Sunday found us back at the Minden Mill for another mesmerizing, and timely, presentation by David and Gayle Woodruff.
We were there to find the answer to the question, "How did a company, whose business was mining, processing and selling laundry soap, come to build a luxury hotel rivaling the finest of Europe and bring tourism to a location with perhaps the least marketable of names imaginable (Death Valley)?"
Using dozens of rare photos, author and historian David Woodruff recounts Death Valleys nostalgic and entertaining history of bringing tourists to the hottest, lowest, and driest spot in North America.David and Gayle know their stuff. They lived and worked at Furnace Creek Resort for over 17 years, pursuing a lifelong interest in exploring Death Valley and researching its fascinating history. David has compiled historical photographs and documents made available by Rio Tinto Minerals (formerly the Borax Company), along with the National Park Service in Death Valley, to tell the story of tourism in this once seemingly untouristic spot. As is true of everyone of David's presentation, the information he can provide in just one hour is more that can be fully absorbed. It's a good thing I own his book Magnificent Oasis at Death Valley.Death Valley's naming happened in October 1849, when a group of twenty wagons heading for the recently discovered California gold fields left a wagon train near the Utah-Nevada border. They planned to take a shortcut along an old Spanish trail and desert cutoff. Conscious of what had happened a year earlier to the Donner Party, whose members had been trapped in the mountains by winter and lost nearly half their number, these 49ers were anxious to cross the Sierra Nevada before snow blocked the passes. Instead, they wandered there lost and half-starved for four months. When they finally trudged out of the desert, one of them bid it farewell saying “Goodbye, Death Valley.” It was a name that stuck.
Years later, an interesting discovery was made which would put Death Valley on the map. Known chemically as sodium tetraborate or disodium tetraborate, borax is a combination of the elements boron, sodium, and oxygen and has been prized for centuries as a cleaning agent and so much more. (Marco Polo is said to have brought some back to Venice from his Asian travels in 1295 BCE).
Many players were involved in the mining of this treasure including William T. Coleman (of the camp stove fame) who established the Harmony Borax Works near Furnace Creek in 1883. The Harmony Works (later the Pacific Coast Borax Company) became as famous for its trademark twenty-mule team wagons it used to transport partially refined borax to a railhead at Mojave, California as it was for its product.
As mining opportunities diminished, there were those, particularly the owners of the Pacific Coast Borax Company, who saw the opportunity to transform some of the old mining camps and facilities into hotels and other visitor services. The increase in automobile ownership eased the journey into the valley from the growing population center of Los Angeles. Roads were built along the mining and emigrant trails, and the first tourist accommodations were established to welcome hot and weary travelers. 
Herman 'Bob' Eichbaum was one of Death Valley's earliest fans. He came to believe that Death Valley could become an attractive winter resort. He wanted to bring in visitors from Los Angeles, but at the time, the only way to get into the valley was on old horse or wagon trails. Realizing this was insufficient, he built a toll road over two mountain passes from the west into Death Valley. The road was completed in 1926 and it is cited as a factor in changing Death Valley’s economic base from mining to tourism.
Eichbaum’s Stovepipe Wells Hotel began as 20 bungalows with 50 rooms, a restaurant, general store, filling station, swimming pool, tennis court, golf course, and airfield. He built a beacon light, powered by a generator, to guide visitors into the hotel during desert nights.
Guests of the Furnace Creek Ranch (1927) can play golf at the lowest golf course in the world, at 214 feet below sea level, it is often advertised as “the lowest round of golf you’ll every play!"The fancy Furnace Creek Inn, built by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, opened on February 1, 1927 with 12 guest rooms and cost $10 per night including meals. In 1929, the water from Travertine Springs was brought in to supply the new swimming pool.This amazing treasure is still a place worth visiting because of incredible vision. The Pacific Coast Borax Company lobbied to designate Death Valley as a national park. In 1926, the company invited Stephen Mather, Director of the National Park Service and his aid, Horace Albright to visit. The company began a grass-roots campaign for protection of the valley, including the radio program “Death Valley Days”. In February 1933, President Hoover proclaimed Death Valley as a National Monument and 61 years later, Congress designated Death Valley National Park. The rest they say is history!
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