Salt Mine Collapse

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• 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.