Historic Borax Wagon Lost to Fire
DEATH VALLEY, Calif. – A wooden wagon and three housing units were damaged or destroyed in two separate fires at a privately-owned resort within Death Valley National Park.
Just after midnight on April 4, park rangers responded to the first fire, which was behind the Borax Museum. The fire destroyed a historic wooden wagon that was used in the 1890s to transport borax out of Death Valley. ‘Old Dinah,’ the steam engine that pulled the wagon, was adjacent to the fire but escaped significant damage. Old Dinah was in use just after the famous Twenty Mule Team era.
Only five wagons sets were constructed and used during the Twenty Mule Team era from 1883 to 1898. Of those only three are currently relatively intact. This includes a set on display at the U.S. Borax Company headquarters in Boron, California. This set was used in the television series “Death Valley Days.” Within Death Valley National Park the set of wagons at Harmony Borax Works were not involved in the fire. The Harmony wagons were used in the national tours to promote the sales of Borax. The Harmony wagons also have “integrity of fabric and setting”, this means they have had the fewest alterations and most original material of any existing Twenty Mules Team wagons. The wagons behind Old Dinah, including the one that was lost, still had about 50% integrity, with original running boards and some metal hardware.
A second fire was reported at 5:15am approximately 500 feet away from the earlier fire. This fire was in prefabricated housing units that had been delivered for employee housing but not yet occupied. The National Park Service’s fire engine responded again, and was joined by Southern Inyo Fire Protection District, Inyo County Sherriff and California Highway Patrol. Two units were destroyed and a third was damaged.
No one was harmed in either fire. The cause of the fires is unknown and under investigation by Inyo County Sheriff’s Office and the State Fire Marshall.
Death Valley National Park is the homeland of the Timbisha Shoshone and preserves natural resources, cultural resources, exceptional wilderness, scenery, and learning experiences within the nation’s largest conserved desert landscape and some of the most extreme climate and topographic conditions on the planet. Learn more at www.nps.gov/deva.
