The installation of a new hoist system was completed at Hutchinson Salt Company last week, replacing equipment that had been pulling salt out of the historic local mine for 99 years.

With the significantly larger, fully automated equipment, the hoist can run at twice the speed, with three times the capacity of the original equipment, said Jim Barta, Hutchinson Salt plant general manager.

Though a long time coming, replacing the hoist wasn’t an easy task, Barta said.

“The project has taken me nearly three years due to demo of the old building, issues with groundwater, COVID delay, and supply chain issues,” said Barta, plant manager for seven years.

It went fully operational on Sept. 1.

The hoist upgrade is just one of several ongoing projects initiated at the plant following its purchase by the Bingham family.

That included constructing a new building to house the larger hoist with its 500-horsepower motor. It was built directly behind the original block building.

The erection of the new hoist building itself had several delays because the contractor ran into groundwater at just 7 feet after starting excavation in July 2019.

“We were on hold for several months as we had to install two 500 gallon-per-minute dewatering wells,” Barta said. “We ran the wells for 30 days prior to starting the base of the hoist building foundation, which is nearly 20 feet below ground level.”

The COVID pandemic also interrupted the project and then caused supply chain problems.

The new hoist being in a different location caused the paths of the steel hoist ropes to change. So, a new steel headframe on the hoist tower installed just seven years ago had to be modified.

“We had to remove three of the original beams from the headframe we installed in 2015, and four new beams were installed in their place, allowing clearance for the new hoist ropes,” Barta explained.

The last day of operation for the mine’s original, manually-operated Nordberg production hoist was Aug. 18, Barta said.

“The hoist was officially placed in service June 23, 1923, with President Warren Harding and Kansas Governor Johnathan M. Davis on site to start operations to bring the first skip of salt to the surface,” he said. “The old hoist still utilized basswood brakes for stopping until the last day of operation.”

Besides altering the beam structure in the tower, new sheave wheel liners were installed to accommodate the larger hoist rope, which increased from a 1¼-inch thick steel cable to a 1 3/8-inch.

“The cable change was done to ensure the mine would have room to increase capacity over the next 100 years of operation,” Barta said.

Steel grating that was once in front of the top sheave wheel also had to be removed to create clearance for the path of the new hoist ropes.

New safety blocks designed for the thicker hoist ropes were also added and attached to aluminum skips used to haul up the salt.

The company replaced the original salt buckets used to haul up product since 1923, in 2017.

The skips alone, which are larger but also lighter because they’re made of aluminum and lined with high-density plastic, increased the plant’s production by 25%, Barta said.

Their installation required digging out the mine floor an additional 32-inches to accommodate their height.

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The new hoist system, manufactured by FKC Lake Shore, which also made the skips, is fully automated. The hoist operators now monitor the safety systems instead of manually pulling levers and applying the old wood brakes on each skip cycle as they had to do with the original Nordberg hoist.

Other projects accomplished since 2015, Barta said, included running new conveyors underground and upgrading the underground electrical system.

“We are on year seven of repairing the concrete mill buildings,” Barta said. “I hope to have all buildings completed by 2025. My next big project will be upgrading the mill processing system to handle the increased capacity of our new hoist.”The min

e operation just off Halstead Road and K-61 opened as the Carey Salt Mine in 1923. The Carey family sold the mine in 1969, and it changed hands several times before Larry Bingham, owner of Bingham Sand and Gravel, a Baxter Springs trucking company that hauled salt for the mine, purchased it in 1990 and renamed it Hutchinson Salt.

The family has now operated the mine for 32 years.