The people of Hutchinson, Kansas, have been laboring for years to turn a salt mine into a must-visit tourist attraction. Beginning on May 1, 2007, their considerable effort and outlay -- upwards of $13 million -- will be put to the test with the opening of the Kansas Underground Salt Museum.

Hutchison sits atop the richest vein of salt in the U.S. -- 400 feet thick in places -- which extends all the way into Oklahoma, Texas, and even New Mexico. The Museum occupies only a fraction of the mine's vast network of underground galleries, yet even this subset would reportedly stretch 67 miles if laid end-to-end.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be sealed inside a giant, solid block of salt, hundreds of feet below the Kansas prairie, you really should go here.

This is also still a working mine, as well as an immense storage facility. Large corporations take advantage of its mild, unvarying temperature and humidity to archive warehouses full of records. Hollywood, too, uses it to store prints of its more valuable films. These activities are in remote galleries, far from the museum tour, and motion detectors -- a budget item in that $13 million -- will alert guards to anyone who strays into off-limits areas. People will also be prevented from, say, walking to New Mexico, or from sneaking off to find and conquer the Mole People or the Morlocks.

"You can totally get lost in there," says Jessica Miller, a spokeswoman for the Museum's PR firm who has already toured the Museum.

Visitors will travel 65 stories down in a pitch black elevator, a 90-second trip that Jessica concedes is the "most uncomfortable" part of the two-hour tour. Once below, they will be free to walk around in a lit area that will have exhibits, a gift shop, and a snack bar, all blasted out of the salt block, and all of which are slated for completion by the end of the year.

The heart of the tour is "The Dark Ride," a tram that weaves among the pillars of salt that support the ceilings of the sprawling adjacent galleries, lit only by its headlights and whatever flashlights are on hand (Fantastic Caverns in Springfield, Missouri, has a similar "ride-thru" tour). "It's not tunnels like you might expect," says Jessica. "It has high ceilings, not like a coal mine." Photos make it look like a giant, empty parking garage made of salt. With the lights off, however, the effect should be eerie and memorable.

The Museum's above-ground visitor's center is still under construction, and the Museum stresses that what people will see beginning May 1 are "preview tours," with the official opening not scheduled until early 2008. Still, we applaud the effort to get people down into the salt mine as quickly as possible, if only to show that it's not at all like the dreary workplaces to which salt mines are frequently compared. "It is beautiful, amazing, breathtaking," says Jessica, "It's nothing like any other museum anywhere." [03/11/2007]

November 26, 2009