Potash wars (California)

The Potash wars were a series of conflicts over mineral rights that took place from 1910 to 1915 in the Searles Valley near Searles Lake, a dry lake (also called Slate Range Lake and Borax Lake), near the present-day town of Trona in San Bernardino County, California. The Potash wars gained national and international attention at the time due to the involvement of famous lawman Wyatt Earp and the importance of the valley's supply of potash, a term referring to various potassium salts widely used as crop fertilizers for which the Searles Valley was a major supplier in the 1910s.

Background In the mid-19th century and earlier, potash was produced almost exclusively in asheries from burning wood or kelp, but by 1861 Germans pioneered the mining of potassium salts and American farmers soon started using them as fertilizers on a wide scale. In 1863, John W. Searles (1828–1897) discovered concentrated minerals in the saline deposits of the Slate Range in the Mojave Desert southwest of Death Valley. While looking for gold with a party led by Dr. S. G. George, John and his brother Dennis Searles discovered borax near a dry lakebed now known as Searles Lake. John and Dennis filed claims for the minerals in 1873. John filed paperwork for a federal land patent from the United States General Land Office in 1874 and began mining and selling the minerals. In 1878, Searles sold his interests and the patented land to the San Bernardino Borax Mining Company, founded by Francis Marion “Borax” Smith (1846–1931). Mining in the Searles Valley ended in 1895 when Smith moved his operations to Death Valley to work on the Pacific Coast Borax Company deposits. C. E. Dolbear founded the California Trona Company and filed 250 land claims for 160 acres around the Searles Valley in 1908. To add to its mining right, the California Trona Company leased 2,240 acres of patented lands for five years from the San Bernardino Borax Mining Company. To finance production, the California Trona Company mortgaged some of the land to the Foreign Mines Development Company, a subsidiary of the Consolidated Gold Fields Company of South Africa, for two million dollars. In return, the Trona Company gave the Foreign Mines Development Company 1,000 shares of its stock and a percentage of future gross sales. The California Trona Company built two experimental plants to recover soda ash, potash, borax and sodium sulfate from the dry lake. The plants were not successful and troubles developed between the California Trona Company and the Foreign Mines Development Company. Claims of incompetence, fraud, and conspiracy in both companies were made. The Foreign Mines Development Company began legal action to sell the property to recover the mortgage debt on September 7, 1909. Stanford Wallace Austin was appointed receiver of the Trona Company. By the beginning of the 20th century, Germany had a practically worldwide monopoly on potash production from its Magdeburg–Halberstadt rock salt basin. In June 1909, Americans attempted to buy the mineral not from the national syndicate but from independent producers at far lower prices. This led to the 1910 potash controversy between Germany and the United States over pricing, taxes, and tariffs. The production of potash at Searles Lake thus became a federal issue with the involvement of United States federal courts and President William Howard Taft. On March 26, 1912, President Taft sent a message to Congress about the Searles deposit at Borax Lake and his concern about Senator Reed Smoot's bill; he requested an amendment as concern with a placer claim bill.

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