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RAILROADS:
"Borax" Smith was not only a mine operator, but a railroad builder as well. He built the Borate & Daggett Railroad to haul ore from his mines in the Calico Mountains to the Sante Fe siding. He modestly named the two engines the Francis and the Marion.
As the Calico deposits became depleted, Smith turned to development of the Death Valley deposits. But Smith wanted a more modern and efficient method to transport Death Valley borax to market than the old 20-Mule Teams. He envisioned a railroad that would not only transport borax to the rest of the world, but would service the newly established gold camps at Tonopah and Beatty, with potentially profitable results. In July 1904, Smith formed the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad Company.
Mining at the Lila C., one of the colemanite deposits along Furnace Creek Wash, commenced in 1904. But the railroad did not reach the mine until August 1907. For the two preceding months, 20-Mule Teams hauled the waiting ore from the Lila C. to the Zabriskie siding for shipment to market. With the arrival of the railroad, the Lila C. began steady production of 100 tons of borax per year. It was none too soon; the Calico mines closed in October 1907.
Smith pushed the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad on to the gold camps at Beatty. Unfortunately, it was the third railroad to reach the area, and the boom times had already passed. The profits he had envisioned never materialized. Smith resigned his position with Pacific Coast Borax in November 1914.
As the Lila C. approached deletion in 1914, the company began to open other deposits in the Funeral Mountains: the Biddy McCarthy, the Played Out, the Grand View, the Lizzie V. Oakey, and the Widow. All the buildings from the camp at the Lila C. were moved and the new camp of Ryan was constructed. The Death Valley Railroad was constructed to link the mine to the Tonopah & Tidewater RR at Death Valley Junction. "Baby gauge" lines connected the smaller mines to the Biddy McCarthy. The combined mines produced 200 tons of borax per year.
In 1926, a large deposit of borax was discovered farther south in the Mojave Desert. It proved to be so rich that the mines in Death Valley were closed in October 1927.
The demise of mining in the area did not immediately spell the end of the railroad. Frank Jenifer, manager of the T&T Railroad envisioned Death Valley as an ideal location for a desert resort. Late in 1925, he had convinced Pacific Coast Borax to build an Inn at their Furnace Creek property, and made a deal with Union Pacific Railroad to jointly promote train tours to the valley. The Furnace Creek Inn was just barely completed when the first Union Pacific tour arrived February 1, 1927. Visitors arrived by rail at Ryan, and then were driven down to the Inn in a big seven-passenger open touring car. When the mines at Ryan closed, the mine dormitories were converted into the Death Valley View Hotel, and the mine facilities at Death Valley Junction became the Amargosa Hotel. |