Harmony Borax Works — The Twenty-Mule-Team Myth Meets Industry
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Transcript
Harmony Borax Works operated for only a few years in the 1880s, but its image became far larger than the plant itself. Workers processed borate ore near Furnace Creek, producing borax that then had to be hauled roughly 265 kilometres to the railhead at Mojave. Large mule teams and specialized wagons solved that logistics problem and later became a famous marketing symbol. The romance of the twenty-mule team can hide the actual industrial system: extreme heat, seasonal shutdowns, chemical processing, wage labor and long-distance transport. Harmony matters because a short-lived operation helped create the public image through which millions later imagined Death Valley.