, back to his younger days with the white gold, or borax! Yes, he was able to successfully convince his boss that serious money was to be made through the commercialization of the twenty mule team, by making the name and image of it a trademark for Smith’s company. Mather figured that by playing off the nostalgia of the freighters and the American frontier, the public at large could be introduced in such a way that a whole new renaissance of profits was there for the taking. Smith, like Coleman, was always open to new methods of building his financial empire, and this made sense to him.

The hardest part of the sales pitch for Mather was to get Smith to finance a man to write a book about it all, something that could be published to get the word out. Well, he was successful, and hired John Rudolph Spears, a reporter for the New York Sun, to go west, get the complete story of all the excitement out there, come back, and write it all down in such a way that everyone just had to read it.

To keep the story short here, in 1892, Illustrated Sketches of Death Valley, and Other Borax Deserts of the Pacific Coast was published for a public eager to learn of the wild west. This book quickly paved the way for the obscure twenty mule team to become a readily recognizable icon nationwide, and sent Smith’s borax product sales through the proverbial roof! By 1893, the campaign was in full and glorious swing, and its success continued to be measured in enormous dollar returns for many years to come. Even when I was a kid in the 1950s and 60s, I recall the twenty mule team commercials on black and white television while watching my favorite program, Death Valley Days. The Old Ranger really cared that I kept my hands clean, and let me know each week that my family and I should be using Twenty Mule Team borax products for all our cleansing needs.

An interesting side note is that in 1896, Francis Smith attempted to redesign the borax freighter image, and hoped to improve transportation of the mineral. He developed and built a steam powered tractor, intending to replace the eighteen mules and two horses that pulled the mighty wagons from Calico to Daggett, California. The name that has been attached to this device is Old Dinah, and we can still see it even today at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center area, in front of the Furnace Creek Ranch. There it still sits, rusted, yet strangely majestic in its appearance, with a set of the fabled borax freighters attached behind. From the start however, the machine proved nearly worthless compared to the enduring mules that heretofore always powered the wagons. On steep grades, it would rear up on its huge hind wheels, failing to pull the load where mule teams never had a problem. For many years it rested where it finally gave up mechanically, a seemingly non-ceremonious end to a grand entrepreneurial idea, but then it was eventually brought to it present location for us all to enjoy.

Then, in 1898, after his Old Dinah failure, Smith truly put an iron-clad end for his need of the twenty mule teams. Ever the resourceful thinker, as most successful business moguls are, he used his massive financial empire to build the Borate-Daggett Railroad. The legendary borax freighters ceased to have reason to exist in the Death Valley region, yet even with this final death knell, the legend refused to die. In fact, it continued to grow larger than life, inspiring tens of thousands of folks who would never even set foot in Death Valley. Advertising was the key to the new virtual empire.

What failed to exist in reality, now existed in the minds of collective America, and the cleansing products flourished in an age of simplicity and western romanticism. Given enough money, backing, and media exposure, any idea has the potential to take hold, and this one became the gold standard of how to run a thriving business.

In 1904, sixteen long years after the last mule driven freighter had hauled its final load from Death Valley, Francis Marion Smith used the St. Louis World’s Fair to execute a stroke of his entrepreneurial genius, by resurrecting a complete borax freighter to appear there in all its former glory. The new twenty mule team was driven by Borax Bill Parkinson, who had actually never operated a team in Death Valley, but of course, the public didn’t know that at the time. Nearly everyone who saw this remarkable spectacle believed that Borax Bill had come straight from the grueling 165 mile road that connected the Harmony Borax Works to Mojave. He looked the part, acted the part, and provided a whopping good show in the bargain. Smith again had a winning combination of ideas to further the sales of borax.

The St. Louis Globe Dispatch, a local newspaper, wrote: “Borax Bill strides forth from the hell of Death Valley, with a song on his lips, cracking his whip above his dauntless head.” With that kind of wild west articulation appearing for public consumption, it was sure to be a hit!

The team toured the eastern United States for a time, bringing its image to life for those who had read about it. Smith published a book called The 20-Mule Team, and a Sketch of its Famous Driver: Borax Bill, which, along with a children’s book titled The 20-Mule Team Brigade and a song dubbed The Hee-Haw Chorus, by the 20-Mule Team of Death Valley, etched this obscure bit of western Americana deeply in the shared consciousness of the country.

By 1913, Smith had become unwillingly committed to a similar course of industry fate as that of his former business associate William Coleman, entering his financial collapse era 25 years later. He resigned from his presidential post at Pacific Coast Borax Company, and his assets became the property of the company’s trustees.

Nineteen-seventeen saw the twenty mule team in the famous Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, and it was even present at the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, President number 28 of the United States. During this touring, four swampers worked the animals. Most of the routes were on pavement, which caused mules to fall when jumping over the lines to make a turn. This occurred even though the loaded weight of the wagons was only a minuscule fraction of what it had been on the dirt trails of yesteryear, primarily because the mules had poor traction under their hooves compared to the bite that they could acquire on a natural earthen trail. The entire outfit was hauled by railroad to a particular area, unloaded, geared up, and then went from town to town under its own power.

The Old Ranger, a character actor who hosted a new radio broadcast called Death Valley Days that began in the winter of 1930, would start off his show by saying to the listening audience: “Another true story of Death Valley Days is brought to you by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, who gives you the miracle of borax in three convenient forms ….” Thus, during this decade and beyond, the twenty mule team would continue to be preserved, along with the soon-to-be-formed Death Valley National Monument. This radio show aired nationally until 1945.

In 1933, Horace Albright, the Director of the National Park Service saw the rugged Death Valley territory become a National Monument. Albright was born nearby in Bishop, California in 1890, so he was well familiar with the region. He took over the post after Stephen Mather moved on. Visionary foresight had removed Death Valley from uncontrolled commercialization so that history and geology could be preserved for the future.

The Pacific Coast Borax Company was operating three tourist areas at Furnace Creek during this time. Visitors were now entering Death Valley in droves to witness for themselves the country where the borax freighters became legend. There were nearly 10,000 visitors that first year the National Park Service oversaw the new Monument, and by the end of that first decade, visitor counts increased by approximately eight fold. Of course, this surge in visitation was certainly helped along by the weekly Death Valley Days radio broadcasts, so the commercial interests of the Pacific Coast Borax Company were instrumental in supporting a new National Monument, and vise versa. Each entity, one governmental and one private, became a part of endearing this huge swath of backcountry as a emotional portion of Americana legend to the delight of thousands. The twenty mule team was at the core of this unique dynamic.

In 1937, the team was once again resurrected to appear at the Oakland Bay Bridge opening ceremonies. An interesting account of this San Francisco appearance tells of how the team was driven across the huge bridge, into the main part of town, and then began to turn around to make the return trip back across the bridge. During the complicated turning procedure, where mules had to jump over the center chain in order to keep the wagons properly on course, a policeman erroneously believed the mules were making a mistake, so he jumped in and blew his whistle to stop them. Well, this caused quite an uproar apparently, so much so that one of the rugged (and now upset) swampers literally told off the cop right there on the spot, who had transformed a flawless and fascinating maneuver into a chaotic fiasco. The officer reportedly apologized profusely, but not after drawing unwelcomed attention to himself in front of the large crowd.

Time kept marching on, as it always does, but the legendary tales of the borax freighters just seemed to keep growing bigger, despite the fact that they had long since been outdated technologically. Come to think of it though, it was probably due to this quaint essence of antiquity that helped propel them to greater public awareness – that and the commercial interests behind them – money rarely hurts a cause, of course.

Well known actor Wallace Beery starred as a freighter teamster in the 1940 movie Twenty Mule Team, and, not to miss a beat, the Pacific Coast Borax Company timed a trans-national crossing to ensure yet another symbiotic relationship of dual commercial interests and tourism. This gigantic event was headlined in newspapers across the country, drawing large crowds to witness the legend first hand. Politicians had their photos snapped with the famous team, and schools allowed time off for the kids to get up close and personal with the old west.

Then came that final astronomical boost that timed itself with my personal entrance into the lost netherworld of the Death Valley territory: Death Valley Days eclipsed its radio broadcasts by taking advantage of a new technology called television! Black and white, yes, but unbelievable for my young eyes nonetheless. This occurred in 1952, ran until 1975 with 558 episodes, and hooked all the little girls and boys like myself who had some connection with this magical low spot on the North American continent. My parents had been taking me there, and now I was also seeing it on the old glass tube in the living room. The Old Ranger was an icon for me.

Even a fellow named Ronald Reagan, who would, someday off into the future, become Governor of California and President of the United States, did a stint as host of the program. Reagan would say each week to me: “Hello, I’m Ronald Reagan, your host on Death Valley Days, where western history comes alive!” I watched transfixed as the lonely bugle call sounded with the movie of the twenty mule team rumbling across the remote desert landscape. It was a very special time!

After the television show had finally played out its tenure in front of a generation of enthusiasts, these images of the famed borax freighters and mules began to fade from the culture’s eye. New things in life always replace the old ones, and this too was the ultimate fate for the famous twenty mule team that hauled all the white gold from Death Valley in the fabled and glorified days of the old Wild West. In 1998, as if in one more emotional attempt to regain some of its lost national prominence, the huge wagons, eighteen mules, two horses and two operators made their way east on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California for the New Year’s Tournament of Roses Parade. Things had irreversibly changed by this appearance sadly, and few had any idea what these wagons were all about, perhaps just another mode of old fashioned transportation. Charming, but, ho hum, look at that next incredible and colorful flowered float coming along behind the mules. The spotlight that once illuminated the legend had dimmed, and now only the true aficionado will likely appreciate their character and rugged place in history.

In his 1955 book, 20 Mule Team Days in Death Valley, author Harold Weight bid an emotional farewell to this unforgettable legend of yore on his final page, as he stepped into a cerebral world of fantasy to evoke an appropriate and heartfelt response from his readers. I read this passage many years ago as a young boy, and it has remained indelibly etched in my memory all this time. I can offer no better conclusion to this chapter myself, so here I now quote Harold’s well-chosen words:

“That rising cloud toward Furnace Creek – is it a twisting dust devil, or is it a twenty mule team coming in?

“A dust devil? Look more closely. See the long, dark laboring line? See the tall wagons looming in the haze? See the dusty figure high on the wagon box? Soon we should hear the rumble and chuckle of the great wheels, the creak of harness, the jangle of chains, the voice of the teamster raised in encouragement. For a moment, perhaps, we can forget we live in the day foreseen half a century ago by Poet Richard Scrace:

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‘Soon will the desert teamster, as did the buffalo hunter,

Become but a wraith and a theme for the voice of tradition;

He will pass and his place in the cycles to come will be taken

But not by other men like him, or anything living.’”

The Twenty Mule Team

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