Furnace Creek and the Springs That Made Everything Possible

Before there was a visitor center here, before there was a ranch, before there was a borax operation, before any Euro-American arrived in this valley, there was water. The springs at Furnace Creek are why everything that followed happened at this particular spot in Death Valley.

Water is not obvious in Death Valley. The valley receives less than two inches of rain per year on average. Surface water almost never flows on the valley floor. But the springs at Furnace Creek emerge from a fault zone where groundwater moving through the Panamint Range and the Black Mountains is forced to the surface. The flow is modest but reliable: reliable enough that the Timbisha Shoshone made this their traditional winter camp, reliable enough that the borax company built its headquarters here in the eighteen eighties, reliable enough that the National Park Service put its visitor center here in the twentieth century.

The temperature at Furnace Creek is extreme even by Death Valley standards. The world's highest reliably recorded air temperature, one hundred thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit, was set on July tenth, nineteen thirteen, at Greenland Ranch, a nearby station affiliated with the Furnace Creek operations. The only reason there was someone there to record it is the springs.

The site has been continuously occupied, in some form, since the Timbisha arrived. That is an unusual thing in Death Valley, where the conditions that make settlement difficult make sustained occupation across many generations very nearly impossible without exceptional water knowledge. Furnace Creek survived as a habitation site because the Timbisha understood what the springs were worth and built a seasonal economy around them.

The borax company understood the same thing. The NPS understood it after the borax company left. The springs are still flowing, the water table still responding to the seasonal rhythms of snowmelt in the surrounding ranges. The infrastructure above the water is different every generation. The springs are the one constant.