Salt Discovery Site
Posted by: 
brwhiz
N 38° 00.822 W 097° 56.753
14S E 592532 N 4207859
These Historical Markers, commemorating the discovery of large subterranean salt deposits, are located in a small park on the south side of Des Moines Avenue about one block west of Main Street in South Hutchinson, Kansas.
Waymark Code: WMGH1D
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 03/05/2013
Views: 6
First Panel:
In an effort to draw attention to his real estate ventures in the present day city of South Hutchinson, Ben Blanchard drilled a well in September of 1887. He was hoping to strike oil. However, he drilled into one of the richest veins of salt in the world. His discovery changed the course of history!
Ben Blanchard never got to see this discovery pay great dividends. His real estate schemes eventually caught up with him and he barely escaped his creditors. In 1888, the first salt processing plant was established and more than 5,000 people witnessed the production of the first barrel of salt. By 1910, 26 different salt companies had been bormed. Today the salt industry remains one of the leading employers and most important businesses in Reno County.
Blanchards original well is located at this site and was uncovered in 2007, after many decades of being buried by several feet of soil in this farm field. The well is under the glass covered steel enclosure.
Second Panel:
In 1898, Mr. Joy Morton purchased land in the northwest part of South Hutchinson and commenced construction of a new salt plant. Like many of the other salt operations beginning in the Reno County area, the technology to process salt at that time was the use of large open pans called grainer pans. The water in the salt brine was boiled off, leaving a bed of salt in the bottom of these large pans where it was collected.
In 1907, a modern and more effective set of salt crystallizers replaced the grainer pans. This new system of using large closed vessels called vacuum pans changed salt production as we know it. These three pans, each over fifty feet tall, are much more efficient than the old open grainer pan process as they use less energy and produce more uniform salt crystals.
Today those same three pans, along with four additional vessels, are a part of the production process at the Morton Salt Facility located just two miles north of this site. Through a transportation system of railroads and highways, high quality salt products are shipped from South Hutchinson to points as far west as California and Hawaii, north to consumers and manufacturers in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and southwest into the northern territories of Mexico.