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T.E YEAR 1972 marks the 100th anniversary of U.S.Borax, and the first
century of continuous borax production in the U.S.A.
The earliest predecessor company of U.S.BoRAX was launched in 1872 by
Francis Marion ("Borax") Smith. The scene was Teel's Marsh, Nevada, where
Smith and his brother Julius employed Chinese laborers to shovel borate from the
ground for refining into marketable borax. A man of genius and inexhaustible
energy, Mr. Smith acquired other borate properties besides Teel's Marsh, and at
the same time promoted borax from a rare product known only to pharmacists
and metalworkers into a household staple. In 1890 he acquired Harmony Borax
Works in Death Valley from William T. Coleman, pioneer California merchant.
The Harmony Works ·employed 40 men, and maximum production was three
tons a day.
Transporting borax from Harmony to the railroad at Mojave, Calif., was
accomplished by the famous Twenty-Mule Teams, which hauled the material
over a desert route of 165 miles, a 20-day round trip. The romantic and dra-
matic appeal of men and animals pitted against the harsh and inhospitable
desert soon made the Twenty-Mule Team a popular and picturesque trademark.
It remains one of the oldest trademarks still in use in the U.S.

The Smith Brothers poster was used sometime between
1875 and 1884. The original of this poster is in the Prints and Poster
collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.