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The 40 miles long and five mile wide salt (borax) pan in Death Valley's Badwater Basin attracted the early pioneers to the area. California's infamous Twenty Mule Teams were put into motion lugging weighted loads out of the pits to destinations hundreds of miles outside Death Valley. Contrary to the name though, the buckboards were not pulled by 20 mules. Two were horses. Here’s why.
Firstly the team pulled three large oak planked wagons designed to haul 10 tons of borax each. By “large” I mean LARGE—the rear wheels stood seven feet tall. The third wagon hauled a 1,200 gallon water tank and other necessary provisions excluding feed which had been deposited at camps on the previous return trip. The tank water was reserved for the mules and was intended to supplement that which was found along the way. The teamsters drank water from dozens of barrels strapped to the sides of the wagons.
The larger, stronger horses were hitched closest to the wagons and were called the “wheelers” as it was these work horses that surged the team, and thus the wagon wheels, into motion. Although some drove the team from the wagon’s seat, many teamsters drove the mules from the backs of the wheelers. The teams ran from 1883 to 1889 at which point they were replaced by the iron horse.
As would be expected in the enterprising States, the original mule teams were thereafter showcased at the 1904 World Fair held in St. Louis and then paraded down Broadway before being sold into oblivion. Teamed wagons, however, continued to make promotional appearances for the U.S. Borax Company until 1999.
The 49er's
But, before the miners settled near the borax pits, the 49er's passed through on their way to the American River. Hordes of gold crazed pioneers and immigrants trudged thousands of miles through all kinds of nastiness to reach Coloma after James Marshall let it slip that piles of the glittering ore had been unearthed west of the Sierra Nevada’s. Only those who, following some bad advice, verged north off the Old Spanish Trail actually intentionally trekked through DV. All others wisely went ‘round. But, even those few” Lost Pioneers” as they have since been called made it there at Christmas time and so avoided the tell-tale scorching heat and thirst of summer.
Huddled in makeshift tents pitched between their encircled wagons, those first expeditions passed through the Mojave in search of wealth and land. Trail blazers like Kit Carson and cartographers like Fremont came, too. And, of course, the gruesomely fated Donner-Reed party.
Irony abounds in this life and it was ever present with that group, especially given the fact that the first person’s corpse to be consumed by fellow expeditionists was he who first broached the taboo subject as a possible survival tactic for the small group starving and lost in a snowbound mountain pass. The probability that he had selflessly committed suicide hoping that his peers would take the hint and live couldn't have possibly lessened the horror each must have felt when they did.
Those that survived only served to encourage hundreds of thousands to follow in a historic mass migration westward. Within a few short years, thanks to the brave forerunners who lived to attest that the cross-country trek actually took three times longer than had originally been advertized, California went from being a remote territory with a few hundred Anglo settlers to a state with half a million people who had emigrated from all around the globe.
The 40 miles long and five mile wide salt (borax) pan in Death Valley's Badwater Basin attracted the early pioneers to the area. California's infamous Twenty Mule Teams were put into motion lugging weighted loads out of the pits to destinations hundreds of miles outside Death Valley. Contrary to the name though, the buckboards were not pulled by 20 mules. Two were horses. Here’s why.
Firstly the team pulled three large oak planked wagons designed to haul 10 tons of borax each. By “large” I mean LARGE—the rear wheels stood seven feet tall. The third wagon hauled a 1,200 gallon water tank and other necessary provisions excluding feed which had been deposited at camps on the previous return trip. The tank water was reserved for the mules and was intended to supplement that which was found along the way. The teamsters drank water from dozens of barrels strapped to the sides of the wagons.
The larger, stronger horses were hitched closest to the wagons and were called the “wheelers” as it was these work horses that surged the team, and thus the wagon wheels, into motion. Although some drove the team from the wagon’s seat, many teamsters drove the mules from the backs of the wheelers. The teams ran from 1883 to 1889 at which point they were replaced by the iron horse.
As would be expected in the enterprising States, the original mule teams were thereafter showcased at the 1904 World Fair held in St. Louis and then paraded down Broadway before being sold into oblivion. Teamed wagons, however, continued to make promotional appearances for the U.S. Borax Company until 1999.
The 49er's
But, before the miners settled near the borax pits, the 49er's passed through on their way to the American River. Hordes of gold crazed pioneers and immigrants trudged thousands of miles through all kinds of nastiness to reach Coloma after James Marshall let it slip that piles of the glittering ore had been unearthed west of the Sierra Nevada’s. Only those who, following some bad advice, verged north off the Old Spanish Trail actually intentionally trekked through DV. All others wisely went ‘round. But, even those few” Lost Pioneers” as they have since been called made it there at Christmas time and so avoided the tell-tale scorching heat and thirst of summer.
Huddled in makeshift tents pitched between their encircled wagons, those first expeditions passed through the Mojave in search of wealth and land. Trail blazers like Kit Carson and cartographers like Fremont came, too. And, of course, the gruesomely fated Donner-Reed party.
Irony abounds in this life and it was ever present with that group, especially given the fact that the first person’s corpse to be consumed by fellow expeditionists was he who first broached the taboo subject as a possible survival tactic for the small group starving and lost in a snowbound mountain pass. The probability that he had selflessly committed suicide hoping that his peers would take the hint and live couldn't have possibly lessened the horror each must have felt when they did.
Those that survived only served to encourage hundreds of thousands to follow in a historic mass migration westward. Within a few short years, thanks to the brave forerunners who lived to attest that the cross-country trek actually took three times longer than had originally been advertized, California went from being a remote territory with a few hundred Anglo settlers to a state with half a million people who had emigrated from all around the globe.