Greetings family, friends and neighbors. Today's short story is about an East Bay resident with a surprising legacy that you may not have  known.....Francis Marion Smith "The Borax King"     Bill

Historical Ramblings

FRANCIS MARION SMITH

1846-1931

Chances are that you have never heard of Francis Marion Smith.

It’s more likely that you are familiar with the names of Jack

London, Robert Luis Stevenson, Charles Crocker, Joaquin Miller

and Anthony Chabot. All are East Bay pioneers that once called

Oakland home.

Smith was known as “Borax Smith”, was the highly successful

founder and owner of the company that produced 20-Mule-Team

Borax, the household cleaner made famous as the sponsor of the

popular Death Valley Days TV show. As a young man seeking

mineral wealth, Smith discovered a high grade deposit of borate in

the Great Basin Desert in 1872 and with his brother staked claims

and established a primitive borax processing facility. Within five

years, Smith was regularly shipping thirty ton loads of the cleaned

and concentrated borax crystals in large wagons, pulled by the

now famous 20 mule teams, to the nearest Central Pacific Railroad

siding one hundred and sixty miles away. Over time financial

success allowed Smith, the “Borax King” to buy out his brother,

purchase additional productive properties in the region, and

replace the slow and cumbersome mule shipments with his own

railroads. In 1893 he commissioned the construction of the Pacific

Coast Borax Company refinery in Alameda, CA, the first reinforced

concrete building in the country, to process the mineral into

household and commercial products under the 20 Mule Team

brand. With the surge of income from his Borax business Smith

formed a partnership with Frank Havens developing projects

including the extensive Key System line, an urban and suburban

commuter train, ferry and streetcar system serving the East Bay.

Smith and his wife Mary moved from the Nevada desert to

Oakland in 1881 where he managed operations of his expanding

business empire from their large estate, Arbor Villa. Located near

MacArthur and Park Blvd. on thirty five manicured acres, their

three story extravagant Oak Hall mansion contained forty two

rooms including fifteen bedrooms, a ballroom, bowling alley and

attached conservatory. The grounds featured tennis and croquet

courts, stables, a small zoo, greenhouses, a variety of guest

houses, and a signature five story water tower and observation

deck with views of the Bay and San Francisco. The Smith’s were

active in Oakland’s charitable and community events often making

Arbor Villa available for fundraising activities, as well as supporting

his first wife’s desire to provide homelike accommodations for

orphaned girls by financing, constructing, and operating thirteen

residential homes.

After suffering a major stroke at the age of 82, Smith and his wife

moved from their mansion to a smaller residence near Lake Merritt

and began selling off parcels of Arbor Villa. The stock market

crash of 1929 eliminated potential buyers and following his death

in 1931 his prized mansion was demolished. Francis Marion Smith,

miner, business man, philanthropist and “Borax King”, buried along

“Millionaires Row” in Mountain View Cemetery, is not well known in

his hometown but has a 5,915 foot peak in the Amargosa Range of

Death Valley named Smith Mountain in his honor.

-Bill 5/24