Tales from the Towpath: A Grain of Salt: The Power of Four Letters

The Legacy of Salt

The Power of Four Letters

Salt...this four-letter word had more impact on the Syracuse area than any other. While some might argue "Erie" has four letters and was important, long before the canal came through, salt was the reason for leaving comfortable homes in the east to make money. Salt has always been a staple of life. Since ancient times, salt was used to enhance the flavor of food. Before refrigeration, it was a necessity to preserve food for the lean times over winter and spring. Salt was so valuable that it could be exchanged for goods as a currency in its own right, a barterable commodity. If you were “worth your weight in salt”, you were a valuable asset. Salt made Syracuse…and the region.

Onondaga Lake, the place of the Hiawatha and Peacemaker's tree was the founding place of the Haudenosaunee. It was a place teeming with life: in, above and around the lake. The Onondagas lived on the hills overlooking the lake. They fished its waterways, hunted its shores, and managed the land. It was and is sacred to the Onondagas and the Confederacy. A four-letter word was "home".

Tree of Life

by Oren Lyons

The Salt Springs were known to the Haudenosaunee long before the Jesuits first arrived. The Jesuits recorded these springs, and it didn't take long for intrepid entrepreneurs to come to the region to exploit this resource. New York State realized the importance of this resource and managed the entire shoreline around Onondaga Lake, a way to increase profits from around the lake. Not only could money be made by making, selling, and taxing salt, but it could also make money from leasing the land. A word related, almost sacred to the colonists, is the four-letter word “cash”.

Salt Point was the original name of the settlement by the lake that became the Village of Salina. Salina is a corruption of the Latin word “sal” meaning salt. Later the Village of Salina merged with the Village of Syracuse, incorporating into the City of Syracuse in 1848. On the western shores of the lake, Geddes was named after James Geddes who opened a saltworks in what is now Solvay. Another four-letter word is “city”. Salt, literally and figuratively, was in the blood of the community.

Originally, salt water from the salt springs around was boiled down to extract the salt. Later, the Solar Salt method was used which harnessed the power of the sun and required far less resources to produce a greater quantity of salt. Eventually, water was pumped into the salt deposits south of Syracuse. The brine extracted was then gravity fed to solar salt fields around Onondaga Lake, including the Inner Harbor and Solvay Process. Here it would be pumped into flat beds and the sun would do the work of evaporating the water. Once it was dried it was moved to sheds, packed into barrels, and then shipped by canal boats or trains to market. It is inextricably tied to the prosperity of our region. The opportunity's four-letter word "work" was available for those seeking a better life.

Closely linked with work was another four-letter word in our area: “boom". With many ways to get goods to market, including the Erie Canal and Railroads, and immigrants coming in from all over the world looking for a better life, Syracuse was a great place to develop new ideas. Businesses came, things were made, schools were built, jobs were created, employment almost a certainly, innovation ran rampant...it was a good time to be "The Salt City".

But salt was a four-letter word, a bad one in many respects. First, it was the reason the Haudenosaunee were dispossessed from their lands. Greed left an ugly legacy. Second, brine salt from left the Tully Valley riddled with unstable underground caverns. Unintended consequences have lasting impacts into the future. Third, it heavily contributed to the pollution of the land that it came from. An irony of epic proportions. The reason they came was a reason for its demise, much like The Lorax. Salt was used in the Solvay Process. The sludge leftover from this process would go on to pollute Onondaga Lake and the land surrounding it. But also, the solar sheds themselves polluted the land. Brine and salt fell from the drying sheds over the years. All that salt into the soil rendered the land unfit for farming much like road salt use affects the land along the sides today. A four-letter word for this is “ruin”.

Much of the last 30 years has been formed by another four-letter word, “redo”. In 1994, areas for clean up were officially identified. Clean up in and around Onondaga Lake began in 2005. Slowly, but steadily the lake and its surrounding habitat has been purposefully cleaned up and restored. The eagles returned, marshlands restored, and trails laid that help people understand what a treasure this lake is. Perfect, no. But it a great start to caring for a lake that we as a community have been so careless about.

While it brought great wealth to the region, it also brought great problems, some of which we, over 200 years later are only beginning to understand. History is never cut and dry, usually it falls somewhere in the middle like the briny slurry that once was pumped to the solar sheds. The salt and the water must be understood together. You can separate them, but the one is the reason the other got there. Salt brought great wealth, but it also left a swath of destruction. Recognizing both helps us understand how we got here. Another four-letter word which carries us into the future is “hope”. We can do better than the past. And remember, to understand Syracuse’s history and future, you have to take what you have been told with a pinch of Salt.