Francis Marion Smith, known as the “Borax King” and “Frank,” was a Death Valley mining magnate and businessman who headed the Pacific Coast Borax Company. Born in Richmond, Wisconsin, on February 2, 1846, to Henry G. and Charlotte Paul Smith, Francis attended public schools as a child before graduating from Milton College in Wisconsin.

At the age of 21, he left his father’s ranch and, answering the irresistible call of the West, made his way toward the Pacific, visiting Idaho, California, and Nevada. He spent considerable time in mining and other work in those states before settling in Nevada for five years.

In the late 1860s, Smith worked under a contract with several ore mills near Columbus, Nevada, locating and obtaining timber for the various mining camps. While working at Teel’s Marsh, he discovered a rich supply of borax. He collected samples and had them assayed, which proved the ore to be higher than any known sources of borax. He soon staked several claims and began his career as a borax miner.

With the help of his older brother, Julius, and two brothers named Storey, the men established a borax works at the edge of the marsh to concentrate the borax crystals and separate them from dirt and other impurities. Operations began in 1873 under the name Smith and Storey Brothers Borax Co. Later, the Smiths acquired the Storey brothers’ interest, and the company name was changed to Smith Brothers Borax Co. and later to Teel’s Marsh Borax Co. The Teel’s Marsh deposits soon became the world’s principal supply source and remained so for years, bringing borax to wide commercial use worldwide.

In 1881, Smith and his wife, Mollie, moved to Oakland, California, where Frank began to invest in real estate while continuing his operations at Teel’s Marsh, Nevada. In 1884, Smith bought out his brother’s interest in their partnership, and Frank began to turn his eye to potential development in Death Valley. When William T. Coleman, who owned the Harmony and Amargosa Borax Works, the Lila C Mine, the Furnace Creek Ranch, and other properties in Death Valley, California, began to have financial troubles in the late 1880s, Smith provided Coleman with the capital in exchange for mortgages on the property.

In 1889, to expand the processing of raw minerals that formed the borax product, Smith worked with renowned engineer and reinforced concrete innovator Ernest L. Ransome to design two new refineries for him—one in West Alameda, California, and the other in Bayonne, New Jersey. The California refinery was recognized for being the first structure of its kind to be built with reinforced concrete.

In the meantime, Smith had also been investing heavily in real estate and public transit in Oakland. He, along with partner Frank Havens, formed the Realty Syndicate in 1895, buying area real estate and acquiring and consolidating a number of small, independent transit companies to create an integrated system of streetcar lines and rail extensions to a number of subdivisions the company was developing.

The same year, a mansion was completed for the Smiths in Oakland, California. Frank had acquired an estate of some 53 acres in the previous few years, and his wife, Mollie, oversaw the planning and building of a new mansion. Designed by famed architect Walter J. Mathews, Frank set out immediately to acquire additional property, and soon, the mansion was surrounded by 53 acres, where tame deer and peacocks roamed freely. Called Arbor Villa, the 42-room mansion sat on a hilltop east of Lake Merritt off of Park Boulevard. Filled with luxurious furnishings and art, including a pipe organ, the mansion featured a ballroom and a bowling alley for the many guests the Smiths often entertained. Over the next decade, Mollie would often open her homes in Oakland and Shelter Island, New York, for charity-raising events, entertaining as many as 5,000 people at once. A year later, Mollie would hire Evelyn Kate Ellis, one of the very girls she had helped through the years, as her assistant. Evelyn would later become Frank’s second wife.

With beautiful homes on both the West Coast and the East Coast, the family split their time between the two locations, spending the summers, from June through October, at Presdeleau. With their Chinese staff and maids, the family would board Frank’s private railroad car, Hauoli, and an additional Pullman from Oakland, California, to Jersey City, New Jersey. From there, they would transfer to Smith’s personal steam yacht, also called Hauoli, and make their way down Long Island Sound to Smith’s Cove, where they would step ashore at Presdeleau. Along with Frank and Mollie, their girls also accompanied them. They now included Charlotte Grace Sperry, who they took in in 1895, a girl named Florence Nightingale, and Evelyn Kate Ellis, Mollie’s secretary.

In 1896, Frank and Ernest L. Ransome built a concrete Ferry Building in San Francisco that would become an integral part of the Realty Syndicate transportation system that he and Frank Havens owned. Soon after, Smith and Ransome established the Ransome Concrete Machinery Company of Dunellen, New Jersey, which would secure several patents over the next several years and pave the way for modern-day concrete construction.

In 1898, Frank constructed the 12-mile-long narrow gauge Borate & Daggett Railroad. The ore was then shipped to a calcining plant located at Marion, just North of Daggett. This allowed a better grade of ore to be shipped to Alameda via the Southern Pacific Railroad. At that time, the 20 mule teams were retired, but the “brand” would continue to be used.

In the meantime, Mollie was still actively pursuing her charity work for orphaned girls and wished to expand. To accommodate her wishes, Frank gave her 30 acres of land for a Christmas present, which would be converted into the Mary R. Smith Trust and build, over the years, nine cottages to house these orphaned girls. Governed by a board of trustees of women of the First Congregational Church, the first cottage was built in 1901. Housing girls aged 4 – 25 years old in need of a home were allowed to stay as long as necessary. Each cottage had a house mother selected by Mollie Smith, who directed them to provide as close to a normal home life as possible. The girls were instructed to make most of their own clothes and help with the housework. All of the girls attended public schools, and many grew up attending college. Many of the cottages were named for the children that Mollie had adopted and cared for. In addition to the home, a social hall called the Home Club was also built.

Tragically, however, Mollie died of a stroke on December 31, 1905. A year and a half later, in June 1907, Frank married Evelyn Kate Ellis, Mary’s secretary, who was also her choice of a second wife should anything happen to her. Over the next six years, the couple would have four children.

Luck turned for Frank in 1921 with the discovery of the richest colemanite deposit, then known, near the village of St. Thomas, Nevada. Frank made a bid against his former company — the Pacific Coast Borax Company, for the claim and won. His engineers determined that the grade and quality of the ore were unbelievably rich and estimated that the value was from 10 to 60 million dollars. Frank named it the Anniversary Mine, as the claims were acquired on the anniversary of his marriage to his second wife. The Anniversary Mine would operate from 1922 to 1928.

The profits from this claim provided the capital to develop the Searles Lake deposits when a young chemist, Henry Helmers, discovered a profitable process for refining the lake brines into marketable products. He then formed the West End Chemical Company and built the company town of Trona, California, and the Trona Railway, a short-line railroad, to ship the products to the Union Pacific Railroad connection at Searles, California.

However, his creditors had not been entirely paid, and in February 1922, 530 acres of his land in New York, as well as his farm tools and horses, were slated to be sold. The family was able to retain the household goods and furnishings, as these were said to have been the property of Evelyn Smith.

As Frank continued to use the profits of the West End Consolidated Mining Company, which ran the silver mine in Nevada, to purchase more claims, it angered shareholders and resulted in lawsuits. In 1926, this resulted in his departure from the company, but he still continued to own the West End Chemical Company, which was still profitable.

By 1928, Frank was 82 years old, and stress was taking its toll. He began to suffer a series of small strokes and was forced to relinquish control of West End Chemical Company. His manager, John Sherman, then took over, aided by Evelyn and her younger brother, George C. Ellis. At that time, Frank and Evelyn also moved from their Oakland mansion into a smaller residence across Lake Merritt in the Adams Point neighborhood. They also sold off several large pieces of the estate’s gardens, upon which several modest homes were built. They also tried to sell their mansion, but no buyer could be found after the stock market crash of 1929.

By 1930, Frank had lost the ability to speak, though his mind remained clear. The barn and lookout tower at their New York home burned down the same year. The very same year, the Key Route Inn in Oakland, which Frank had helped to build, also suffered major damage from a fire.

On August 27, 1931, Francis Marion Smith died at age 85. He is buried in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery along “Millionaires Row.” After his death, Smith’s hillside property was subdivided into lots, and as part of this redevelopment, the mansion was demolished in 1932. However, before the mansion fell under the wrecking ball, many of the marketable fixtures and furnishings were sold. That same year, the Key Route Inn, also suffering from the Great Depression, was torn down 25 years after it opened.

In 1988, just over 20 years after the acquisition of U.S. Borax by Rio Tinto Group, the Boraxo, Borateem, and 20-Mule Team product lines were sold to Dial Corporation by U.S. Borax.

Today, the Francis Marion Smith Park continues to be utilized on land donated by the Smiths from their former estate. It is on Park Boulevard in Oakland. Smith Mountain, a peak in the Amargosa Range of Death Valley, is also named in his honor. The Western Railroad Museum at Rio Vista Junction on State Route 12 in Fairfield/Suisun City, California, includes an archives wing named for him. The museum also includes several operating streetcars and transbay trains that operated on the Key System lines in Oakland and adjacent cities on the east side of San Francisco Bay.