Borax was discovered on the marsh near this point in 1881 by Aaron Winters, who later sold his holdings to W. T. Coleman of San Francisco. In 1882 Coleman built the Harmony Borax Works and commissioned his superintendent J. W. S. Perry to design wagons and locate a suitable route to Mojave. Chinese workmen gathered the ore, called cottonball, and from this point processed borax was transported 165 miles by Twenty Mule Team to the railroad until 1889.