INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AROUND SALTVILLE

BETWEEN THE PIONEER PERIOD AND THE CIVIL WAR

            Hard figures are scarce, but enough exist to show the surprising amount of industrial activity that occurred about Saltville in the late pioneer period.  Dates obtained from land grants, and other land title exchanges, show that earnest production of salt was in progress by the mid 1790’s.

             In the early years of the American Revolution salt was being produced at Saltville, and was of sufficient importance that in 1777 the Washington County Court appointed a committee of Commissioners to hire wagons to bring up the county salt which had been allotted (rationed) by the Governor and his Council, and to distribute it among the people according to the rules set.  Significantly William Campbell, owner of the salt works as well as a pending Militia General, was the head of this committee. 

            By 1796 there was a documented “Salt Works Road” in Washington County.

            In 1803 the General Assembly approved the first internal improvement in Southwest Virginia when it incorporated the Salt Works Road as the Abingdon and Saltville Turnpike.  A committee of commissioners, which included William King, Francis Preston, and others was appointed to lay out the route.  The toll for “one loaded wagon” was set at twenty five cents.

            The route of this toll road ran west out of Saltville on current State Route #91, # 745, #80 south, #74, and #609 to US 11 at Abingdon’s East Main St.  The name “Old Salt works Rd.” has been reapplied to this entire route.

            In the 1780’s and 90’s salt was commercially produced by an evaporation furnace on the river at the future site of the Olin Mathieson plant.  Early in the Nineteenth Century large evaporation furnaces were built at the west end of Campbell’s Choice.  These consisted of long rows of cast iron kettles being set in brick furnaces, an arrangement that allowed for a common fire.  Some gypsum also dried in the salt kettles, and had to be broken out by hand.

            Procurement of firewood became a serious problem.  Sarah Campbell’s LO 1-344 had been bought largely because of its supply of firewood.  Soon, all the hills round Saltville had been cut over.  Customarily wagons coming into town to pick up salt carried with them firewood which was exchanged to partially pay for the salt.

            Salt was placed in wooden barrels, and loaded on rafts, and later flat boats.  Salt was profitably delivered as far downstream as Mussel Shoals, Alabama.  The profit was not there, but Saltville salt was known to have made it as far away as New Orleans. 

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