Death Valley Railroad at Ryan

Abstract

Photograph showing the Death Valley Railroad tracks leading into the Pacific Coast Borax Company's mining camp of Ryan (New Ryan). The Pacific Coast Borax Company, which was founded by Frances "Borax" Smith, worked the Lila C. Mine in Death Valley from 1907 to 1915. Smith formed the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad and built a rail line from Ludlow to Gold Center, with a branch line to the Lila C. and its nearby mining camp of Ryan to transport borax. Richard C. Baker became the director of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in 1913, and when the Lila C. was closed down two years later he moved his operations to the Biddy McCarthy Mine about twelve miles northwest of Ryan. Baker formed the Death Valley Railroad Company in 1914 and built a 17-mile long branch rail line from the Tonopah and Tidewater rail line in Death Valley Junction to the Biddy McCarthy mine. All of the buildings in Ryan were dismantled and transported by train to a new site near this Mine.