Christian Brevoort Zabriskie (October 16, 1864 – February 8, 1936) was an American businessman and vice president of

Pacific Coast Borax Company The Pacific Coast Borax Company (PCB) was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis Smith, the "Borax King". History The roots of the Pacific Coast Borax Company lie in Mineral County, Nevada, east of ...

Zabriskie Point Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 mi ...

on the northeasternmost flank of the Black Mountains east of

Death Valley Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the ...

, located in

Death Valley National Park Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern section of Eureka ...

is named after him.

Early years

Christian Brevoort Zabriskie was born at

Fort Bridger Fort Bridger was originally a 19th-century fur trading outpost established in 1842, on Blacks Fork of the Green River, in what is now Uinta County, Wyoming, United States. It became a vital resupply point for wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, C ...

Wyoming Territory The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital. The bou ...

, where his father, Capt. Elias B. Zabriskie, was stationed. The Zabriskie family descended from

Albrycht Zaborowski Albrecht Zaborowskij (also rendered Saboroweski; anglicized as Albert Zabriskie; 1638–1711) of Prussia (present-day Poland and Russia) settled in what is now New Jersey on August 31, 1662. Early life and emigration Saborowski, a Lutheran, was b ...

(Albert Zabriskie), a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

from Angerburg (

Węgorzewo Węgorzewo (until 1946 pl, Węgobork; german: Angerburg, lt, Ungura) is a tourist town on the Angrapa River in northeastern Poland, within the historical region of Masuria. It is the seat of Węgorzewo County in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodes ...

) in

Ducal Prussia The Duchy of Prussia (german: Herzogtum Preußen, pl, Księstwo Pruskie, lt, Prūsijos kunigaikštystė) or Ducal Prussia (german: Herzogliches Preußen, link=no; pl, Prusy Książęce, link=no) was a duchy in the region of Prussia establishe ...

, who settled in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

in 1662 alongside a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

community. Young Zabriskie attended various schools while growing up and at a very early age went to work as a

telegrapher A telegraphist (British English), telegrapher (American English), or telegraph operator is an operator who uses a telegraph key to send and receive the Morse code in order to communicate by land lines or radio. During the Great War the Roya ...

for the

Virginia and Truckee Railroad The Virginia and Truckee Railroad is a privately owned heritage railroad, headquartered in Virginia City, Nevada. Its private and publicly owned route is long. When first constructed in the 19th century, it was a commercial freight railroad ...

Carson City, Nevada Carson City is an independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,639, making it the sixth largest city in Nevada. The majority of the city's population lives in Eagle Valley, on the ...

. He was too restless and ambitious to stay in one place for very long and soon moved to

Candelaria, Nevada Candelaria is a ghost town in Mineral County, Nevada. Today the site of Candelaria is dominated by the Kinross Gold Candelaria Mine on Mt. Diablo. History Candelaria was founded in 1864 when Mexican prospectors working the area discovered silv ...

, and worked for the Esmeralda County Bank. Being an active young man, one job was not enough to keep him occupied and he soon branched out into other ventures, one of which was a partnership with a local

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

maker to establish a

mortuary A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have cu ...

. Neither of the two knew how to embalm, but it was not considered necessary in a mining town — prompt burial was.

Borax career

Zabriskie's life took on new meaning in 1885 when F. M. "Borax" Smith hired him to supervise several hundred

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

laborers at the

Columbus Marsh Columbus Marsh is a playa in Nevada, United States. William Troup (or Troop) discovered cottonball borax at the site in 1870 or 1871. Joseph Mosheimer and Emile K. Stevenot, who operated one of the borax concentrating plants at Columbus, hired Fr ...

area of the

near Candelaria. This was the beginning of a lifelong career in the

borax Borax is a salt (ionic compound), a hydrated borate of sodium, with chemical formula often written . It is a colorless crystalline solid, that dissolves in water to make a basic solution. It is commonly available in powder or granular form, ...

industry. He ultimately became vice president and general manager of the company and served in that capacity for thirty-six years until his retirement in 1933. During this time, the Pacific Coast Borax Company had phased out most of its borax operations in the Candelaria vicinity but had moved on to greater production in the Death Valley area, the Calico Mountains near

Yermo, California Yermo (Spanish for "wilderness") is an unincorporated community in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California. It is east of Barstow on Interstate 15, just south of the Calico Mountains. Its population was an estimated 1,750 in 20 ...

, and

Searles Lake Searles Lake is an endorheic dry lake in the Searles Valley of the Mojave Desert, in northwestern San Bernardino County, California. The lake in the past was also called Slate Range Lake and Borax Lake. The mining community of Trona is on i ...

near Trona, California. All this occurred long before 1933, when the area became Death Valley

National Monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a spec ...

, but

remains to honor a man who devoted many years of dedicated service to the Pacific Coast Borax Company. He died just three years after his retirement, in 1936.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zabriskie, Christian Brevoort American mining businesspeople Businesspeople from California 1864 births 1936 deaths Death Valley History of the Mojave Desert region People from Carson City, Nevada People from Inyo County, California People from Oakland, California American people of Dutch descent American people of Polish descent 19th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople

Early years

Borax career

See also

References