Ohio's Salt Mine Just Took On Water. Detroit Is Sitting on Another One.

Ohio's Salt Mine Just Took On Water. Detroit Is Sitting on Another One. This video explains why Detroit is sitting on top of a salt mine with more than 100 miles of underground roads, about 1,200 feet below the southwest side: the city was built over salt beds that formed about 400 million years ago, the salt was worth digging, and for more than a century the rock above it has kept out the one thing that can destroy a salt mine, water. Rock salt was found deep under Detroit in 1895. The first company started a shaft in 1906, ran into toxic hydrogen sulfide gas and hard ground, and went bankrupt. A reorganized Detroit Salt Company finished a 1,060-foot shaft in 1910, and by 1914 the mine was sending up about 8,000 tons of rock salt a month for tanneries and food plants. International Salt closed it in 1983; Crystal Mines bought it in 1985 as storage; a new Detroit Salt Company restarted production in the fall of 1998, and the Kissner Group bought it in 2010. Today it produces road salt only. The story starts in Fairport Harbor, Ohio, where on October 22, 2026, Morton Salt found a significant inflow of water, evacuated every worker with no injuries, and stopped mining four days later. Did anyone in your family ever ride the cage down into the Detroit salt mine? Tell us in the comments. New documentaries every week. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one. #detroit #saltmine #michigan #FairportHarbor #MortonSalt #undergroundhistory #greatlakes