Kansas Mafia goes underground - Got to go down in the Saltmine today!

[Todd Wilson]

Got to tour the Salt Mine Museum in Hutchinson Kansas today!  It was cool!

http://www.chargerfever.com/saltmine/index.html

Todd

[ChargerRT440]

So is that just an old mine that was shut down or did it run out of salt? Whats the deal? lol I love the as used stuff awesome stuff todd

[The70RT]

I seen that Saltmine on Dirty Jobs a couple weeks ago. I bet it felt like AC in there this time of year.

[Todd Wilson]

Its still a working mine. The mining operation is several miles away from the museum area. There are sections of the mine that have been closed off and no one has been in those areas in years. They close an area off  when they are done to help with fresh air flow. In some of those pictures you see old boxes stacked up. They were explosive boxes filled with salt and then stacked up as a wall. Now they use big  vinyl sheets. You see some of them  in a few pictures. The museum area was mined in the 40's and 50's.  All the equipment that goes down to be used never comes back up. My friend works there (Myron) who is the boss and is on the Dirty Jobs show said they all dragged old equipment out of old areas of the mine to put on display. Theres a lot more down there. They are still building displays and have a lot to do yet. I was amazed at the size  just in our part. They take you to one area and then turn off the lights  and its a dark like no dark you have ever experienced.  They talk of the various black horizontal lines in the layer of salt. Those are shale lines. They said Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas area was a big inland sea a long time ago.   There is one shale line that is the same in all the mine.  Thats how they keep things level and even. Everywhere in the mine its there and is the same and the follow it and use it for measuring.

They stuff 14 people into the elevator. Its a 2 level elevator.  Its standing room only and you are shoulder to shoulder. It gets dark and about a minute later you are at the bottom. You can hear the elevator clanging and banging all the way down. You really dont get a sense of motion like in a big building elevator. Maybe its not as fast or its because its dark.

It looked like it used to be hard work but I dont think its too tough anymore.  Years ago after a blast  men shoveled the salt into those big hopper cars. 2 men got paid 50cents to shovel a car full and they split it. They would give them a special coin and you cashed it in at the end of the day. You lost the coin you didnt get paid.


I had a blast! Anyone that ever gets to this part its worth the 14$ to go check out. I would like to go again.


Todd

[Todd Wilson]

This was a display. The column/piller has sunk. Yet the ceiling is still level. Doesnt happen often but it does happen. The floor is buckled at the edge.



Those tripod things are measuring devices put in my the government. IN the 50's they wanted to store nuke waste there. They wanted to know how long it would take for the mine to close in on itself. The ceiling drops about 3 thousandths of an inch a year. Would take 500 years to come down an inch. This wasnt good enough so they didnt put waste here.



Hard to see but that is a small wash out/ sink hole.   They made saltcrete down there to line the floors since hauling sand and stuff down to make concrete would have been hard to do and expensive. Across the hallway was a water pipe they used and it had a small leak. No one thought much about it. It sunk down and followed a shale line across to the area in the picture and then ate the salt away in that spot. Not a big deal but was interesting at what moisture can do. The red is something thats found on ocasion that mixes with the salt. Not a bad thing to find but not good to have in the salt. I forget what it was.


They dont allow drinks and stuff down there to help avoid tearing up the floor and stuff.



One of the vinyl walls shutting off an old area to help with air flow.




Heres an old area closed off with the explosive boxes




The white area is a rare thing when the salt is like 99% pure or close to that. Something about waterflow a zillion years ago in that area created a pure patch of salt.



And old Chevy truck  with a Dodge steering wheel on it!



Todd

[moparguy01]

thats some cool stuff. although it was odd to see the movie props there, but kinda cool. guess they may as well use it for storage.

[Todd Wilson]

thats some cool stuff. although it was odd to see the movie props there, but kinda cool. guess they may as well use it for storage.

UVS has been a major storage place for many many years here. All the important stuff out there is stored here in my home town. Warner Bros put that stuff on display for the museum. Lots of their stuff is stored away in the vault section.


Todd

[Daytona R/T SE]

The Salt mine is pretty cool ! We were just there a few weeks ago 

[Todd Wilson]

The Salt mine is pretty cool ! We were just there a few weeks ago 

And you didnt look me up!!!!     


Todd