‘Death Valley Days’ was an epic ‘Western anthology’

One of the original Westerns to make the transition from radio to television was “Death Valley Days.”

 

Interestingly, what people seem to remember most about “Death Valley Days” are the commercials for the products that sponsored the show – “20 Mule Team Borax,” (a laundry additive), “Borateem,” (a laundry detergent), and “Boraxo,” (a powdered hand soap).

 

All were manufactured by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, a mining company formed in San Francisco by Francis Marion Smith. 

He became known as the “Borax King.” Smith discovered “massive, exploitable deposits of borates” in Nevada and California in 1872.

Between 1883-89, teams of 18 mules and two horses transported massive loads of borax 165 miles across southern California from Death Valley to the Southern Pacific Railroad depot at Mojave. 

Typically, it was a 10-day journey over a grueling desert trail. Two massive wagons and a water tank contained more than 10 tons of borax per trip. (The horses were positioned closest to the lead wagon.)

Stephen T. Mather, who became the advertising manager for the Pacific Coast Borax Company, created the iconic 20 Mule Team brand name in 1891; it was registered in 1894.

 

Christian Brevoort Zabriskie was running the company during the Great Depression. In 1930, he and executives from McCann-Erickson, the New York-based advertising agency for Pacific Coast Borax Company, came up with the novel idea of producing and sponsoring a radio program to gain publicity for the 20 Mule Team Borax brand.

 

They settled on “an anthology format,” promising to offer new plots and characters in each episode, all of which would be based on true stories that originated within California’s Death Valley region.

“Death Valley Days” debuted on radio in September 1930 and continued through 1945. It became a syndicated TV series in 1952 and ran into 1970.

The style varied. Some episodes were dramatic, while others were comedic. Most were human-interest stories about miners and homesteaders who lived and worked in the region where borax was mined, primarily during the 1880s.

Combined, the stories told documented America’s movement West and the settling of the great frontier.

Each episode of “Death Valley Days” was introduced by the “Old Ranger,” the host and narrator. Stanley Andrews played that part from 1952-64 (a total of 452 episodes).

 

Andrews was born in Chicago and began acting in stock theater in Minneapolis in 1916. The troupe presented a different play each week for 52 weeks. His first big role on radio was as Daddy Warbucks in the “Little Orphan Annie” series, where he starred from 1931 to 1936. In all, he appeared in more than 250 movies.

Actor Ronald Reagan of Tampico, Ill., succeeded Andrews in 1964 as the Old Ranger on “Death Valley Days.”

 

Reagan graduated from Eureka (Ill.) College in 1932 and was hired the next year as a sports broadcaster at WOC Radio in Davenport, Iowa, where he announced University of Iowa football games. 

Later, at WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa, Reagan was the station’s “voice of the Chicago Cubs” professional baseball team.

 

In 1937, he moved to California where he became a well-known film actor. With “Death Valley Days,” Reagan appeared in 52 episodes as the host/narrator and acted in 21 of them. “Death Valley Days” marked the end of his professional acting days, as he left the show in 1965 to run for governor of California.

He was elected in 1966 and served two terms. On the national political scene, Reagan lost the 1976 Republican Party’s presidential primary to Gerald Ford, but was nominated for president in 1980, winning a landslide victory over the incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. Reagan served two terms in the White House, from 1981-89.

 

When Reagan left “Death Valley Days,” Robert Taylor took over as the Old Ranger in 1966. 

Taylor of Filley, Neb., graduated from Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., where he played the cello and performed in the campus theater company. He was discovered in 1932 by a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scout and began his ascent in show business, rising to become one of the most popular leading men of his era.

Taylor became gravely ill in 1969, and after 69 episodes, he was succeeded as the Old Ranger by Dale Robertson, former star of two other TV Westerns, “Tales of Wells Fargo” (1957-62) and “Iron Horse” (1966-68).

 

Robertson, who was once described as “the best horseman on television,” served as host and occasional actor for 23 episodes until production of “Death Valley Days” episodes ceased in 1970.

 

The “20-Mule Team Borax” and “Boraxo” brands continue to exist within the consumer products group of The Dial Corporation, a subsidiary of Henkel Corporation, headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany.