Back to the salt mines. I wish I could've toured them. Click on the link for photos from the Detroit News
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/multime...y.php?id=13845
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Back to the salt mines. I wish I could've toured them. Click on the link for photos from the Detroit News
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/multime...y.php?id=13845
Thanks!
did they ever offer tours?
Yes they did for many years, but they stopped sometime in the 1990s.Quote:
Originally Posted by rb336
So pardon my ignorance, but why did we stop mining salt? I heard we currently import salt that we use on our roads from out of country. Seems like jobs we should have here. I don't have any sources to back this up.
http://www.detroitsalt.com/about-det...t-company.html
The mines are still there but their website doesn't make it clear how extensive the current operations are.
Are you sure they stopped in the 1990's?? I know that would be something my parents would have taken me on as a kid and I was born in the 1960's!
If you looked at the pictures, one was of a visitor in 1986 holding a 60 pound block of saltQuote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
http://www.detroitsalt.com/about-det...t-company.html
Thanks for the link! I had assumed they were closed.
As I remember it, there were some newspaper articles about it when Detroit Salt bought the mine in the 1990s. But just on happenstance, I called them this morning. They told me they stopped giving tours 15 yrs ago, which was 1997.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
Nice links thanks...
Very cool. Thank you for sharing.
I took a tour in 1982. It was pretty cool. Literally. We were told to wear jackets even though it was summer. We rode down a rather small, rickity elevator. As I recall, they said they had to bring in all machinery and vehicles in pieces and reassemble them in the mine. I remember very clearly the big, cavernous rooms that can be seen in the Detroit News photos. At one point, they drove us deep into the mine to get away from all the electric lights. Then they turned off the lights on our vehicle and it was the darkest darkness I've ever seen [[or not seen). Did I say it was cool?
I also took a tour of the mines in the early 1980's. One thing that I didn't think of was the way we would get down to the mine. I don't know what I was expecting, but I didn't think it would be that rustic - like being lowered down a hole in a crate-like elevator. We were jammed in and I am short, so I couldn't see too much of the shaft [[dirt/ground?) on our way down - way down. Once down there, though, it was so interesting and very big, as seen in the pictures posted. We also got to experience "total darkness." It was quite an experience.