Is it West End or Westend? If you are talking about the Chemical Company, it is West End. If you are talking about the town, it is Westend. Don’t let the name confuse your sense of direction, Westend is on the south end of Searles Valley.

West End Chemical Company began in Nevada.

Francis Marion Smith formed the Tonopah Extension Mining and Milling Company, which later became the West End Consolidated Mining Company. He then used his West End capital for new projects, including the acquisition of mineral rights to a large section of Searles Lake in northern San Bernardino County, California and in the Panamint Valley in Inyo County, California.

Henry Hellmers was born in 1891 at Varel, Germany. He came to United States in 1908 and studied Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkley. He became a citizen in 1915. In1924 while working for “Borax” Smith he patented a process that he believed would make a plant at Searles Lake profitable. He used limestone mined in Panamint Valley to created carbon dioxide which when bubbled up through lake brine would cause the borax and sodium bicarbonate to separate from the solution.

Henry is listed in the 1950 Census as a resident of the Westend Village and used Westend as his address when he registered to vote in 1960. He managed the West End plant at least up to that time. The employees knew him as Mr. Westend.

Henry was known for his love of fly fishing and collection of photographic slides of wildflowers that he had taken.

The Key Patents by Henry Hellmers et al.

Henry Hellmers developed profitable processes for refining the lake brines into the marketable products that were produced by the West End Chemical Company.

Note the picture, and from the left to right beginning from the center of the picture, we have the old West End Village (now a pile of lime). Down the middle of the village and heading to the right is Nevada Ave.

To the right of the village are two one story buildings which were the bunkhouse garages. At right angles to the garages is the two-story No. 2 bunkhouse. 

In front of the No. 2 bunkhouse is the No. 1 bunkhouse which has an open area (patio) in the center of the building.

To the right is a 100-foot wooden tank – at the time, the largest wooden tank west of the Mississippi. Beyond that was a series of tanks used for brine storage.

The white pile in the background is quick lime.

The building and the cement slab are the rec hall and tennis courts.

Four buildings in a row were bunk houses and beyond that are the borax storage tanks and right of that was the borax refinery building. Beyond that are the 5-foot carbonate towers, and in front of them were three vertical lime kilns. Beyond this were the 10-foot carbonating towers, and on the right is the machine shop.

The above description is from the book, Trona Trivia by Dr. O. N. Cole. Unfortunately, the picture isn’t large enough to identify all the landmarks he mentioned.

For many of us who didn’t live there, Westend was a place that passed on our way in and out of Searles Valley that we didn’t know very much about.

In 1956 West End Chemical Company merged with Stauffer Chemical Company The Westend plant was purchased from Stauffer Chemical Company by Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation on October 1, 1974.

The photos and information on this page were sent to me by C. Patrick Dunne. They were part of a presentation he made for the 2014 Trona Centennial. Thank you, Pat!