Salt Wells

Salt Wells (Petersens)		We Visited: 3/27/03
39° 22' 31"N, 118° 34' 55"W - LAHONTAN MTS quad		Directions: Highway 50E from Fallon 15 miles From Fallon: 15 miles



What Was A stage stop and- about 1.3 miles SE- the Borax Works. In the 1870's borax was mined and processed in the area a mile or so SE of Salt Wells. There are three sites, spaced roughly 1 mile apart. Paher mentions Salt Wells only in passing, that it was a stage stop on the Fallon-Fairview run back in 1906 Post Office: none Newspaper: None
What is If you've come expecting to find spectacular ruins you're going to be disappointed. There probably wan't much here to begin with. The landscape is bleak, flat, and in the summer I imagine it's quite dreadfully warm. The soil- if you want to call it that- off the road is soft and crunchy, and there are remnants of borax mining activity all around- bits and pieces of corroded metal, glass, and wood. Directly behind the present facility there is a large dump area, which we did not take the time to explore.


This, I believe, is the remains of the ramp for unloading the borax from the wagons for procesing.	The Big Top Restaurant at Salt Wells in 1963, back when you could tell your wife you stopped there for some refreshment without getting beat senseless with a rolling pin. This image is © Mary Walker Foster and I admit borrowing it from MICHON MACKEDON'S Project Shoal: Anatomy of a Nuclear Event	The remains of the pan used to heat the borax solution.
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