Strataca - Hutchinson, Kansas Kansas Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson, Kansas is unique in the western hemisphere. Although there are some similar salt mine museums in Europe, there are none in the Americas and there are just 15 active salt mines in the United States. In the years since its opening, the museum changed the name to "Strataca" for subterranean adventure. The staff of Strataca Underground Salt Museum strongly recommend reserving your tour in advance, but don't arrive too early for your tour, as there isn't much to do while waiting for the tour to start. The tour begins with a brief safety video. Everyone on the tour entering the mine has to wear a white hard hat. The museum staff have different color hard hats. The museum visitors don safety gear, board a crowded, double decked elevator and ride down 650 feet in the dark - "because that is the way the miners do it." There is a guide in each car of the elevator and they will leave the elevator lights on if anyone in the group has trouble with the 90 second ride. Although there are long sight lines in the caverns when lighted, Strataca Underground Salt Museum probably isn't a place for the claustrophobic. The elevator is noisy and dark and there are places during the tour where you see the very floor pushed up several feet by the weight of the mine's support pillars. Not that I felt uncomfortable at any point during my visit to Strataca. The salt mine is still in operation. The Hutchinson Salt Company's elevator leading down to the mine is a few hundred yards away. A new shaft was made for the museum at a cost of $6 million. The expense was shared with the third business operating in the mine - Underground Vaults & Storage. When the elevator car arrives at the mine level, you receive a brief welcome to the Permian Sea, than everyone is free to do things at their own pace. There are salt mining galleries and an interesting large display of movie memorabilia from Underground Vaults & Storage, a company which uses portions of the mine as secure storage. The admission price went up in 2017m but now includes two rides which were an additional fee in the past: The Dark Ride and Train Ride. The 40 minute guided "dark ride" is a tour conducted on a tram. There are frequent stops to point out formations, exhibits and abandoned equipment. Since everything brought into the mine is left in the mine (No sense going to the time or expense of bringing it back up), the mine is a bit of a time capsule. Near the end of the dark ride, there is a stop where everyone is allowed to get off the tram, sort through a pile of rock from the active salt mine and select a rock to take home as a souvenir of their visit to the Underground Salt Museum. The newest ride is the one hour Safari Shuttle which goes into areas of the mine which were previously inaccessible to the public. The minimum age is 8 years old and the Shuttle costs an additional $12.50.
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Discovery Well
Strataca
Underground Salt Museum web site
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