Borax Blog 2: Who was Thomas Thorkildsen?

Both Stephen Mather and Thomas Thorkildsen worked for Pacific Coast Borax.  Thorkildsen took over the Chicago office when Stephen was trans-ferred to New York.  Striking off on his own, Thorkildsen left PCB in 1897. 

In 1904, Stephen left PCB and joined Thorkildsen as a partner.  In 1908 they created the Sterling Borax Company as their production unit and the Thorkildsen-Mather Company as the selling unit. In 1911, Pacific Coast Borax bought Sterling Borax Company, making both Stephen and Thomas independently wealthy.

Whereas, Stephen soon devoted his time, energy, and resources to the growth of the National Parks and their accessibility to all, Thorkildsen took a very different path.

“Thorkildsen who made his home in Hollywood, gravitated to the kind of high life that reaches the tabloids…” (Steve Mather of the National Parks, p. 277)

From “’Borax King’ Cleaned Up But Died Washed Up” Los Angeles Times 3/12/2000…

“Calling his new playpen Briarcliff Manor, he added a heart-shaped pool, a grotto made of borax ore from his mine and a ballroom designed to resemble a 17th century baronial dining hall, complete with the heads and skins of animals Thorkildsen had killed.

His home remained a watering hole for Hollywood’s fledging movie colony…Spry and lean into his 50s, Thorkildsen was proud of his body and often paraded around in the buff, especially during his swank parties.

Even scandals did not keep him from his pleasures. At one party, a tipsy starlet slipped below the flower-covered waters of the pool and drowned--but was not noticed until morning.

And during a brief reconciliation with his wife, Thorkildsen found her in bed with another man. Thorkildsen chased the naked lover down the hill and lost him, but when he returned, found the man dead at the bottom of his pool. Apparently, he had fallen and hit his head running back to retrieve his clothes…”

With Thorkildsen too often referred to as “Partner of National Parks Chief,” Stephen purchased Thorkildsen’s remaining shares of the partnership in 1923.  Thorkildsen died in 1950 in a La Puente California nursing home.