National Register of Historic Places

Eagle Borax Works

Furnace Creek, Inyo County, California
Listed
December 31, 1974
Type
District
Period
Listed
Ref No.
74000338

About this property

The Eagle Borax Works in Death Valley, California was established near Bennetts Well in 1882 by Isidore Daunet, J.M. McDonald, M. Harmon and C.C. Blanch to mine the borate deposits that Daunet discovered there in 1880. The partnership established the first borax works in the valley. Partly refined borax was hauled to Daggett, California through the Panamint Valley using 12-mule teams hauling two wagons. The extraction business operated until 1884 when problems mounted and Daunet killed himself. The property eventually passed to the U.S. Borax Company, which kept it as a mining reserve, then to Borax Consolidated, Ltd. in 1922. The property was sold to the Death Valley Hotel Company in 1956, and finally to the National Park Service. Little remains of the structures but ruins. The works originally included a boiler, a tank for dissolved borax, and open tanks for crystallization of the borax. A stone building stood nearby to house the workers. The boiler fire box remains, along with an earth mound at the site of the building.

Location

Furnace Creek, Inyo County, California
36.20189, -116.86567

Categories

INDUSTRYTRANSPORTATION
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Skidoo
Listed
22.2 mi
Death Valley Junction Historic District
Listed
26 mi

Questions about this property

When was Eagle Borax Works listed on the National Register?

Eagle Borax Works was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 31, 1974.

What type of historic resource is Eagle Borax Works?

Eagle Borax Works is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Eagle Borax Works?

The period of significance for Eagle Borax Works is recorded as the listed era.

Can I research the history near Eagle Borax Works?

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