Cargill Salt Flats (Redwood City, California)

USA / California / Redwood City / Redwood City, California
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The History of SF Bay Saltworks

As long as people have lived in the Bay Area, they have harvested its salt. Native Ohlone gathered salt along the Bay's edge, collecting it from natural salt pans (salt flats) by the shore. As the Spanish moved up the Pacific Coast, the padres at Mission San Jose introduced large-scale salt harvesting. Decades after the missionaries departed, the Ohlone continued to gather salt at the Bay’s edge. Their efforts inspired Capt. John Johnson, who launched the first commercial solar salt harvest from the Bay in 1854. A former sea captain and disappointed gold miner, Johnson made his fortune selling his first salt harvest for $50 a ton to the commodity-starved 49’ers.

Johnson soon attracted dozens of competitors and in a few years, the price dropped to $2 a ton, along with many entrepreneurial fortunes. Nevertheless, salt continued to play a vital role in the Bay Area and state’s economy. From the late 1800s, Bay salt processed silver at the Nevada mines, cured cheese, preserved meat and hides, and packed fish. Economic booms and busts and the growing mechanization of the salt harvest led to both to the improvement of the salt quality and a consolidation of the salt industry.

From Picks and Shovels to Air-Conditioned Vehicles

Salt harvesting has never been an easy undertaking. Man first scraped salt from the natural salt pans with Stone Age implements. Forged steel replaced rock and stick tools during the 19th century but it remained back-breaking, pick-and-shovel work until 1936, when the mechanical harvester was invented. Emerging with the best patent, the Leslie Salt Company quickly out-produced and absorbed its competitors. Leslie also designed an narrow-gauge, portable railroad to transport the salt from the crystallizers to the wash house. These miniature hopper cars and diesel locomotives were light enough to follow the harvester onto the salt crystallizers yet strong enough to pull 20 tons of salt without sinking into the underlying clay soils.

Harvest crews worked 24-hour shifts, five- six- or sometimes seven-days a week, in the blinding September sun and bitter December nights. Harvesting salt, like other seasonal harvests, is a race against time. It starts late in the dry or growing season and ends before the winter rains reduce the yield.

For more than 60 years, the mechanical harvester and miniature railroad worked the crystallizers. Thousands of visitors who marveled at the mechanical ingenuity employed to reap the mineral harvest. Though engineers and machinists continually tinkered with the design to improve efficiency and durability in the harsh salty conditions, the machinery remained fundamentally the same.

Then in 2001, Cargill began implementing new, more efficient harvest techniques that capture more salt using less land. Not only did these changes benefit the company’s bottom line, but, more importantly, they improved the safety and comfort of the salt harvest crews. More efficient operations also helped Cargill to free up 16,500 acres to donate and sell for permanent wildlife protection.

Today, instead of scraping the salt all the way down to the mud bottoms of the crystallizers, eight-inch salt floors have been allowed to build up. These salt beds both hasten and improve the crystallization process. Even more important, they are sturdy enough to support heavy dump trucks that now drive onto the crystallizers and carry the loads of salt from a new style of harvester.

Modern equipment may not be as picturesque, but it is far safer, more comfortable and more efficient. Harvest crews no longer battle the hot September sun and sleeting December nights. Today, they bring in the salt, enclosed in the quiet, air-conditioned cabs of their mammoth vehicles.

Company History

Before the microchip stamped the Bay Area’s business identity as Silicon Valley, salt-making (like crabbing, tomato processing, and mining oyster shells) was a premier local industry and Leslie Salt was a familiar brand to all Bay Area residents.

In 1979, Cargill Incorporated, a Minneapolis-based food, agricultural and risk management company, bought Leslie Salt keeping the company name until 1991,and the Leslie label until 2003.

At the industry peak, Leslie (Cargill) produced 1.3 million tons of salt annually from 40,000 acres in the North and South Bay. Three major salt plants operated in Napa, Redwood City and Newark, site of the salt refinery and company headquarters.

Changing market conditions and a desire to protect wildlife habitat through public ownership have dramatically changed the salt pond landscape. In 1994, the Napa salt ponds, which were built to supply salt to Dow Chemical in Pittsburg was donated and sold to the State of California for a wildlife preserve.

Cargill announced in June 2006 that its Redwood City facility, will wind down operations in the coming years. In 2003, the Redwood City barging and docking facilities – long a Peninsula landmark -- were sold. Fifty acres of the Saltworks was carved out and construction of a recreational marina began.

By far, the most significant change occurred in 2003 when Cargill Salt, donated and sold 16,500 acres -- all of its evaporator ponds to the state and federal governments for wildlife enhancement, while retaining perpetual operating rights on 9,000 acres. Despite these changes, Cargill continues to serve the West Coast market with high quality salt products and remains the Bay Area's only commercial salt producer, a descendant of Capt. Johnson's first salt ponds.
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Coordinates:   37°30'2"N   122°11'43"W

Comments

  • 1400 acres of the old Cargill site is slated for potential development into a luxury housing area; locals are fighting to keep its "Tidal Plain" designation and maintain it as wetlands.
  • Artemia (brine shrimp) breeding ponds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_shrimp#Aquaculture
  • http://www.rcsaltworks.com/
This article was last modified 13 years ago