Death Valley Railroad was scrapped around 1925 after the closure of the Terry lumber mill following a devastating fire. Death Valley Railroad The Death Valley Railroad (DVRR) was a narrow gauge railroad that operated in California's Death Valley to carry borax with the route running from Ryan, California to the mines at Ryan C., located just east of Death Valley National Park, to Death Valley Junction, a distance of approximately 20 miles. When mining operations at the Lila C. Mine were declining around 1914, Pacific Coast Borax Company began scouting the land outside Furnace Creek for richer borax deposits. Once they found some
Places of interest in the Death Valley area takes some time for waves to gnaw away terraces like the ones seen on Shoreline Butte, so these benches provide records of times when the lake level stabilized long enough for waves to leave their mark on the rock. The highest strandline is one of the principal clues that geologists use to estimate the depth of the lake that once filled Death Valley. Shorelines of ancient Lake Manly are preserved in several parts of Death Valley, but nowhere is the record as clear as at Shoreline Butte. Several lakes have occupied Death Valley since the close of the Pleistocene epoch