Christian Brevoort Zabriskie
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
businessman and former vice president of Pacific Coast Borax Company
Pacific Coast Borax Company
The Pacific Coast Borax Company was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis "Borax" Smith, the "Borax King".-History:...
. Zabriskie Point
Zabriskie Point
Zabriskie Point is a part of Amargosa Range located in east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in the United States noted for its erosional landscape...
on the northeasternmost flank of the Black Mountains
Black Mountains (California)
The Black Mountains are located in the southeastern part of Inyo County, California, in southeast Death Valley National Park.-Geography:The Black Mountains are essentially a continuation of the Amargosa Range, and lie in a generally north-south direction at the south-southwest end...
east of Death Valley
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below...
, located in Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park is a national park in the U.S. states of California and Nevada located east of the Sierra Nevada in the arid Great Basin of the United States. The park protects the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and contains a diverse desert environment of salt-flats, sand dunes,...
is named after him.
Early years
Christian Brevoort Zabriskie was born at Fort BridgerFort Bridger
Fort Bridger was originally a 19th century fur trading outpost established in 1842 on Blacks Fork of the Green River and later a vital resupply point for wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, California Trail and Mormon Trail. The Army established a military post here in 1858 during the Utah War until...
in Wyoming Territory
Wyoming Territory
The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital...
, where his father, Capt. Elias B. Zabriskie, was stationed. The Zabriskie family descended from Albrycht Zaborowski
Albrycht Zaborowski
Albrycht Zaborowski was a Polish nobleman of Ducal Prussia who settled in what is now New Jersey in 1662....
(Albert Zabriskie), a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
immigrant
Immigration to the United States
Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
from Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
, who settled in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
in 1662 alongside a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
community. Young Zabriskie attended various schools while growing up and at a very early age went to work as a telegrapher
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...
for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad
Virginia and Truckee Railroad
The Virginia and Truckee Railroad was built to serve the Comstock Lode mining communities of northwestern Nevada. At its height, the railroad's route ran from Reno south to Carson City, Nevada. In Carson City, the...
at Carson City, Nevada
Carson City, Nevada
The Consolidated Municipality of Carson City is the capital of the state of Nevada. The words Consolidated Municipality refer to a series of changes in 1969 which abolished Ormsby County and merged all the settlements contained within its borders into Carson City. Since that time Carson City has...
. He was too restless and ambitious to stay in one place for very long and soon moved to Candelaria, Nevada
Candelaria, Nevada
Candelaria was a town in Mineral County, Nevada, approximately 121 miles southeast of Fallon. Today the site of Candelaria is dominated by the Kinross Gold Candelaria Mine on Mt...
, and worked for the Esmeralda County Bank.
Being an active young man, one job was not enough to keep him occupied and he soon branched out into other ventures, one of which was a partnership with a local cabinet
Cabinet (furniture)
A cabinet is usually a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors or drawers for storing miscellaneous items. Some cabinets stand alone while others are built into a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood or, now increasingly, of synthetic...
maker to establish a mortuary
Funeral home
A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary, is a business that provides burial and funeral services for the deceased and their families. These services may include aprepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral....
. Neither of the two knew how to embalm
Embalming
Embalming, in most modern cultures, is the art and science of temporarily preserving human remains to forestall decomposition and to make them suitable for public display at a funeral. The three goals of embalming are thus sanitization, presentation and preservation of a corpse to achieve this...
, but it was not considered necessary in a mining town — prompt burial was.
Borax career
Zabriskie's life took on new meaning in 1885 when F.M. "Borax" SmithFrancis Marion Smith
Francis Marion Smith was an American miner, business magnate and civic builder in the Mojave Desert, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Oakland, California.Frank Smith created the extensive interurban public transit Key System in Oakland, the East Bay,...
hired him to supervise several hundred Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
laborers at the Columbus Marsh
Columbus Marsh
Columbus Marsh is a playa in Nevada, USA. William Troup discovered cottonball borax at the site in 1870 or 1871. Joseph Mosheimer and Emile K. Stevenot who operated one of the borax concentrating plants at Columbus hired Francis Marion Smith to cut wood for their plant on nearby Miller Mountain...
area of the Pacific Coast Borax Company
Pacific Coast Borax Company
The Pacific Coast Borax Company was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis "Borax" Smith, the "Borax King".-History:...
near Candelaria. This was the beginning of a life-long career in the borax industry.
He ultimately became vice president and general manager of the company and served in that capacity for thirty-six years until his retirement in 1933. During this time, the Pacific Coast Borax Company had phased out most of its borax operations in the Candelaria vicinity but had moved on to greater production in the Death Valley area, the Calico Mountains
Calico Mountains
The Calico Mountains of California are located in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County and Inyo County, California.-Geography:The Calico Mountains are geologically and historically colorful range that lie in a northwest-southeast direction, and are located just north of Barstow and Yermo, and...
near Yermo, California
Yermo, California
Yermo is a town in San Bernardino County, California. Its name is derived from the Spanish word for wilderness. It is located 13 miles east of Barstow in the Mojave Desert on Interstate 15, just south of the Calico Mountains...
, and Searles Lake
Searles Lake
Searles Lake is an endorheic dry lake in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California, with the mining community, Trona on its western shore. The evaporite basin is approximately long and at its widest point, yielding 1.7 million tons annually of industrial minerals within the basin to...
near Trona, California
Trona, California
Trona is an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County, California. In 2000 it had a population of 2,742. Trona is at the western edge of Searles Lake, a dry lake bed in Searles Valley, southwest of Death Valley. The town takes its name from the mineral trona, abundant in the lakebed.It is...
.
All this occurred long before 1933, when the area became Death Valley National Monument, but Zabriskie Point
Zabriskie Point
Zabriskie Point is a part of Amargosa Range located in east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in the United States noted for its erosional landscape...
remains to honor a man who devoted many years of dedicated service to the Pacific Coast Borax Company. He died just three years after his retirement in 1936.
See also
- Twenty Mule Team Borax
- Borate and Daggett RailroadBorate and Daggett RailroadThe Borate and Daggett Railroad was a narrow gauge railroad built to carry borax in the Mojave Desert. The railroad ran about 11 miles from Daggett, California, USA to Borate, California, USA.-History:...
- Trona RailwayTrona RailwayThe Trona Railway is a shortline railroad owned by Searles Valley Minerals.The TRC interchanges with the Union Pacific Railroad at Searles, California....
- Category: Death Valley