Travelers dropping in for a visit to the Kansas Underground Salt Museum should be prepared for a truly deep experience.
F 34 EnCompass September/October 2011 Story and photographs by Dan Leeth
Fifteen of us cram into the metal box that serves as the top cab of a double-deck freight elevator. Buzzers beep, doors rattle and we begin plunging Jules Verne- like toward the center of the earth. All light has van- ished. Ninety seconds later, the elevator grinds to a halt in a chamber that’s farther underground than the Seattle Space Needle is tall. We’re 650 feet beneath the ground
a sweltering 90 degrees with clammy, shirt-soaking humid- ity. Down here, the air remains dry at a near-constant 68 degrees. I’m glad I brought a sweater. The mine consists of a series of 50-foot-wide tunnels
crosshatched in a grid of intersecting passages. While basic admission covers self-guided gallery strolls, most of us visi- tors have opted for the Dark Ride. A battery-powered trolley, which resembles a golf cart on steroids, will transport us. On the 30-minute tour, the guide promises to sprinkle us with grains of knowledge covering the human, geological and cultural history of salt. The gift shop we pass by offers “Rock bottom prices,” the guide quips. Across from the underground emporium lies a
10,000-square-foot meeting facility. It’s often rented, we’re
outside Hutchinson, a 40,000-resident community in central Kansas that’s also home to the famed Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center (EnCompass, September/ October 2009). Nicknamed “Salt City,” Hutchinson’s
Salt of
salty past began with a fraud. In 1887 land-shark Benjamin Blanchard pur- chased real estate south of the Arkansas River and platted a town. To lure inves- tors, he drilled for oil. When his well came up dry, he fl ed town, creditors nip- ping at his heels. But it turned out that Blanchard inadvertently struck one of the richest salt deposits in the United States. Twenty-six salt companies soon peppered the county. Those fi rst operations used evaporative
production. Water pumped underground dissolves salt into brine, which is then sucked back to the surface. The liquid is heated, the water evaporates, and pure salt remains. Cargill and Morton still run evaporation plants nearby. But here, instead of using liquid, miners actually dug out the salt. “This place is really cool!” I think to
myself as I leave the lift. And I mean it literally. Topside, the mercury may reach
The “Dark Ride” tour educates visitors on the human, geological and cultural history of salt.
www.AAA.com
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