Borax Museum

Death Valley National Park

The Borax museum is an outdoor museum exhibiting machinery and vehicles used by the Pacific Coast Borax Company in their Death Valley mining operations. 

20 Mule Team wagon trains were used to haul 24 tons of borax 165 miles from Death Valley to Mojave.

Steam powered trains eventually replaced the 20 Mule Teams.

Ubehebe Crater

Death Valley National Park > Ubehebe Crater

Stovepipe Well

Death Valley National Park

The well was once at the intersection of two trails through Death Valley. After sand obscured the spot, someone stuck a piece of stovepipe into the well as a marker.

Bottle House

One of the few buildings still standing in Rhyolite is a house made of glass and adobe. A local saloon owner, Tom Kelly, built this house in 1906 using materials he had in abundance: 51,000 beer bottles and mud.

Rhyolite

Rhyolite was a town near the eastern edge of Death Valley that began as a mining camp in 1905. Fueled by a gold rush, the town grew to nearly 5000 people in just a few years, but the easily accessible gold had all been exhumed in just a few years. By 1910, the mine was operating at a loss. The mine closed in 1911 and the town's population dove to fewer than 1000 peopl. By 1920, the town was abandoned and in ruins.