OUR HISTORY, AND THE HISTORY OF SALT
Almost 100 years ago, United Salt Corporation was formed. The Company grew into a dedicated producer of high quality salts used in a broad variety of applications, which enhance our quality of life. One hundred years sounds like a long time, but our Company’s history is just one short chapter in the amazing narrative of salt.
For thousands of years, life has evolved to depend on salt’s multiple uses. Where would we be without salt? From food processing to healing properties, agricultural benefits and even used as currency, salt exercises a fascination for its seemingly boundless applications.
Mark Kurlansky notes in his book “Salt: A World History” that “the earliest written record of salt production in China dates to around 800 B.C. and tells of production and trade of sea salt a millennium before.” Even earlier, ancient Egyptians traded salt cured products such as fish and fowl to other civilizations. Over time, salt has become so intrinsic in everyday life, we scarcely consider what that life would be like without it.
We’re not going as far back as that, of course. But for United Salt Corporation, 1928 was an opportune year! It was the year the Company was formed, and as the 1930’s dawned, we began commercial salt production in Hockley, Texas.
In 1955, United Salt Corporation acquired a salt mining, evaporation, and production facility on the nearby Blue Ridge dome just south of Houston. This facility was operated until 1999 when the brand new Baytown facility opened.
Next, we expanded into solar salt mining in Carlsbad, New Mexico in the early 1960’s. Sun and wind naturally evaporate the water from a mineral rich lake. Today, United Salt Carlsbad, LLC harvests solar salt from this 2,000+ acre salt lake, and processes it into solar crystals, agricultural blocks and compacted pellets.
In 1999, United Salt opened the Baytown, Texas, evaporated salt plant, which replaced the original evaporated salt plant at Blue Ridge. To produce salt for round cans and bags, water-softening and swimming pool pellets, the mechanical vapor recompression process used at this facility yields the highest quality product in the industry.
Finally, United Salt acquired an additional evaporated salt plant in the appropriately named town of Saltville, Virginia, in 2007. Like the United Salt Baytown, LLC facility, the United Salt Saltville, LLC facility manufactures food grade, agricultural, industrial, and swimming pool salt products.
Today, each of these facilities is owned and managed by four sister companies, while United Salt Corporation focuses on sales, transportation, and customer needs. As we continue to approach the century mark, United Salt Corporation, and its sister companies, have stood the test of time.
United Salt Corporation is a privately owned seller of salt products used in the production of food, chemical processing, oilfield drilling and production fluids, deicing, agricultural feed, and industrial and residential water softening. We look to past, present and future, initiating the changes necessary to continue serving our customers with the goodwill inherent in all our relationships: Respect, quality products, fair prices, and excellent customer service.