Furnace Creek Inn Sunset

The Furnace Creek Inn was originally constructed by the Pacific Coast Borax Company and opened on February 1, 1927, with twelve rooms. Richard C.... more

by Heidi Smith

Title

Furnace Creek Inn Sunset

Artist

Heidi Smith

Medium

Photograph

Description

The Furnace Creek Inn was originally constructed by the Pacific Coast Borax Company and opened on February 1, 1927, with twelve rooms. Richard C. Baker, then president of Pacific Coast Borax sought to open Death Valley to tourism in an effort to increase revenue on the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad originally built by Francis Marion Smith for shipping borax, but in need of new sources of revenue. 20 additional rooms, as well as a swimming pool and tennis courts were added in the 1930s. The Fred Harvey Company operated the facilities for decades. The desert Inn now has 66 rooms, located on the hillside, and is open October through May.

The ranch is known for being the location of the hottest temperature recorded on earth at 56.7 �C (134 �F) on July 10, 1913.

Death Valley National Park is a national park in the U.S. states of California and Nevada located east of the Sierra Nevada, occupying an interface zone between the arid Great Basin and Mojave deserts in the United States. The park protects the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and contains a diverse desert environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons, and mountains. It is the largest national park in the lower 48 states and has been declared an International Biosphere Reserve. Approximately 95% of the park is a designated wilderness area. It is the hottest and driest of the national parks in the United States. The second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere is in Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. The park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include creosote bush, Bighorn Sheep, Coyote, and the Death Valley Pupfish, a survivor of much wetter times. A series of Native American groups inhabited the area from as early as 7000 BC, most recently the Timbisha around 1000 AD who migrated between winter camps in the valleys and summer grounds in the mountains. A group of European-Americans that became stuck in the valley in 1849 while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California gave the valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams. The valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism blossomed in the 1920s, when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994. The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology. The valley itself is actually a graben. The oldest rocks are extensively metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean. Additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. This uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes. Later the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods, with lakes, such as Lake Manly.

Source - Wikipedia

Uploaded

April 8th, 2013