20 Mule Team Borax Traditional Cache

20 Mule Team Borax is a brand of cleaner manufactured by the US soap firm Dial Corporation.^[1] The product is named after the 20-mule teams that were used by William Tell Coleman's company to move borax out of Death Valley, California, to the nearest rail spurbetween 1883 and 1889.

Mule teams were first used by Francis Marion Smith to move borax out of the desert.^[2][3]Smith subsequently acquired Coleman's holdings in 1890 and consolidated them with his own to form the Pacific Coast Borax Company. After the mule teams were replaced by a new rail spur, the name 20 Mule Team Borax was established and aggressively promoted by Pacific Coast Borax to increase sales.

Stephen Mather, son of J.W. Mather, the administrator of the company's New York office, persuaded Smith to add the name 20 Mule Team Borax to accompany the famous sketch of the mule team already on the box. The 20-mule team symbol was first used in 1891 andregistered in 1894. In 1988, just over 20 years after the acquisition of U.S. Borax by Rio Tinto Group, the Boraxo, Borateem and 20-Mule Team product lines were sold to Dial Corporationby U.S. Borax.^[4] Dial is now the American consumer products unit of Henkel.

Boraxo is no longer manufactured by Henkel.