There's a 1,400 acre working salt mine a quarter-mile underneath the city of Detroit. (Some citizens are complaining that blasting in the mine is damaging their homes. Link) The mining began at the start of the 20th century. Image here is from former Michigan Gov. G. Mennen Williams's tour of the mine in 1950. Public tours were available in the 1980s but the Detroit Salt Company current "Public Tour Policy" is simply that they don't offer them. From a Detroit News article:
Mules, lowered by rope down the narrow shaft into the mine, were used in the early mining operations. Once down in the mines, they stayed there until they died.Workers decended in a two-level elevator in which six men pressed face-to-face during the long ride down.
Getting equipment down into the massive cavern provided many problems. Pickup trucks, jeeps and large trucks had to be cut up or disassembled and lowered down the shaft piece by piece, to be reassembled in shop areas below. Large dump truck tires too big for the shaft had to be compressed and bound before they would fit down the opening.
In a 1925 Detroit News article, miner Joel Payton told about his salt mine job. "The only dirty part of this job is going down to work," Mr. Payton explained.
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