Underground salt mining has been a profitable industry in Western New York for more than 150 years. Over the decades, a network of active mining operations in the region grew to encompass an area larger than Manhattan. In the early 1990s, a chain reaction of flooding forced the shutdown of these mines. Several years later, American Rock Salt purchased the mineral rights for 10,000 acres of undisturbed underground salt reserves along with 200 surface acres near Mount Morris, New York, for the establishment of a new mine. From the initial ground breaking, American Rock Salt mine took more than three years to build and was the first underground salt mine constructed in the U.S. since the 1950s. Today, it is the largest single producer of salt in the country, supplying nearly 10% of the nation’s total salt needs.
