Old Dinah, an old steam engine that replaced the Twenty Mule Teams of the late 1800s, is seen with the historic wooden borax wagon that was burned on April 4, 2024/NPS
A privately owned historic wooden wagon used to haul borax ore out of Death Valley in the 1890s was destroyed by fire earlier this month, according to the National Park Service.
Just after midnight on April 4, park rangers responded to a fire behind the Borax Museum. The fire destroyed a historic wooden wagon that was used in the 1890s to transport borax out of Death Valley, the Park Service said. ‘Old Dinah,’ the steam engine that pulled the wagon, was adjacent to the fire but escaped significant damage, the release added. Old Dinah was in use just after the famous Twenty Mule Team era.
Only five wagons sets were constructed and used during the Twenty Mule Team era from 1883 to 1898. Of those, only three are currently relatively intact. This includes a set on display at the U.S. Borax Company headquarters in Boron, California. This set was used in the television series “Death Valley Days.”
Within Death Valley National Park the set of wagons at Harmony Borax Works was not involved in the fire. The Harmony wagons were used in the national tours to promote the sales of Borax. The Harmony wagons also have “integrity of fabric and setting,” which means they have had the fewest alterations and most original material of any existing Twenty Mules Team wagons. The wagons behind Old Dinah, including the one that was lost, still had about 50 percent integrity, with original running boards and some metal hardware, the park release said.
A second fire was reported at 5:15 a.m. on April 4 approximately 500 feet away from the earlier fire. This fire was in prefabricated housing units that had been delivered for employee housing but not yet occupied. The National Park Service’s fire engine responded again, and was joined by Southern Inyo Fire Protection District, Inyo County Sherriff and California Highway Patrol. Two units were destroyed and a third was damaged.
No one was harmed in either fire. The cause of the fires is unknown and under investigation by Inyo County Sheriff’s Office and the California Fire Marshall.
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