Saline Valley Salt Tram, Swansea Mill & Terminus

 mill, historic ruins

The mill which processed the salt was located in this area. It was served by the C&C/SP narrow gauge railroad.

The salt works and tram were placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The site includes remains of the salt works at the southern end of the salt lake and the tramway support and associated structures and artifacts which run from the salt lake up Daisy Canyon, over the Inyo Mountains down to Swansea in Owens Valley.

The tram was constructed between 1911 and 1913 to provide economical transportation of the exceptionally pure salt deposits from the salt lake in Saline Valley to Owens Valley where it was milled and shipped via rail. The 13.5-mile aerial wire rope tram was electrically powered and capable of carrying 20 tons an hour. The tramway operated from 1913 to 1918, again between 1920-21, and later in 1929 and 1936. The ownership changed hands four times during this period. The cost of operating the tram proved uneconomical.

The tramway was a remarkable engineering feat. It was the steepest tramway in the United States, rising from 1100 feet in the Saline Valley floor to 8500 feet at the Inyo Crest, then dropping to 3600 feet at Swansea.

The Saline Valley Salt Tram is claimed to be "the most scenic, historic, best preserved, oldest, and largest of its kind remaining today.


www.air-and-space.com/20020624%20Swansea-Cerro%20Gordo%...
www.owensvalleyhistory.com/carson_n_colorado/page50.htm...

Cars sitting on the spur line to the salt works:
www.owensvalleyhistory.com/carson_n_colorado/slim%20rai...