Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century salt production in Saltville, Virginia.

The geology of the Saltville Valley in southwest Virginia creates a brine with an exceptionally high concentration of sodium chloride (98.7%). Because of this resource, the town of Saltville, Virginia, became the major producer of salt for the Confederacy during the latter half of the Civil War. The wood-fired salt furnaces (as the production facilities were called) produced a maximum of four million bushels of salt from this naturally occurring brine in 1864. However, these massive nineteenth-century furnaces are no longer standing. Industrial archaeology, with its goal of chronicling and preserving the history of industrial development, is used to document two of these salt furnaces—one (44SM280) in operation in the late eighteenth century when salt production was beginning, and the other (44SM139) in operation during the Civil War. Increasing size and sophistication in the exposed foundations of these structures is illustrated by the shift from predominantly stone-walled furnaces to later, larger structures with stacked brick walls. The size of the iron kettles used to cook the brine also increased to a 100-gallon capacity. These excavations corroborate historic descriptions of salt manufacture and provide important physical evidence of nineteenth-century industrial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]