Old Harmony Borax Works

The twenty-mule teams are famous; the men who filled their wagons are not. Chinese laborers gathered the cottonball borate off this marsh by hand, in summer heat that regularly stopped the work altogether. Aaron Winters found the deposit in 1881 and sold out to William T. Coleman, whose superintendent J. W. S. Perry designed the wagons and scouted the haul road. From here the refined borax went 165 miles to the railhead at Mojave, a ten-day round trip, until the works closed in 1889.

What the plaque says

On the marsh near this point borax was discovered in 1881 by Aaron Winters who later sold his holdings to W. T. Coleman of San Francisco. In 1882 Coleman built the Harmony Borax Works and commissioned his superintendent J. W. S. Perry to design wagons and locate a suitable route to Mojave. The work of gathering the ore (called 'cottonball') was done by Chinese workmen. From this point processed borax was transported 165 miles by twenty mule teams to the railroad until 1889.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Furnace Creek — 3.2 mi
  The valley hub, the hottest air temperature ever officially recorded, and the Timbisha village that was here first.
• Zabriskie Point — 5.4 mi
  Gullied gold badlands eroded out of an ancient lakebed, best at first light.
• Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes — 16 mi
  Fourteen square miles of dunes near Stovepipe Wells, and the easiest sand in the park to reach.
• Badwater Basin — 18 mi
  The lowest ground in North America, a salt pan 282 feet below sea level under two miles of mountain.

More markers nearby

• Death Valley Gateway — 2.5 mi
• Old Stovepipe Wells — 17 mi
• Burned Wagons Point — 17 mi
• Eichbaum Toll Road — 18 mi