When the supply of salt was shut off during the War of 1812, the people of the Conemaugh Valley resorted to finding and developing sources of salt for daily usage through salt wells, which eventually led to the naming of two towns, Salina and Saltsburg.
Not intending to write a book about the history of the salt industry in the Conemaugh Valley and throughout western Pennsylvania, William Dzombak, 83, of Latrobe took a smaller approach to informing readers of the area's history.
"I started with a pamphlet for the Saltsburg Historical Society, so they could sell it," Dzombak says. "I just kept finding more information, and a book became my result."
With the Conemaugh River running two miles east of present-day Saltsburg, salt wells were bored on the bank of the river, forming the Conemaugh Salt Works and resulting in the towns of Salina and Saltsburg.
"There was no production of salt in Saltsburg," Dzombak says. "The name came from the center of salt production in Salina and Tarentum."
According to the book, the Conemaugh Salt Works, the third-largest salt producer in America at the time, produced 500,000 barrels of salt annually as a result of brine from wells being evaporated over coal fires.
The salt industry was not restricted to Saltsburg and Salina; it migrated down the Kiski River into Leechburg and then down the Allegheny River, past Natrona and into Pittsburgh.
Although fierce competition caused the Conemaugh Salt Works to go under, a local history of the salt industry remains. "The early American salt industry emphasis on western Pennsylvania deserves recognition,"
Dzombak, a chemistry professor who taught for more than 30 years at Saint Vincent College, says. He believes that the older one gets, the more interesting history becomes.
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