The Borax Man of Death Valley

Gepenre's Illustration of the Borax Man

I've been traveling to Death Valley since I was very young. One of the earliest trips I remember was over Thanksgiving in 2007, and we camped high up on the exposed alluvial fan below Hanaupah Canyon in our then-new off-road tent trailer. The nights were particularly cold that year, even though the summer had been among the hottest since the 1980s. The winds were howling, though by comparison not unusually much. To my ten-year-old self at the time, it was a night of terror. The winds, coupled with the chill and unphathonable darkness of the Death Valley Night, led my mind into a maze of fear of the dark, the wind, and the unknown. While on a brief expedition outside, I remember looking out onto the porcelain-white salt flats of Badwater Basin and seeing a shadow, from my vantage no larger than a toothpick but the size and shape a human would be from several miles away. The full moon cast a shadow on the flats from something standing out on the salt. It was then is retreated into the safety and warmth of our mobile home. As the winds howled on, the memory gradually faded into obscurity.

On a recent trip to the valley, within the last two years, I visited with my father to an obscure, though visited, backcountry cabin. We visited several cabins on that trip, and I do not precisely recall which it was I visited. What I do recall is looking through the meager bookshelf of this cabin and seeing a small pamphlet between the books of prayer, self reform, and botany. I took it out and read it's faded cover: Chronicles and Legends of the Mojave, by J. D. Gepenre; a self-published work from 1976 with no publisher marking, only that it was printed in 1976. It was a slim book, perhaps seventy-five pages, no thicker than the average magazine and on very yellowed paper. I thumped through the pages, and scanned the table of contents, turning to the section marked Death Valley. Following the usual tales of Panamint City, Beveridge, and Skidoo was the following legend:

In the late 1800s, borax mining was the principal business in Death Valley. Many Chinese laborers were employed in the borax mills. Lumps of borax called “cottonball” were scraped from the valley floor, crushed, and boiled in open vats made from adobe. This purified and crystallized the valuable chemical so it could be transported and marketed.In 1885, a 7 foot, 7 inch tall Chinaman named Tong Yu was working at the Harmony Borax Works when he accidentally fell–or was pushed–into one of the large open vats of boiling borax. Workers fought to pull him out. Tong’s entire body was horribly burned, and his flesh was deeply saturated with the caustic borax.He was brought into the living quarters, and a doctor was sent for. By the time the doctor arrived the next morning, Tong Yu was nowhere to be found. During the night he must have wandered away alone, perhaps in an agonized madness.
Today, visitors to the park often report a tall, thin, distant figure on the salt pan under the moonlight. Sometimes the wind plays tricks on the ears, sounding almost like a mournful cry. In 1974 a party of park rangers chased the figure on foot but could not get close. The Borax Man seemed to melt right back into the plain he came from.

The author goes on to provide and illustration, pictured above, of his interpretation of "The Borax Man." After reading this, I instantly remembered my aforementioned encounter. Gepenre says he first heard the tale reading a journal of a borax worker from US Borax, a former worker at Ryan Camp, and then confirmed the tale from the then current caretaker of Ryan, David "Jackpot" Nova, a first-generation Swede with a troubled life and a desire for solitude. While many of the rest of the Death Valley chapter seems poorly researched and sometimes erroneous, this chapter was different. It is difficult to research a legend, but he seemed to do this quite well. Read my father's take on the tale here. I cannot vouch for the legitimacy of the Borax Man's existence, but as the reader you now know what I have see and what Gepenre states others have seen. Make the decision for yourself, and remember that the vast saline expanse of Death Valley continues to hide its secrets.