EWAN TELFORD.

Rock Salt

Trona is a mining town in the Mojave Desert near Death Valley, California. The town receives three inches of rainfall a year and averages a high of 106°F during the summer. An urban experiment, Trona was established in 1914 by American Trona Corp to house a workforce extracting borax and soda ash from Searles Dry Lake. ATC wholly owned and operated the town, which grew into a community of 7000; it built housing and schools, grocery shops, dance halls, cinemas, a lido and a golf course. ATC paid its employees in part in its own currency (company scrip) redeemable solely at company owned facilities.

Labour disputes and strikes in 1970 and 1981 led to civil unrest, arson and bombings. By the mid-80s, over 75% of the workforce had been fired or made redundant, whilst remaining non-union became a condition of employment. Decline followed; houses, now employee-owned, were abandoned, shops and facilities shuttered.

Whilst the processing plants still produce two million tons of industrial minerals a year, Trona’s population today is little over 1000.