1889 HISTORY OF LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

     (90) The first settlers in Lancaster county were attracted here by the fame of the Salt Basin, which in that early day had extended as far east as Plattsmouth and Nebraska City. The early settlers near the basins made many fanciful pictures of the wealth to be obtained from these same basins, and pictured to themselves a great city built near by, whose great source of wealth should be the working of the "salt wells." And it is safe to presume that one reason why the State capital was located at Lincoln (or Lancaster) was the fact that salt was one of the products of Lancaster county, and that the Commissioners believed that the manufacture of salt would, in the future, prove the foundation of a great business, which would attract capital to the little hamlet on the prairie. It is, however, certain that the early residents of Lincoln set great store by the basins, and that for years every intelligent man predicted wonderful results front the making of salt.

     As proof of this it is here pertinent to quote from a little pamphlet of thirty pages, a history of Lincoln, the authorship of which is to be laid at the door of Hon. John H. Ames, and which was published by the "State Journal Power Press Print" in 1870, a few of the fancies and figures current in those days. Mr. Ames says:

     "In the following remarks an effort will be made to furnish a knowledge of the facts and circumstances, established by experience, upon which it may be safe to base a final judgment. So far as known, no similar effort has previously been made; and while care will be taken that any information that may be contained herein shall be authentic, yet it must of necessity be less full and complete than may be desirable, or than it might be made if there had been any thorough and detailed official investigation and report. thereon.

     "In the absence of such assistance, recourse will be had to parties (91) who are engaged in the business of making salt by solar evaporation, and in sinking the well for the purpose of testing the strength and value of the brine to be obtained beneath the surface at this place, any information derived from which sources may be relied upon as being entirely authentic and trustworthy."

     After referring somewhat fully to a pamphlet published in 1869, by Augustus F. Harvey, entitled "Nebraska as it is," in which a description of the salt basins is given, and a prediction of the great undeveloped wealth which they represent is made, Mr. Allies continues:

     "Previous to the time that the above passages were written, nothing like an extensive manufacture of salt at this place had been attempted. Some parties, however, had evaporated considerable quantities of the surface brine, both by means of solar and artificial heat, and the product obtained had been carefully analyzed by eminent chemists in New York City and other places, and the result, as declared by them, was as above stated. [Twenty-eight and eight tenths per cent of salt by weight; the product containing ninety-five to ninety-seven parts of pure salt, and three to five parts of chlorides and sulphates of magnesium, calcium, lime, etc. -- ED.] But it is thought that the statement of Mr. Harvey in regard to the strength of the surface brine, although no doubt intentionally correct, is, nevertheless, inaccurate.

     "During the summer months, and when a considerable interval of time has elapsed, characterized by an absence of rain and the prevalence of the warm, dry winds which he mentions, the constant evaporation from the surface of the wide, shallow basins or pools of salt water often suffices to reduce the brine contained therein to the strength of 28.8 per cent; and in fact, when such a state of the atmosphere has prevailed for a long time, the recession of water from the edges of the basin not unfrequently leaves thereon an incrustation, from a half an inch to an inch in thickness, of almost pure salt; but the brine, as it oozes from the soil, has not been found to exceed fifteen per cent in strength. It has been found that the rapidity of evaporation at Syracuse, and other Eastern springs, is in the proportion of two in the summer and one in the winter. Owing to the absence of heavy falls of snow, and the considerable prevalence of dry winds at the place during the winter months, it is believed that the proportional evaporation during this time will be greater. 

     (92) "Early in the summer of 1869, Messrs. Cahn and Evans, having leased 640 acres of land from the State Government for that purpose, commenced work preparatory to sinking a well in the immediate vicinity of one of these salt springs, and at a distance of about one and one-half miles from the market square of the city; and having erected a derrick and procured an engine and the necessary machinery they proceeded early in the autumn to effect this purpose, keeping an accurate record of the rock and other formations through which they penetrated. By means of this record, with the aid of such knowledge as is obtainable of the ledges exposed in different localities an approximate and reasonably definite conclusion may be formed as to the location of the center of the basin."

     After giving the formations through which penetration was made, Mr. Ames continues:

     "The ground near the wells is usually divided off into blocks or squares, of several rods, between which are spaces or street, of convenient width, a map of the whole resembling the plat of a town. Across the squares, in one direction, are constructed vats or troughs, sixteen feet in width, and about eight inches in depth, in which the brine is exposed to atmospheric action. Covers, sixteen feet square, and adjusted with grooves or rollers, are provided, with which to prevent the brine from being diluted by falling rain. For the purpose of calculation, these covers may be taken to represent the number and size of the vats, and accordingly this is the size meant wherever the word vat is hereinafter used.

     As shown by the result of Mr. Harvey's experiment, six inches in depth of saturated or 33 1/3 per cent brine, that being the usual amount exposed in one of the vats, would, under ordinary circumstances, evaporate in thirty-six hours; or twice that quantity would be evaporated every three days, leaving as a product 144,456 cubic inches, or over 68.36 bushels of salt. This process repeated seven times every three weeks for twenty-one weeks, during the summer months, would result in the manufacture of 3,349.64 bushels, and repeated seven times every six weeks for thirty of the remaining thirty one weeks in the year, would produce 2,392.60 bushels, which, added to the former, would make a total amount of 5,742.24 bushels, or 1,148.43 barrels of salt annually from one vat. Multiply this number by 1,000, the usual number of vats supplied from one well, and (93) from the product subtract one-fifth of itself, as an allowance for the difference in the amounts of salt contained in saturated brine and brine of eighty- degrees, strength, and from the balance subtract one twenty-fifth of itself, as an allowance for the smaller quantity of the weaker brine evaporated within the same time, (as a calculation sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes,) and the entire amount of salt which may be manufactured annually from one well will be seen to be 882,001.6 barrels.

      "Supposing, what is not at all probable, that the brine should prove to be possessed of only sixty degrees strength, the rapidity of evaporation being the same, we will subtract from this amount one-fourth of itself, as an allowance for the difference in the product between equal quantities of the two brines, and from the balance subtract one twenty-sixth of itself, as an allowance for the smaller quantity of the weaker brine evaporated within the same time, and it shows a result of 636,058.84 barrels annually. Change the supposition so that the strength of the brine will remain at eighty degrees, and the rapidity of evaporation will be reduced one-half, and we have only to divide the first product obtained by two, which leaves us an annual yield of 441,000.80 barrels. Uniting these contingencies, that is, supposing the strength of the brine not to exceed sixty degrees, and the rapidity of evaporation to be only one-half as great as it has been demonstrated to be by experiment, we will divide the second result by two, and there will be shown an annual product of 318,029.42 barrels. Making a deduction of one-fourth from each result obtained, as an allowance for loss of time consequent upon injuries to or breakage of machinery, and bad weather, and there will be left, in the order named, as follows:

     "While the railways now being constructed and those projected will give us direct connection with the Eastern markets, and enable us to compete with Eastern salt manufactories upon their own ground, it is certain that we shall be called upon to supply all the vast territory lying between the Mississippi river and the Rocky- mountains, so that $3 per barrel may be considered as an extremely low estimate for the (94) minimum price at the wells. The cost of empty barrels furnished at the wells, due allowance being made for transportation, it is estimated cannot exceed forty-five cents each; to this we will add ten cents per bushel as the cost of manufacture, and deducting the whole from $3, it leaves $2.45 as the net value of a barrel of salt at the manufactory. This calculation exhibits the net value of the three annual yields, as above supposed, in their order, as follows:

     "The foregoing statement, in which every allowance is made for which any reason can be imagined, compares very favorably with any that can be made concerning the Eastern manufactories. The brine obtained from the wells in the Syracuse group varies in strength from sixty-four to seventy-four degrees, the average strength from them all being sixty-eight degrees. The brine obtained from the wells in the Saline group varies in strength from thirty-two to sixty-six degrees, the average strength from all being fifty-nine degrees. The average annual product of the wells at Saginaw is 72,000 barrels, while the rapidity of evaporation, as proved by experiment, is from two to three times as great here as at any of the places mentioned.

     It is certain, then, that unless the old maxim, 'figures won't lie,' can be successfully controverted, that the people of Lincoln have a valuable interest in the salt basin, vested and indefeasible, except by some unusual providential dispensation."

     These quotations from Mr. Ames's work are given simply to show how highly the people of the early days valued the salt works, and what "great expectations" they had of the wealth to be secured from them. The complete history of the operations at the salt basins from the earliest times has been gleaned from Mr. J. P. Hebard, who had, at one time, considerable interest in the work. Mere mention of the salt basins has been made frequently in the past pages, but the subject has been deemed of sufficient importance to justify an entire chapter.

     On the third day of May, 1854, the Kansas and Nebraska Act was passed, organizing and then creating the political bodies known as the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Soon afterward Congress, (95) on the 22d of July, 1854, passed an act providing for the appointment of a Surveyor General for Nebraska, Kansas, and New Mexico, which provided in general term. that the President should have authority to survey the public lands of this then Territory, and should have the further authority, in coarse of time, to sell the same under the usual land restrictions affecting sales of public lands. The preceding section of that act of July 22, 1854, said that "The President shall have no authority to sell the salt or saline lands within such Territory."

     Salt springs, not exceeding twelve in number, were granted and passed to the State of Nebraska, by the act of February 9, 1867, when the State was admitted to the Union.

     In October, 1857, these lands were surveyed and certified by the Surveyor General as being saline lands, and subsequently, in 1859, parties located land warrants on some of the saline lands, which, after the issuing of patents and finding them to be on saline lands, were afterward canceled.

     As the county settled up, homesteaders came from miles around and camped out near the Salt Basin and evaporated brine to make their supply of salt for the year.

     There have been several salt companies formed. On March 1, 1855, was incorporated the "Nebraska Salt Manufacturing Company," for the purpose of manufacturing salt from the salt springs near Salt creek, Nebraska.

     On March 16, 1853, was incorporated a company known as the "Saline Manufacturing Company," to establish salt works at or near the salt springs.

     A third company was incorporated January 26, 1856, as the "Salt Spring Company," for carrying on the business at the salt springs discovered by Thomas Thompson and others, lying west of Cass county, Nebraska.

     In 1861, W. W. Cox, now a resident of Seward county, and Darwin Peckham, of Lincoln, took possession of one of the log cabins, and commenced making salt. It was very scarce during war times, and was high in price, and of necessity many came to scrape salt.

     They came from all the settled portions of Kansas, Missouri and as far east as Central Iowa. If the weather was perfectly dry, they could get plenty of the salt, which could be scraped up where the (96) brine had evaporated and left a crust of salt, but a few minutes of rain would turn it all into brine again. Some would arrive from a long distance just in time to see a shower clear off all the salt.

     Small furnaces were built and sheet iron pans used for boiling salt, many of the farmers bringing their sorghum pans for this purpose. In dry time some would scrape up the dry salt, and accumulate a large supply, which found a ready sale to those unfortunate enough to reach there in wet weather.

     Various other parties manufactured salt here in a primitive way, till the time of the formation of the State Government, in 1867. The creeks were then lined with scattering patches of timber, from which fire wood was secured for boiling purposes.

     In March, 1868, the Governor leased to Anson C. Tichenor certain saline lands, including what is known as the Salt Basin.

     On February 15, 1869, the lease was declared void by the Legislature, and the Governor was authorized to make a new lease to Anson C. Tichenor and Jesse T. Green, of the saline land which included the Salt Basin, for the period of twenty years.

     A few iron kettles had been set in stone work, and salt made by boiling down the brine, being pumped from the basin by a windmill. In December, 1869, Horace Smith, of Springfield, Massachusetts, of the well-known firm of Smith & Wesson, being on a visit to relatives at Nebraska City, took a ride across the country to see the new town of Lincoln. Meeting Tichenor and Green at the hotel, the subject of manufacturing salt was naturally the principal theme in which he became interested, and before leaving town, made arrangements for the purchase of Tichenor's interest, and one-half of Green's, giving him a three-fourths interest in the lease.

     On his return home, he stopped at Chicago, ordered an engine and pump, and several carloads of lumber for vats to evaporate brine, all to be shipped to East Nebraska City, that being the nearest railroad point, and from there all was hauled by wagon to Lincoln, in the spring of 1870. The engine was put on the shore near the basin, with a pump to bring the brine from the basin near by, and force the same into a large tank. From here it was distributed to the vats as needed.

     The brine, as it ran from the basin when the tide was in -- as it has a tide twice a day, regular in its hours, commencing at about 3 or 4 P. M., and reaching the largest quantity at about 6 P. M., and the same (97) in the morning -- would generally be about 35° to 40° by salometer, and on a warm day brine standing in the basin would register as high as 65° and 70°. Dykes were thrown up to confine the brine as it came up through the ground, and a canal conducted it to a small reservoir, where it was allowed to settle before being pumped into the tank. In the warm days of summer the evaporating was very fast. From a vat about 14x28 feet, in less than two weeks of evaporation about three thousand pounds of salt were taken. The vats were all supplied with covers, on wheels so that they could be run over the vats in case of storm. The brine from this basin is different from that of many manufactories, in that it requires nothing put in to purify it.

     The salt from evaporation formed in cubes of different sizes, and when grasses were put in the brine a most beautiful cluster of crystals would be obtained in a few days' time. This salt, for general use, required to be ground in a salt mill. The kettles were also used, but scarcity of fuel worked against this mode; but salt thus made was fine as the dairy salt usually found for sale, and for dairy use was said to have no superior, as was the case with the coarser salt for curing meat.

     The summer of 1870 was thus spent, when Mr. Smith sent his nephew, Mr. J. P. Hebard, to Lincoln to look after his interest and act with Mr. Green in developing the business. A large quantity of salt was made, finding a ready market for its utmost capacity of vats and boilers; and Mr. Smith visiting Lincoln that year, was so much encouraged by the results of the summer's work that on his return home he investigated the different modes of making salt, and spent a large sum in perfecting and trying a new process for manufacturing, in which all the heat was utilized, making a great difference in the expense of fuel, which was a large item where all the wood had to be shipped in.

     Plans were made and partially completed for investing a large sum, in 1871, in improvements, vats, reservoirs, etc. for the making of salt on a large scale.

     Mention was made of a party having located warrants on these saline lands, the patents for which the Government canceled, after finding them to be located contrary to law. One of the parties interested, J. Sterling Morton attempted to gain possession of the buildings during the temporary absence of the lessees. Failing in this, suit was commenced in the district court against Horace Smith, J. T. Green, (98) and the State of Nebraska, as defendants, to decide the question of title. Mr. Smith learning of this, and fearing a long litigation over the case, and uncertainty as to whether the State could maintain title to the land leased, and not wishing to invest capital under such uncertainties, decided to abandon the enterprise.

     During the season of 1871, as all improvements were stopped, the works were run by Mr. Green at his own expense, netting a good return for the season's work.

     In the October term of the District Court this case was tried, resulting in maintaining the State's title; but as Mr. Smith had given the matter up, and made other arrangements in matters of business, he transferred his interest to J. P. Hebard, who, on Mr. Green's refusing to take an interest in the summer's work, started the manufactory on his own account, and after accumulating quite a supply of salt in the bins, noticed that it suddenly commenced disappearing in large quantities. A friend of his in the dray business gave him some pointers, from which he soon found who was reaping the rewards of his labor, and where it was disposed of, and that the hauling was all done in the night time or early dawn.

     Having learned, one Sunday evening, that another raid would be made in the morning, before daylight, he made it a point to be on hand. Before daylight, Monday morning, the teams were heard approaching from town, and on their arrival, one wagon bucked up to the opening in the bin. Mr. Green accompanied them as the party interested in the results not of his own labor, and took his position in the wagon to shovel forward as thrown in at the end of the wagon bed. The owner of the salt appearing at this stage of the proceedings, the German teamster, who was shoveling out the salt, upon being informed of the kind of business he was engaged in, emphasized with a few flourishes of a good-sized ax-handle, and not understanding English perfectly, thought his life was threatened, and commenced hallooing: "I don't want to be kilt! I don't want to be kilt!" and stopped work. Mr. Green, finding no salt coming out, came into the building to find out what detained it, and meeting the owner, he was informed that his stealings were known, and had a few other facts called to his attention. He did not adopt the latest rules in such engagements, but started in on general principles to whip the owner, and being much larger than his opponent, he came down on the upper (99) side. Having a long beard, the under man ran his fingers through the heard, and taking a twist on this, soon brought the belligerent to his terms, and Mr. Green returned to town with empty wagons. Suit was commenced for the full amount of the salt taken, judgment given, and the salt paid for.

     Subsequently Bullock Brothers manufactured salt, but the works, after they closed up, remained idle for a long time.

     A transfer of the former interest of Horace Smith was made to E. E. Brown and J. T. Green, and subsequently a company of Eastern capitalists was formed to develop the salt interest, and the State made an appropriation for sinking an artesian well, which was sunk to the depth of 2,465 feet. Aside from determining the different formations, this well did not result in any practical good.

     The brine's having a regular tide twice a day world indicate that the supply from which it comes is not directly underneath. The brine oozes up through the muck on the basin, and if not confined by dykes, runs off into Salt creek. Where the basin is covered with brine when the tide is in, during the middle of the day it will be dry enough to walk over, and often a thin layer of salt will cover parts of the ground.

     In the earlier history of Lincoln a well was sunk several hundred feet deep, on the east side of Oak, near, if not in, what is now known as West Lincoln. This was finally abandoned, as, like the artesian well in the postoffice square, no brine of sufficient strength was found that would answer for manufacturing purposes. On the banks of Salt creek may be found numerous small springs from which salt water flow, and it is probable that the material from which to make several hundred barrels of good salt per day, in good weather, all runs to waste. The water is fine for bathing purposes, and possesses medicinal qualities. As to the best means of utilizing this brine, there are different opinions, but no one has as yet solved the problem, and the question will remain for future determination.

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