Editing Death Valley National Park (section)

===Boom and bust===
[[File:Death_Valley_Railroad_No_2-a.jpg|thumb|Historical locomotive for transporting [[borax]] in Death Valley]]
The ores that are most famously associated with the area were also the easiest to collect and the most profitable: evaporite deposits such as salts, [[borate]], and [[talc]]. Borax was found by Rosie and Aaron Winters near [[Oasis at Death Valley|The Ranch at Death Valley]] (then called Greenland) in 1881.<ref name="HarmonyBorax">{{harvnb|USGS|2004|p="Harmony Borax Works"}}</ref> Later that same year, the [[Eagle Borax Works]] became Death Valley's first commercial borax operation. [[William Tell Coleman]] built the [[Harmony Borax Works]] plant and began to process ore in late 1883 or early 1884, continuing until 1888.<ref name="NPSmining">[[#NPSwebsite|NPS website]], "Mining"</ref> This mining and smelting company produced borax to make [[soap]] and for industrial uses.<ref name="NPS20mule">[[#NPSwebsite|NPS website]], "Twenty Mule Teams"</ref> The end product was shipped out of the valley {{convert|165|mi|km}} to the [[Mojave, California|Mojave]] railhead in 10-ton-capacity wagons pulled by "[[twenty-mule team]]s" that were actually teams of 18 mules and two horses each.<ref name="NPS20mule" />

[[File:20 Mule Team in Death Valley.jpg|thumb|A twenty-mule team in Death Valley]]
The teams averaged {{convert|2|mi|km|spell=in}} an hour and required about 30&nbsp;days to complete a round trip.<ref name="HarmonyBorax"/> The trade name [[Twenty-Mule-Team Borax|''20-Mule Team Borax'']] was established by [[Francis Marion Smith]]'s [[Pacific Coast Borax Company]] after Smith acquired Coleman's borax holdings in 1890. A memorable advertising campaign used the wagon's image to promote the [[Boraxo]] brand of granular hand soap and the [[Death Valley Days]] radio and television programs. In 1914, the [[Death Valley Railroad]] was built to serve mining operations on the east side of the valley. Mining continued after the collapse of Coleman's empire, and by the late 1920s the area was the world's number one source of borax.<ref name="Wright1997p611"/> Some four to six million years old, the Furnace Creek Formation is the primary source of borate minerals gathered from Death Valley's playas.<ref name="HarmonyBorax"/>

Other visitors stayed to prospect for and mine deposits of [[copper]], [[gold]], [[lead]], and [[silver]].<ref name="Wright1997p611"/> These sporadic mining ventures were hampered by their remote location and the harsh desert environment. In December 1903, two men from Ballarat were prospecting for silver.<ref name="NPSpeople">[[#NPSwebsite|NPS website]], "People"</ref> One was an out-of-work Irish miner named Jack Keane and the other was a one-eyed Basque butcher named Domingo Etcharren. Quite by accident, Keane discovered an immense ledge of free-milling gold by the duo's work site and named the claim the [[Keane Wonder Mine]]. This started a minor and short-lived [[gold rush]] into the area.<ref name="NPSpeople"/> The Keane Wonder Mine, along with mines at [[Rhyolite, Nevada|Rhyolite]], [[Skidoo, California|Skidoo]] and [[Harrisburg, Inyo County, California|Harrisburg]], were the only ones to extract enough metal ore to make them worthwhile. Outright shams such as [[Leadfield, California|Leadfield]] also occurred, but most ventures quickly ended after a short series of prospecting mines failed to yield evidence of significant ore (these mines now dot the entire area and are a significant hazard to anyone who enters them). The boom towns which sprang up around these mines flourished during the first decade of the 1900s, but soon declined after the [[Panic of 1907]].<ref name="NPSmining"/>