Few salt mines allow the public to tour. There's the Bavaria Mountains and Salt Mines tour in Salzburg, but when I visited Salzburg, I opted for the Mozart tour and The Sound of Music Tour. Poland has the Wieliczka Salt Mine Tour and Pakistan's Khewra Salt Mines attracts approximately 250,000 visitors per year. I'm not sure when I'll take my kids to Poland or Pakistan.
After researching US tours, I found one place - Strattaca, located in Hutchinson, Kansas. Thanks to the Reno County Historical Society and two companies, the Hutchinson Salt Company and Underground Vaults and Storage company, the Kansas Underground Salt Museum opened to the public in 2007. It's the only working museum that exists in a working salt mine anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Voters named it one of the "Eight Wonders of Kansas" (2008).
Formed 275 million years ago when the Permian Sea dried up, it's one of the largest salt mines in the world and still mined today. When you descend 650 feet below the prairie surface on an industrial elevator (and our group chose to keep the lights off - cool!!!), you walk out and see the vast space. It's 300,000 square feet of mined out area. Ceilings are 10 to 17 feet high.
Kids read every sign in their geology exhibit, listened to short history videos, and checked out the equipment. As Chicago residents (and people who need to get to work, no matter what the weather), we need to really appreciate this place - it's a source of the salt used to melt the ice and snow on our roads. The museum fund raises to expand the exhibit.
We bought the Blast Pass ($19 adult, children $12.50). Besides admission, you get two tours: 1. Dark Ride (30 minute tram tour explaining air flow and mine hazards), and 2. Train Ride (15 min. Salt Mine Express shows the active areas of 1940s and 50s including the garbage that never disintegrated). Kids tend to love hands on activities, so when the tour gave them a small bag and told them they had a few minutes to pick a piece of salt from a pile, they were excited to find their own souvenir.
The salt mine also serves as a secure storage facility, holding original Hollywood movies and many other documents. An exhibit explains.
For a real treat, the museum offers special Scout and 4-H overnights. Boy Scouts may earn their Geology and/or Mining in Society merit badge.
Formed 275 million years ago when the Permian Sea dried up, it's one of the largest salt mines in the world and still mined today. When you descend 650 feet below the prairie surface on an industrial elevator (and our group chose to keep the lights off - cool!!!), you walk out and see the vast space. It's 300,000 square feet of mined out area. Ceilings are 10 to 17 feet high.
No comments:
Post a Comment