Ted Faye is a documentary filmmaker whose company, Gold Creek Films, specializes in stories of the West. Ted develops touring information, including audio CDs, signage, and brochures. He also helps communities to find and tell their stories. Ted was the historian to US Borax, and many images from this book are from the Borax collection at Death Valley National Park.
“The saga of the great mule teams and giant wagons that are today’s romantic symbol of Death Valley began long before the first muleskinner piloted his lumbering borax freighters out of the Big Sink. Its roots were in that night when Aaron and Rosie Winters crouched in their darkened camp at Furnace Creek and read their future in the green-flickering flame of burning borax. But its seed went farther back.” First published in 1955, this is a wonderful book on the mule team days in California’s Death Valley during the 19th century. It contains observations on the natural history of mules and muleskinners, and the mining of desert borax. There is also a reprint of Henry G. Hanks’ Report on Death Valley from 1883.
Railroads have played an important part in the history of Death Valley. The Pacific Coast Borax Company first used the Death Valley Railroad to transport its ore to market and then to transport Death Valley tourists to its Furnace Creek Resort. "Death Valley Scotty's" leap to national fame came as a direct result of his chartering a private train to break the Los Angeles to Chicago speed record. The Carson & Colorado Railroad on the west and the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad on the east provided support to Death Valley's mining activity, its associated boomtowns, and early tourism.
This is the history of Death Valley, where that bitter stream the Amargosa dies. It embraces the whole basin of the Amargosa from the Panamints to the Spring Mountains, from the Palmettos to the Avawatz. And it spans a century from the earliest recollections and the oldest records to that day in 1933 when much of the valley was finally set aside as a National Monument. This is the story of an illusory land, of the people it attracted and of the dreams and delusions they pursued-the story of the metals in its mountains and the salts in its sinks, of its desiccating heat and its revitalizing springs, and of all the riches of its scenery and lore-the story of Indians and horse thieves, lost argonauts and lost mine hunters, prospectors and promoters, miners and millionaires, stockholders and stock sharps, homesteaders and hermits, writers and tourists. But mostly this is the story of the illusions-the illusions of a shortcut to the gold diggings that lured the forty-niners, of inescapable deadliness that hung in the name they left behind, of lost bonanzas that grew out of the few nuggets they found, of immeasurable riches spread by hopeful prospectors and calculating con men, and of impenetrable mysteries concocted by the likes of Scotty. These and many lesser illusions are the heart of its history.
In 1926, on the advice of his doctor, former newspaperman William Caruthers, whose writings appeared in most Western magazines during a career spanning more than 25 years, retired to an orange grove near Ontario, California. Once there, he would go on to spend much of his time during the next 25 years in the Death Valley region, witnessing the transition of Death Valley from a prospector’s hunting ground to a mecca for winter tourists. This book, which was first published in 1951, is William Caruthers’ personal narrative of the old days in Death Valley—”of people and places in Panamint Valley, the Amargosa Desert and the big sink at the bottom of America.” A wonderful read.
There's more to Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) than a strange name and the fact that he shot dead his wife's lover. Best known for his sequence photographs of humans and animals in motion, the 'galloping horse photographer' has left a legacy of scientific and artistic work that continues to influence visual media today. A spinoff from the website The Compleat Muybridge, is Muy Blog on Wordpress, keeping Muybridge enthusiasts up to date with what's happening in the wide world of Muybridge and his images. This souvenir selection is from the first four years of news, research and comment. Read about the modern Profilograph bronze sculpture technique that morphs a galloping horse into a four-dimensional artwork, illustrating time as well as space. Follow the 1895 commotion about the hugely expensive folio Animal Locomotion: “not one in twenty thousand would undertand it...” Enjoy the evocative lyrics of “Good Evening, Major” – almost the last words that Flora Muybridge's lover would ever hear – from the engaging video by the band Accordions. Find out what connects Ronald Reagan, Muybridge, and Death Valley. Enjoy the zoöpraxographer's influence on the cartoonists of the late 19th century. Follow the author as he goes “In search of Helios”. Was Eadweard Muybridge really 'The Father of the Motion Picture'? Read about the exhibitions, the controversy, and The Smartest Kid on Earth. Catch up with Muy Blog in this handy printed form.
An investigation into one of the largest and most lucrative mineral mining companies in the world, Rio Tinto, Extraction Politics reveals how the company constructs a presence in the places it operates and shapes meanings and orientations toward the environment. Taking readers on a “rhetorical pilgrimage” across the American Southwest, Nicholas Paliewicz shows how Rio Tinto creates adaptable corporate identities. From Ronald Reagan’s frontiersman advertisements for the Borax Mine in California to the pioneer Mormon persona at Bingham Canyon Mine in Salt Lake City and the folksy, paternalistic perspective toward the San Carlos Apache at the proposed mine at Oak Flat, Arizona, the company appropriates local history to embed itself as a valued member of the public—without having to settle in those ecological communities and bear the costs of extraction. This does not occur without resistance, however. Paliewicz also shows how activists use these same tactics to expose Rio Tinto as an exploitative, colonialist polluter. In an era of surging demand for dwindling supplies of minerals and metals, this book previews what the future of extractivism may look like. Extraction Politics will appeal to scholars and students of environmental communication and activist politics as well as general readers interested in the climate crisis.
