A 140-year-old mystery from Death Valley

Did one of the Chinese borax laborers become history's most infamous monster?

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Chinese laborers collecting borate from the floor of Death Valley, 1892

I don’t wish to be melodramatic, but late last night we saw fit to add a WARNING to the web page for Skeptoid’s upcoming Adventure to Death Valley, which I’ll be leading. It’s there on the page if you want to see it.

This all stems from a curious experience I had there, many years ago. Around Death Valley National Park are a number of historic cabins, each of which is kept in good repair by volunteers. Among these is probably the most well known, the so-called Geologist’s Cabin.

You can stay in these — but as they are historic structures, they are not managed by anyone. You can’t make reservations. Each has a flagpole: Raise the flag if you’re staying there, and others will know it’s taken. One day a friend and I were Jeeping through the area, and happened to stop by the Geologist’s Cabin and went inside to have a look.

Visitors leave the cabins cleaner and better provisioned than they found them, by unwritten custom. I always carry a stock of Skeptoid books when I’m in the Death Valley backcountry as each cabin is also an informal Little Free Library. Someone had left some beers on a shelf; and as beer is less useful than water to someone in an emergency, my friend and I unselfishly drank the beer and replaced them with water bottles.

While I was placing my book, I happened to pick up and thumb through an old little book of Death Valley stories. It included a tale I’d never heard before, The Borax Man.

I give the text from this short chapter here:

In the late 1800s, borax mining was the principal business in Death Valley. Many Chinese laborers were employed in the borax mills. Lumps of borax called “cottonball” were scraped from the valley floor, crushed, and boiled in open vats made from adobe. This purified and crystallized the valuable chemical so it could be transported and marketed.

In 1885, a 7 foot, 7 inch tall Chinaman named Tong Yu was working at the Harmony Borax Works when he accidentally fell—or was pushed—into one of the large open vats of boiling borax. Workers fought to pull him out. Tong’s entire body was horribly burned, and his flesh was deeply saturated with the caustic borax.

He was brought into the living quarters, and a doctor was sent for. By the time the doctor arrived the next morning, Tong Yu was nowhere to be found. During the night he must have wandered away alone, perhaps in an agonized madness.

Today, visitors to the park often report a tall, thin, distant figure on the salt pan under the moonlight. Sometimes the wind plays tricks on the ears, sounding almost like a mournful cry. In 1974 a party of park rangers chased the figure on foot but could not get close. The Borax Man seemed to melt right back into the plain he came from.

I have this because I photographed the two pages on which the story appeared. Wretched fool that I am, I did not think to photograph the cover or the copyright page — consequently, years later, I haven’t the foggiest idea what book this was. No clue at all as to title, author, or year. I’ve been to the Geologist’s Cabin once since, and this book was no longer there.

In these days of an increasingly digitized Internet, I’ve still never been able to find any reference to this story. (Note: If you look, you’ll find there are at least three actual people who have referred to themselves as “the Borax Man” over the years, storytellers or musicians; but they are not the droids we’re looking for.)

As for the hapless (and very tall) Tong Yu, his fate remains a mystery, as does his very existence; evidenced, so far as I know, by this single book. Consider this post to be a call for help. If you have any resources that can help me find primary tellings of Tong Yu’s story, please let me know.

And if you’re coming on Skeptoid Adventure: Death Valley 2025, we are not liable if you are taken down to the Borax Man’s lair.