The phrase “20 mule team” conjures images of wagon trains, macho cowpokes and pioneer women scrubbing their knuckles raw on a washboard set in a tin tub on a dusty, windblown prairie.
Ick.
Certainly there were a few 19th-century women who dreamed of tying those dirty clothes to the team’s caboose and letting those durn mules drag ’em behind, agitating the fabric clean on river rock while the missus lounged in nearby shade, sipping a sarsaparilla and reading Jane Austen.
While washboards are long gone – hallelujah! – 20 Mule Team Borax is still with us, and is much the same as it was in the late 1800s. It’s still utilized as a detergent booster and whitener, along with a long list of other uses that you might not guess.
“Borax was the most important cleaner in the house,” recalls Jean Topor of Chicopee, Mass. She used it on her kids’ cloth diapers in the 1950s. “They had to be clean and white, and Borax did the job.”
Borax is made from borate, a naturally occurring mineral compound of sodium, boron, oxygen and water. It’s been around for 4,000 years but was first mined for use as an industrial product starting in the late 1800s in the vast desert around Teel’s Marsh, Nev.
Soon after, rich fields of crude borate ore (called “cottonball”) were discovered in Death Valley, Calif. There were no rail lines at the time, so teams of mules dragged the stuff across 165 miles of desert and mountains. And because it was heavy, some smart businessman came up with the idea to double the power of the era’s standard 10-mule teams that pulled wagons loaded with the ore.
Today, 20 Mule Team Borax is made by Dial Corp. The product is environmentally friendly, as detergents go: It’s colorless, odorless and is free of phosphates and chlorine.
And it still works. A few informal tests showed Borax effective as a whitener when added to laundry detergent, and as a deodorizer, easily neutralizing a smelly kitchen trash can.
Barbara Ellis: 303-954-1751 or bellis@denverpost.com
Not just for laundry
And those other uses for Borax, in addition to a laundry detergent? Guess which ones are still valid:
1. Digestive aid
2. Cure for epilepsy
3. Sweetener for milk
4. Water softener
5. Kitchen deodorizer
6. Dish soap
7. Humidifier treatment
8. Spot treatment on carpets
9. Mattress cleaner and deodorizer
10. Toilet bowl cleaner
11. Hair brush cleaner
12. Garbage disposal deodorizer
13. To preserve flowers
14. Fire retardant
15. In cosmetics, including face creams and eye bath solutions
16. Enamel glazes in pottery
17. Food additive in French and Iranian caviar
18. Treatment for thrush in horses’ hooves
19. In indelible ink for dip pens
20. Candle wick treatment to reduce ash
21. Fiberglass component
22. Soil micro-nutrient to aid in plant growth
23. Insecticide
24. Manufacture of artificial gems
ANSWER: All are accurate except 1, 2 and 3. Those claims made for the “magical crystals” in the 1800s were debunked, according to U.S. Borax and Dial Corp. (dialcorp.com). Even No. 17 is true, but Borax has been banned as a food additive in the United States.
Barbara Ellis
