Trona California: Pics and Stories
jbottero
I asked my mom, now in her mid 70's about Trona because my father had been stationed at China Lake with us family during Viet Nam. Here is what she said:
Ah yes, Trona. Well, first of all, "trona" is the name of a mineral, which is not the same as, but apparently occurs in association with borax. Trona the town is about 25 miles farther out in the desert than China Lake, and is so called of course because of the mines. Which is to say, there is, or used to be a big plant there, on another dry lake bed, where they scraped up huge amounts of the minerals and trucked them away. Like China Lake, the town is there to serve the industry, and no one would live there if they had any choice. Everyone who lives there works there. It is a company town. Another hundred miles on the same road will take you to Death Valley its own self. Much more hospitable to life than is Trona.
No vegetable matter will grow there with the exception of one kind of tree -- I think it's the tamarisk, very salt-tolerant. The ground is basically white, and the temperature is extreme. Extremely hot except when it's extremely cold. They have their own school system, including a high school that paints slogans on rocks along the road. Their football field is 100% dirt, because grass will not grow there.
While we were at China Lake, we went to Trona a couple of times. Ate at their fast-food place, if I remember right. Part-way there, there was an intersection at which there was a fenced yard with a very desert-rat looking house inside. The fence was made of various things including some bed springs. On one of the trips, we stopped part way and walked up a hill away from the road. On the other side of the hill,in a little draw, we saw an astonishing thing. There were a number of heaps of -- well, dirt I suppose, for certain values of -- each of which was absolutely uniform, and each of which was different from the others. It was as if some kind of natural chemical separation process had been active there.
Do you know about 20 Mule Team Borax? It's a laundry product, also known as washing soda. But the 20 Mule Team brand (I don't know if it is still around) had a picture on the can of one of the teams that used to haul the borax out of Trona in the early days. I have seen film of one of these teams in action. As you might imagine it takes a great deal of skill on the part of the driver and also on the part of the mules to successfully maneuver such a team. They were ten hitches of two abreast. At some points, when turning a corner, the mules had to hop over part of the harness to pull at an angle.
You probably know that people used to call the southwest "the Great American Desert". But that corner of California is the Great American Desert to the tenth power. Or thereabouts.
K. Burt
Ah yes, Trona. Well, first of all, "trona" is the name of a mineral, which is not the same as, but apparently occurs in association with borax. Trona the town is about 25 miles farther out in the desert than China Lake, and is so called of course because of the mines. Which is to say, there is, or used to be a big plant there, on another dry lake bed, where they scraped up huge amounts of the minerals and trucked them away. Like China Lake, the town is there to serve the industry, and no one would live there if they had any choice. Everyone who lives there works there. It is a company town. Another hundred miles on the same road will take you to Death Valley its own self. Much more hospitable to life than is Trona.
No vegetable matter will grow there with the exception of one kind of tree -- I think it's the tamarisk, very salt-tolerant. The ground is basically white, and the temperature is extreme. Extremely hot except when it's extremely cold. They have their own school system, including a high school that paints slogans on rocks along the road. Their football field is 100% dirt, because grass will not grow there.
While we were at China Lake, we went to Trona a couple of times. Ate at their fast-food place, if I remember right. Part-way there, there was an intersection at which there was a fenced yard with a very desert-rat looking house inside. The fence was made of various things including some bed springs. On one of the trips, we stopped part way and walked up a hill away from the road. On the other side of the hill,in a little draw, we saw an astonishing thing. There were a number of heaps of -- well, dirt I suppose, for certain values of -- each of which was absolutely uniform, and each of which was different from the others. It was as if some kind of natural chemical separation process had been active there.
Do you know about 20 Mule Team Borax? It's a laundry product, also known as washing soda. But the 20 Mule Team brand (I don't know if it is still around) had a picture on the can of one of the teams that used to haul the borax out of Trona in the early days. I have seen film of one of these teams in action. As you might imagine it takes a great deal of skill on the part of the driver and also on the part of the mules to successfully maneuver such a team. They were ten hitches of two abreast. At some points, when turning a corner, the mules had to hop over part of the harness to pull at an angle.
You probably know that people used to call the southwest "the Great American Desert". But that corner of California is the Great American Desert to the tenth power. Or thereabouts.
K. Burt