Salt Museum — Attraction in Town of Salina

The Salt Museum is an interesting museum on the shores of Onondaga Lake. The museum displays the history of the salt industry in the region. The museum incorporates the original equipment that was used by the salt industry. The actual kettles and wooden barrels that were used can be seen here. Best of all, the museum is completely free. When visiting the museum be sure to start with the video on how the salt industry arose and then grew in the Syracuse area. The videos about this are also available online. They even have a video about the history of the salt potato! After that you are free to look at all the salt industry artifacts. The highlight of the museum is the boiler block. It consists of twelve large round pots that were heated from underneath by fire. From beneath the pots workers worked to keep the fires going at the correct temperature for boiling. The workers who did this job had a very dangerous job and sometimes were killed. Eventually, because boiling was so expensive the industry laid out hundreds of raised beds, filled them with salt water and let the sun do the work of boiling the water away and obtaining salt. These beds can be seen in the museum as well. Right outside the museum is Onondaga Lake Park which is a beautiful park on the shores of the lake. Check the museum’s website for hours. Be sure to enjoy the park after a visit to the Salt Museum. This is a great place to experience the interesting history of the salt industry! Again, it’s completely free so you...

Great little museum to visit. Admission is free. Interesting to learn about the salt industry in the area through video and the displays. The videos were in a loop and we came in on the last 30 seconds of the video talking about the salt industry, then sat through one about the late Victorian amusement parks, then one on the basket industry started before we asked the docent if he could skip through back to the salt one since we were the only visitors there. Thankfully he obliged since we had already sat a long time watching the various videos. If you visit, allow at least an hour to watch through all the videos, plus half an hour to 45 minutes gives you enough time to read every display label. There is no gift shop and there are no...

Ample free parking. Lovely setting by the lake. Picnic tables nearby. The museum itself is really well laid out. A full-scale model of a salt boiling box--- otherwise known as a salt making facility!--- inside. Movie showing about lots of local topics and not just salt making. Informative notes tacked up all over the place. It would have been nice to have a docent or interpreter at the desk who was on hand to answer questions and explain things instead of just man the door. But it's free! So I couldn't possibly complain! It's a really lovely local Museum that should receive some more funding so that it can be even more than it is. But don't let that keep you from going! Please go and learn this little bit of...