Up today is a Wire Photo from the Associated Press dated February 20, 1954. This one bears a stamp on the back from the “Reference Department – Detroit Times”.
The caption reads:
Water area in the foreground shows where buildings of Canadian Industries Ltd., are sinking after collapse of an old salt mine 1,000 feet below the surface. Slow sinking of buildings continues today. Detroit can be seen in background beyond the Detroit River. (see wire story)
This photo was taken in the area north east of Prospect and Sandwich Street in the far west end. It’s amazing to see what a sprawling complex was once located there.
my dad always told me about buildings that collapsed here whenever we would pass the site, now I know what he was talking about, thanks again for your wonderful site!!
That’s where the new bridge is going. Hmmmmm.
Great find.
What exactly was Canadian Industries, I can recall my mother telling me of a steel mill in Ojibway that was built and ended up sinking which in turn bankrupted the company and put the Kibash on any future development in the area.
Most building are gone now. On the top left you can see the rail cars and the load out shed of Canadian Fine Salt Plant. Still producing table salt under the Morton Salt Brand. In the back ground where you see the “Laker” moored, that warehouse still stands and is owned by Coco Paving. All the buildings in the middle are gone, interestingly there is an old cement bridge, still there, just before the gravel road, that was used to access the property. The bridge will be constructed closer to the power plants in Brighton Beach Area. But if I remember right, a second bridge was to be built in Amherstburg and around 1929 moorings were built, ceremonies held but due to the economy at that time the construction was halted. Sounding like a familiar story. The steel mill was in ojibway across from the Windsor Raceway. It was located behind the Ceramic factory that has recently torn down and the land put up for sale. Old rail tracks lead to the old steel mill but they are hidden by the overgrowth now. Great Blog.
Does anyone know where the entrances to the salt mine(s) are now? I’ve been looking at the area on Google maps.
How long after this did the far west tip beach at Point Pelee collapse trapping several cars because of erosion.I am always looking for pictures from that day.I always wonder if the two were connected by some fault on the shoreline.
When the glacier covering the Great Lakes advanced and then withdrew more than 10,000 years ago, in most places it bulldozed the soil evenly, but in the Ojibway area it left potholes. These were big enough to swallow a house. Clay in the glacier runoff filled the holes. As time passed the clay dried and became firm. But it is a kind of clay when mixed with water, becomes a liquid suspension. Think quicksand. The plant was built over one of these potholes and sank when the watertable changed and seeped into the pothole, destabilizing the soil. All construction in the area, such as at the city’s sewage treatment plant, and the proposed new bridge now, is proceeded by extensive soil testing to avoid another pothole.
Shawn – we’ve got one entrance at prospect ave, and one at the end of morton drive.
if you want to google search the map type in “canadian salt company”. long ago (and i think most of us already know this)there was a canadian salt company mine at crawford and riverside drive; where the CBC station now stands…and sinkholes are the reason the fence was put up around that property. nice to know that these mines spred thru-out the city and under the river to detroit. i met and older gentleman who used to be the guy blasting out tunnels down there; he sure had some good stories.
Mike K – i would imagine canadian industries is/was just another name for the salt mine. i don’t know for sure, but i don’t think the steel mill sank. i’m pretty sure it’s covered somewhere’s in here that the blast furnaces were built, but the great depression is what killed it, and the company town of Ojibway. the blast furnaces still stood buy themselves till at least the late 50’s.
i’m not sure if it’s the same thing you said Heywood, but it does seem that pretty much everything to the left of the smokestack ON the left, including the loading shed and the long triangular shaped building are still there. there are two buildings on the CoCo site, one is an old brick building with it’s west wall missing, and the other is a wearhouse but it’s not really close to the river….is that the one you’re talking about?
Andrew – do you know if anyone was killed when this happened? it couldn’t have happened too slow or ETR would’ve pulled those railcars out.
The rail cars you see are what is left of the cars we spotted the day before. believe we lost about six rail cars in the sink hole. The land started sinking through the night, to my recollection no lives were lost. The train crew was sent down the next day and pulled the cars from the south side of the sink hole. I terms of the Health and Safety issue now, our crews probably would not have done that. But what the heck asbestos was OK then too. A portion of the property with the sink hole, in front of Canadian Fine Salt Co., and the Van De Hogan property is owned by the Bridge Company. Poor Mr. Maroun didn’t buy enough property to stop the expansion. The buildings that still stand are the Warehouse Dock at Coco and the partially sunk building along the fence line at the forefront of the picture. Of course Canadian Salt company, which produces table salt for Windsor Salt Brand not Morton, as I said earlier, and the docks behind the salt company as well. Morton Salt was a few, well a lot of years earlier. A one point Essex Terminal Railway, Canadian Rock Salt Mine, and the Canadian Fine Salt company were all owned by one parent company. Morton-Thickadol, sorry about the spelling of thickadolI I am not sure of the correct spelling, but after that rocket booster thing with the space shuttle well they needed to downsize a little.
thanks Heywood! i wonder if that’s why the wall on the brick building is missing.
did or do you work for the ETR? i have always had a love for that line since i grew up at elsmere and hanna, right next to the old wearhouse/factory spur serving kelsey-hayes and the like. that’s what sparked my interest in trains, when that line was torn out i was very sad.
i still remember them spotting cars at the windsor medical center, and finding incredibly old ties (c. 1912 i think) just north of the ROW sparating hanna and gigiac park…..that’s when my interest in history started.
if you do or did work for them, do you know how i can go about finding old track plans, or customers served…better yet….old photos? some kind of company archive prehaps?
i’ve read the history at the ETR site, and the “historical map” doesn’t help except for telling me there are multipule maps that go with the one on line.
i plan on modeling as much of the line as i can and without these materials i’m stuck to what i can see in the terms of scars in the earth on google maps where ROW’s used to be.
i’m happy to be working where i am now because i get to see the ETR everyday again switching and spotting cars around ADM. i think it was engine 108 just finished up at the ojibway yard and crossed ojibway parkway headed home.
if you could help me out with that info i would greatly appreciate it!
oops….sorry for the rant everyone. way off topic!
Aaron, start here http://www.shepleyrail.com/phpBB3/
Aaron,
Yes to all the above. but I must defer to a “good friend” of mine, now if he will chime in here, you will be in for a treat.
You lived by what we called the’ factory branch’. Back in the day there were coal yards all down that branch. Once Auto Spec, Chrysler, Kelsey Hayes and LA Young left town we lifted the rail and sold the property.
john, haywood….you guys rock! thanks a bunch!!!
is it Mr. Droulliard we’re waiting for here? lol i figured it would either be john or bernie.
i have to say, i wasn’t happy watching houses being built on the ROW. it just ment the train was never coming back. but as a rule of thumb i suppose, once rails are lifted they never return.
i remember the whole east side of langlois street between hanna and techumseh being lumpy, empty feilds. only to find out a spur cut right thru the middle of that block and it was all industry! and my car is currently parked a foot away from the roadbed that used to head to the brighton beach plant. i can’t help imagining ol’ #9 chuffing along the property here…which by the way was a special treat to go for a ride on. loved the look on everyones face as we came around the bend and crossed crawford!.
Andrew – can we do a post on the ETR?? if there’s one longtime windsor buisness……
Heywood, history will live on because of our curiosity and love of learning about things. Yardmaster, Moe told us the story regarding this event and look at all the people leaning about the roll the E.T.R. played in this 55 years later. Sure glad I was able to ask him his description of this part of history.
Yes this is where our Government wants to build a bridge sink holes & all.
I don’t know who is the worst enemy in Canada the Government or the CAW Union.
In Canada the Government & the Union both steal you blind.
Where the cave in happened was closer to the raceway , the land on brighton beach has been extensively drilled and tested over a couple year period before the new power plant was built but also again when the feds were looking for a new bridge site . The enviromental studies all passed .
The Cave ins were attributed to unmapped abandoned Salt Brime wells.Glaciers my ass!
A couple of years after this picture was taken a friend and I went searching for the buildings that sunk into the ground at the salt mine. We found one that was still standing but on quite a tilt. We went inside and the floor gave way beneath me. I rode the big chunk of floor to the level below. As I passed through the hole, I scrapped my arms which I was holding above my head. The skin was scrapped and bloody and looked quite nasty. I had a difficult time explaining the injuries to my mom.
Nice website.
Cheers!
I well remember the day of the sinking—a Sunday—and my family even drove down to see it (we were west-enders). According to the newspaper report the next day, there was great concern for public safety regarding the two tanks, seen at lower right in the photo. They were full of chlorine gas. Nothing happened, though.
I am making a documentary on the Windsor Hum. I need a map of the salt mines. I also need to interview someone who worked in the mines. Right now — the authorities are saying the sound is airborne…which may be true..but I also need to cover the salt mines as part of the story. Any hep would be appreciated thanks ! adam.makarenko [at] gmail.com
Is the Windsor Hum still going on?
I haven’t heard it in years.
I was watching the video of a sinkhole that was doubling in size down in a bayou of Louisiana and it got me to thinking about our Detroit Salt Mine just across and down the river from the site pictured above. The Louisiana sinkhole is being blamed on a salt mining operation near where the sink hole is.
I know the Detroit Salt mine goes under about 5 cities and my house sits in one of those cities. This mine is in operation after have been dormant for a few decades. At one point before it reopened there was talk of storing medical and radioactive waste there; kind of makes you wonder if the Windsor Hum might not originate from this site.
Shawn M, I haven’t heard it at all.