Desert Gazette

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Tag: Death Valley history

  • The Eichbaum Toll Road:

    Opening Death Valley to the Motor Age

    In the mid-1920s, a man named H.W. Eichbaum looked out at the harsh desert landscape of Death Valley and saw something else entirely—a chance to bring travelers into one of the most remote and misunderstood places in California. Eichbaum, an engineer with a background in mining and tourism, had already run successful ventures on Catalina Island and in Venice, California. But the desert kept calling him back.

    At the time, Death Valley had no real roads for cars. Miners knew the place, but tourists stayed away. Eichbaum dreamed of building the valley’s first resort at Stovepipe Wells, but first, he needed a road. He made multiple proposals to the Inyo County Board of Supervisors before securing approval in October 1925. The deal allowed him to build and operate a toll road down into Death Valley from Darwin Wash across Panamint Valley and Towne Pass.

    The road was built by hand and Caterpillar tractor, winding around boulders rather than blasting through them. It was rough, narrow, and at times treacherous, but by spring 1926, the road reached the edge of the Mesquite Flat Dunes—just shy of his goal. Still, Eichbaum opened his Stovepipe Wells Hotel later that year, and tourists soon followed. His promotional savvy, regular ads in Los Angeles papers, and a sightseeing bus company helped make Death Valley a winter destination.

    Eichbaum’s road and resort kicked off auto-tourism in the valley, but he didn’t live to see its full impact. He died in 1932, just before Death Valley became a national monument. As traffic grew and tolls became unpopular, the state eventually took over the route, paving it into what’s now part of California Highway 190. Some rough segments still exist as backcountry routes. But thanks to Eichbaum’s vision and grit, Death Valley was no longer just a miner’s haunt—it became a destination.

  • Death Valley Railroad

    The Death Valley Railroad (DVRR) was a short-line narrow-gauge railroad built to support borax mining in one of the harshest and most remote regions of the American West. Though just 20 miles long, it played a major role in the borax industry during the early 20th century.

    Origins and Purpose (1914):
    The DVRR was built in 1914 by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, which was transitioning from using massive twenty-mule teams to more efficient rail transportation. The railroad connected the mining town of Ryan, California, located on the western slope of the Funeral Mountains, with the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad at Death Valley Junction, just across the border in Nevada. This made it easier to haul borax out of the desert and get it to market.

    Billie Mine/ Ryan

    Construction and Equipment:
    The line was narrow gauge (3 feet wide), which made it easier to build in the rugged terrain of Death Valley. The DVRR used two Baldwin-built 2-8-0 “Consolidation” type steam locomotives—No. 1 (built in 1914) and No. 2 (built in 1916)—which pulled ore cars loaded with borates from the mines at Ryan to Death Valley Junction. From there, the Tonopah & Tidewater carried the loads further to the mainline railroads.

    Working Conditions:
    Life along the DVRR wasn’t easy. The heat was intense, water was scarce, and the terrain unforgiving. Workers lived in company housing at Ryan, where the Pacific Coast Borax Company built a full company town—complete with school, post office, and even a movie theater.

    Decline and Closure (1930):
    By 1928, the main borax mine at Ryan was exhausted, and by 1930, the DVRR was officially shut down. The equipment, including locomotives and rolling stock, was sold to the United States Potash Company in New Mexico, where they were used in similar work until the 1950s.

    Legacy:
    Though it operated for only 16 years, the Death Valley Railroad represents a key transition in the desert’s industrial history—from mule teams to steam power. The railbed can still be traced in places, and some of the original structures at Ryan still stand. Today, Locomotive No. 2 is preserved at the Borax Museum in Furnace Creek, while No. 1 is on display in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

    The DVRR was a brief but vital chapter in the saga of mining in Death Valley—a rugged little line that conquered heat, grade, and distance in service to the white gold of the desert.