Diamond Crystal Salt St. Clair Michigan

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Re: Diamond Crystal Salt St. Clair Michigan

by Mr Link » March 30, 2021, 12:05 pm

guest wrote:the diamond crystal plant now cargill use to get coal delivered by self unloaders but that ceased years ago now it goes to marysville and it is trucked to the plant as needed im sure the neighbours are happy with that
I read last night that Cargill installed a new natural gas burning boiler in 2015. So no more coal use at the plant. https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/ne ... /78024756/


Yes, pre-digital photography days were interesting. Not only did you have to wait to see your results, film was expensive enough that you didn't dare take to many duplicate shots. And I even had a non-SLR 35 mm camera for a while, so what you saw in the view finder, wasn't necessarily what the lens saw. Hope and pray you set the focus, aperture and speed just right. And find out in a week to a month, depending on how long you kept the film in the camera.

Re: Diamond Crystal Salt St. Clair Michigan

by Guest » March 30, 2021, 9:59 am

Attached are two images I have concerning this dock. The first is of the Calcite II tied up there from a slide dated 1992. The second is of the St. Clair unloading there at night from a slide dated 1995. Unfortunately, I used the wrong exposure settings on the nighttime St. Clair slide so it is not a very good shot of an uncommon visit by that ship. Does anyone else besides me remember the predigital days when you never really knew how your pictures would come out until you got them back from the developers?
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Re: Diamond Crystal Salt St. Clair Michigan

by guest » March 30, 2021, 8:55 am

the diamond crystal plant now cargill use to get coal delivered by self unloaders but that ceased years ago now it goes to marysville and it is trucked to the plant as needed im sure the neighbours are happy with that

Re: Diamond Crystal Salt St. Clair Michigan

by Mr Link » March 30, 2021, 12:13 am

It likely shipped salt by package freighter back in the days that salt was shipped in wooden barrels, but I don't think that it ever shipped salt in un-packaged bulk quantities. Keep in mind that the only salt mine in Michigan that uses traditional underground mining techniques is the Detroit Salt Mine. Cargill at St Clair and Hersey, Morton at Manistee and others use solution mining to bring brine to the surface for evaporation. So they don't produce near the volume of salt as underground mines do. Solution mining plants tend to cater to producing food grade salt, water softener salt and brine products for chemical manufacturing. The underground mines (Detroit, Windsor, Goderich, Cleveland, Fairport, etc) tend to cater to the high-volume de-icing (road salt) trade.

Here is an old steroscope card from St. Clair back in the day. https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/sea ... :sq87d5802

Re: Diamond Crystal Salt St. Clair Michigan

by Denny » March 29, 2021, 8:48 pm

In nearly 30 years of taking pictures in St. Clair and watching ships along the river there, I can honestly say that I don't ever recall any loadings taking place from that dock and facility. Unless I might have missed it, I don't recall ever seeing or hearing about the St. Clair docking there as well. As far as USS ships making deliveries there in the 1990s, I seem to recall seeing and photographing the Oglebay Norton boats making a few deliveries there. I can't recall right now which ones I photographed as I would have to look at my old 35mm shots sometime. Just a guess I think two were the Fred R. White Jr. and the Wolverine. Hope that this helps.

Diamond Crystal Salt St. Clair Michigan

by Guest » March 29, 2021, 4:36 pm

Did the Diamond Crystal salt company ever ship salt out by ship from their facility at St. Clair, Michigan? I know they did receive the occasional inbound shipment of coal up until at least the mid to late 1990s but even back in the 1970s, I don't recall ever seeing any ship loading equipment at this dock. It was a good spot to get pictures of ships unloading coal there. I do remember that the St. Clair docked there on at least once during the late 1990s but I believe it was there for repairs or some other reason rather than unloading. USS ships were the usual deliverers of coal to the plant during the 1990s.

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