Volume 14 , Issue 52

100 Years Ago Today - 23 December 1912

One hundred years ago today, 23 December 1912, we find that a "Sensational Mining Drama Opens in the Mojave desert." This headline appeared on the front page of The Call, out of San Francisco, California, Monday, December 23, 1912.

The view of disputed potash, soda and borax claims in Searles Lake District, Mojave desert, and several capitalists who were interested in outcome of the bitter fight for possession was the cause of this dispute.

As the story reported, a great industrial drama, one that promised to be an epoch in the romantic mining history of California, involving diplomatic entanglement of the United States with England and Germany, financial struggles tween powerful corporations and threatened clashes of armed men, rapidly was nearing a physical climax in Searles lake, Southern California, with slower certainty in Washington.

The 40,000 acre crystal and briny deep, the American Dead sea in northwest San Bernardino county at the head of the Mojave desert, possessed illimitable deposits of potash, soda and borax, sufficient to glut the markets of the world and drive therefrom the potash producers of Germany and the borax kings of California, was the stake for which a huge three cornered fight was being waged.

On one side was the Foreign Mines Development Company of England, the greatest mining organization in the world. This corporation, possessed of vast capital, controlled the consolidated mines of South Africa, both diamond and gold output, retained major interests in other mining enterprises in Europe, Asia, America and Australia, was in virtual possession of the $1-million works at the lake through a mortgage which it was seeking to foreclose against the California Trona company.

The story in the newspaper continues over to page 2 of The Call.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---