Seeking a more efficient way to get borax from his mines on the east side of Death Valley to processing facilities near Los Angeles, and hoping to tap the booms at Rhyolite, Tonopah, and Goldfield, Nevada, Francis Marion Smith built the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad. Construction started at Ludlow in August 1905 and proceeded quickly across Broadwell Dry Lake (just north of Ludlow), reaching Dumont by May 1906. However, it took nearly a year to build through the difficult terrain of the Amargosa Gorge. Originally planned to extend from Tonopah to San Diego, the line reached its terminus at Beatty, Nevada in October 1907. While the T&T was a lifeline for the East Mojave Desert residents, it rarely turned a profit. In 1933 the 26 miles of track between Ludlow and Crucero were abandoned, and the trains stopped running June 1940. The tracks were taken up in 1942 and 1943. Only the roadbed remains. The shops and headquarters of the T&T were located here at Ludlow, just south of this marker. Little remains of the facilities that for 18 years serviced the locomotives and rolling stock of the Nevada Shortline.
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