Borate and Daggett Railroad

Borate and Daggett Railroad

Borate & Daggett railroad in Mule Canyon, on it's way to Borate, California
Reporting mark	BDRR
Locale	Daggett, California to Borate, California
Dates of operation	1898–1907
Track gauge	3 ft (914 mm)
Headquarters	Daggett, California

The Borate and Daggett Railroad was a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railroad built to carry borax in the Mojave Desert. The railroad ran about 11 miles from Daggett, California, USA to the mining camp of Borate three miles to the east of Calico.

The mines at Borate were discovered in the winter of 1883 when prospector Barret Stevens sought silver deposits east of the town of Calico. He instead found a rich vein of borax ore in the area later called Mule Canyon. William Tell Coleman, head of a rich company which mined borax in Death Valley, took control of the properties of borax ore in Mule Canyon and planned to open a borax mine to supplement his existing one at the Harmony Borax Works. He never got the chance to mine in Mule Canyon, because on May 7, 1888, his borax industry collapsed after losing $1,000,000. Coleman's business associate and long-time friend, Francis Marion Smith bought his company and consolidated the company as Pacific Coast Borax, and moved the mining operations from Amargosa to the new mining camp of Borate about three years later.

At first, Smith used the famous twenty-mule team to haul the ore to the railhead at Daggett where the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad shipped the borax to Alameda, California to be processed and packaged. In 1891, Smith decided to find a more economical way to haul the borax instead of the mules to lower the expenses. He ordered a steam tractor from the Best Tractor Company to test its ability to haul ore. The miners at Borate named her Old Dinah. The tractor was only used for a couple of months, as it was said that she was problematic to run and expensive to maintain and feed, so Smith kept the mules working for a little while longer.