12-20-2010, 11:44 AM
Gary S Wrote:they just tunneled through the salt and made all manner of huge caverns down there. Anyway, because of the blasting powder involved, the salt could not be used for human consumption. They used it in animal feed and salt blocks, rock salt, they shipped it up north for use on roads in the winter, and it was also used in oil well drilling mud.
This sounds like what I've heard of what the Cleveland mine is like inside. Its owned by Cargill and they make a lot of non-food products out of salt. Like the deicing stuff for airplanes. One of the buildings says Halite on it, which I believe is the big chunky kind of salt. My brother lives south of Cleveland and some days the tracks through town are an endless parade of little covered hoppers with Cargill logos on them.
Here's the mine:
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Bonus: just to the north is a huge field of iron ore and the remains of a Hullett in the weeds.