The famous 20 mule team wagons hauled borax from Searles Lake circa 1900.
Located near Trona is an extremely rare lake that was discovered by John Searles in 1862 that is known to contain samples of at least half of the planet’s natural elements.
Searles Lake is approximately four times the size of Manhattan, stretching 12 miles long and 8.1 miles wide. The lake is speckled with red, ultramarine, and pitch-black pools of mineral saturated brine. The lake’s temperature can reach up to 115 degrees during the summer, with an average of three inches of rainfall annually.
Records have shown that Searles Lake once held water as deep as 660 feet due to it being part of the advances and retreats of glaciers in the Sierra Nevada Range.
Searles did not immediately recognize the significance of the lake when he discovered it while searching for gold. It took him almost a decade and an encounter with Francis Marion Smith, “The Borax King,” before realizing that he had discovered borax. In 1873, Searles and his brother Dennis founded the San Bernardino Borax Mining Company and began mining and shipping borax in wagons.
Searles was the first person to haul borax using the famous 20 mule team wagons. However, mining laws at the time prohibited them from staking the entire lake, so a number of competitors quickly followed and gathered up the naturally occurring surface deposits.
The Searles Lake borax discovery has been designated as California Historical Landmark #774, with a plaque at the roadside rest area in Trona.
The information in this historical feature was originally part of a video series produced by the Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk’s office.
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