Trona days
(Notes from 1963)
by Bryce Martin


American Potash and Chemical Corporation is located in the middle of Trona, Calif., and represents the biggest investment any company has thus far made in mining the brines from the ancient lakebed of Searles Valley. Trona is a company town in the classic mold of such places.

Many of the workers are from the Midwest and the Southwest. It is rich pickings for those driven from their home place by poor economic times. The name of the Trona plant is often shortened to AmPot in conversation. That is not just for convenience. Many of the workers own stock in the company, and it is listed as AmPot in stock market lingo.

When entering Searles Valley heading north, you first encounter Westend, where the other plant – Stauffer Chemical Co., is located -- then Borosalvay, Argus, Trona, Pioneer Point, and Valley Wells. From there, Death Valley is just over the next rise.

It is many locales for such a small space. The sun shines on all of them, too. That is true since the valley floor is unrelentingly flat. Some houses, though, are backed up to tall and massive rock formations, providing, one would guess, more shade at times in the day than a house in the open.

The giant rocks, however, act as a kiln in holding in the heat of the boiling sun.

Schools, churches and homes are of indistinct architecture, and built primarily in the thirties and forties. The newer homes are in the Pioneer Point and Homewood Canyon district.

The company buildings in downtown Trona resemble railroad depots.

The two plants mine brines from the lakebed to produce inorganic chemicals. A staple is sodium carbonate (soda ash). There are also borates, sodium sulfates, and potash (potassium chloride and potassium sulfate).

The two plants have different priorities and use somewhat different processing systems. Potash, for instance, is produced at American Potash but not at Stauffer.

I work at Stauffer. Few of us pay that much attention to borates and sulfates. I have been told some of what we produce is used to give glass beer bottles that brown tint, and as an ingredient in some household cleaners. From what I have gathered in conversations, most do not know or care. The paycheck is the main thing. Keeping those happy who are responsible for the paychecks is another primary consideration.

Technical talk is left to the engineers. Many of the workers, most of whom have little formal education, make comments typical of those downtrodden and plain. “Last week ah couldn’t spell engineer and now I is one,” is a one-liner repeated regularly and often followed with a knowing wink. Then there is the old standby: “I may not have much schoolin’ but at least I got some common sense.” The implication is always that anyone with an education could not possibly have common sense too.

When the engineers and plant workers are together for discussion on a project, I always get the feeling the engineers get a satisfaction from humoring the time card punchers. Conversely, the workers walk away with a smile like a fox in a henhouse. Both groups are able to break away and return to their own, content that all went well.

Most of the guys in the valley do not soup-up or customize their cars to the extent they do in Galena. I rarely see a primered car in Trona, one with flipper wheel covers, lakes pipes, a split manifold and rapping dual pipes, or one with an exotic or standout paint job. The native boys are an easygoing bunch who wears flip-flops (some here call them “thongs”), plain white t-shirts and Levi’s (and I mean Levi’s, the brand name, not just jeans).

The San Bernardino Sun newspaper runs a regular ad featuring Earl Scheib. He is a man who started his own company painting cars at a cheap price. The ad has a head shot of Scheib, with a cartoon balloon coming from his mouth that reads, “I’ll paint any car for $19.95.” The idea of someone that unhip-looking as Scheib doing something as cool as putting a new paint job to your car seems incongruous.

I have an uncle in Trona who has a used car lot. He said he takes cars to the Scheib shop in San Bernardino for paintwork and that they do a good job. “They don’t sand them or do any body work for that price,” he added.

Scheib also has a television ad. It is the same photo of him and with his taped voice playing in the background. “I’ll paint any car for $19.95,” he says, in a nasally, uninspired voice, one you would expect to hear from such a face.

Minor body work is $5 extra.

Even cooler than getting your car painted is going below San Diego to Tijuana for a tuck-and-roll upholstery job. It is a fancy style of pleated upholstery; much the same as the style of seats in a diner I frequented on Joplin’s Range Line. I have never been to Tijuana, but I have seen the results of the tuck and roll work and it is impressive. You can get the whole interior done for a hundred dollars. Those who have had it done tell me the Mexicans stuff the insides of the seats with foam rubber. You do not even need a map or an address. Just go to Tijuana, drive around and you will find one of the shops on a side street. The ones who know their way around, however, usually take the new people to the places they are familiar with and trust. It is a one-day affair. I have heard several stories about a bar in Tijuana called the Blue Fox, where some of the guys killed time while the interior work was taking place.

“I chi-hwa-wa!”

I'm picking up a little Spanish after working and being around Mexicans for the first time. I'm told most of it is slang and no one who learned Spanish in this country would know what I was talking about if I repeated any of it.

Those who go to Tijuana usually bring back an ample supply of Mexican sandals, or huaraches. The latest ones are neat, the soles and tops formed from fresh tire treads.

I thought parts of my hometown in Galena were about as "moonlike" as it got here on earth from its lead mining days. I was mistaken. You would have to go to the moon to top Trona. Trona is one desolate, forsaken spot.

The local water is too alkaline for consumption. Water is piped in from Ridgecrest. The pipe runs above ground alongside the highway.

A hydrogen sulfide smell flares the nostrils. I have asked the scientific types where the smell comes from and, to put it in my own words: The rotten egg smell comes from bacteria feasting on organic material in the lakebed brine.

After a time, you do not notice the smell. I do not, anyway. It may be just me, but if I am gone from the valley for a spell, I do not smell it when I return, either.

Trona is 18 miles northeast of Ridgecrest. Ridgecrest seems desolate, that is, until you see Trona.

I remember my basic science from high school: sodium chloride is common table salt, and sodium bicarbonate is baking soda. It is also called bicarbonate of soda. Knowing this, I was able to figure out a cartoon one time when one of the characters had an upset stomach and said, "I need a bicarb."

That is about all I know regarding the soup in the dry lake. I am not about to imply that I am familiar with the chemical compositions of all the products produced from the different brine processing techniques employed by the Trona plants.

However, I did go to some trouble to find out exactly what Trona is. I found that it is half sodium bicarbonate and half sodium carbonate. What I might do with that information is up for grabs.

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