There are
themes in history, which with retelling becomes legends… still fact based, but
with additional “facts” added… extra tales appended… until the story as told is
far removed from the origin story…
Someone or some group have a motivation to own the legend… And will shape and mold the story meet their
needs…
It’s a lot
like the Republican Party and Fox news… Fox news does not create news… but
their output is not constrained by facts as understood by a freshman history
student bound by foot notes and Chicago rules of style…
Previously
I have ranted about the Alamo… and the story not told… the story created… The Shrine,
not the historic site which you can visit in San Antonio… It is a story created
to support the Myth of Texas… A story brought
to us in Technicolor by John Wayne. The
Alamo and the men who died there deserve better than the Myth of Texas…
But this
story is not about the Alamo and the Myth of Texas… at least not this time… its about
20 mules, or 18 mules and 2 horses and three wagons and Death Valley… The Myth of the 20 Mule Team… and borax… it’s
about borax… and house wives purchasing borax fortified cleaning products…
The 20
mule team tale, at its purest, at the beginning, is about a team of 18 mules and 2 horses, used
to pull a set of 3 wagons (2 ore wagons, one water wagon) carrying borax from
borax mines in Death Valley to the railhead. This operation used
specially designed wagons, larger, particularly well built. At best the
whole thing was in service less than 8 years…
The
wagons from this operation, specially built extra large extra heavy wagons with
7’ diameter rear wheels (hint, wheel size might be important… ) were reportedly
later used elsewhere, particularly at Daggett California (John Daggett, the Daggett of the town of
Daggett is the lovely Tina’s great, great uncle… his gold box is sitting here
in the room with me as I write this… There is a family story about dimes… but I
digress). It is almost certain that other similar operations (large ore
wagons, in trains with large number of animals) were used, both before and
after the Harmony works operation.
Today,
“20 Mule Team” wagon sets are displayed within Death Valley National Park, at the
Harmony Borax works, at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, and elsewhere at the
active borax mine at Boron (complete with 20 fiberglass mules…). As
recently as 1999, one set (the Boron set?) was occasionally operated as a
historic reenactment. It might have been
seen that year on National TV on January 1st, in the Rose Parade…
The
history of the 20 Mules Team operations is highly confused and romanticized. I blame Ronald Reagan… among others… but Reagan is an easy target… And really, he was just the narrator, for only
a couple of years on what was possibly the longest running western on TV…and radio... It
was his last acting gig before entering politics… Politics….???? Could this be
another Alamo – 20 mule team parallel? The
Myth of the West, as political banner… as political symbol? But beyond Reagan, there is Borax Smith, (the
man who created modern Oakland) and Steven Mather who turned 20 mule team into
a trade mark, then went on to create the National Park Service…
This is a
heavy load for one myth to carry… but these are big wagons and we have lots of
animals…So, last
week I found myself in Death Valley… the National Park… and there I found two
of the wagon sets, and a museum, and came away confused… I went to the library… my library, and found 6 books on
Death Valley, and 5 on railroads of eastern Nevada, and a few more on mining
and banking in the mining towns of Nevada…. I might have done a Google search
or two…I am
still uncomfortable with my knowledge… The story is still too mythological…
there are still questions…
The two
sets of wagons in Death Valley appear to have rear wheels which are 6’ in
diameter… (I told you it might be important…)
They may be ore wagons, but may not be “20 mule team” borax wagons… I have located 3 or 4 different origin
stories for the 20 mule team story… (none of which include Ronald Reagan or
John Wayne.) The interpretive panels found in the park have not answered as many questions as I might have wished...
I may not
know (yet) the story, but it has a hero… Steven Mather… the father of the National
Park Service… He was the one, back about 1900 who recognized that the 20 mule
team was a compelling story… and made it the trademark of The Pacific Coast
Borax Company, and that the compelling story could be used to sell soap…
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