Our Company began as a mining and manufacturing company with a salt mine in Hockley, Texas. The company obtained its original right to mine salt in 1929, and began commercial production of salt in the early 1930’s. The Hockley Salt Dome was discovered after large quantities of oil were struck at the Spindletop Salt Dome south of Beaumont, Texas. Patillo Higgins committed the resources of his exploration and production company to explore similar surface indications to Spindletop and drilled six wells in the Hockley area. In 1906, one of Higgins’ six wells encountered salt, discovering what is now known as the Hockley Salt Dome. Today, the mine and its processing facilities are owned and operated by United Salt Hockley, LLC, a private company that mines and manufactures rock salt products solely for USC and USC’s Customers.

In 1962, our Company later acquired a Solar Salt Facility in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Today, United Salt Carlsbad, LLC harvests Solar Salt from a 2,000+ acre salt lake bed. The sun and wind evaporate the water from the brine producing a high purity salt. United Salt Carlsbad, LLC then carefully washes and screens the Solar Salt before it is packaged into a variety of our Solar Salt products, including solar crystals, agricultural blocks and compacted pellets.

USC opened our Baytown, Texas Evaporated Salt Plant in 1999 to replace the existing evaporated plant at Blue Ridge. The Baytown Evaporated Salt Plant utilizes the mechanical vapor recompression evaporation process to produce Evaporated Salt. Today, United Salt Baytown, LLC owns and operates this facility to produce our food grade salt in round cans and bags, water-softening pellets, and swimming pool salt.

We acquired an additional Evaporated Salt Plant in Saltville, Virginia in 2007, which also utilizes the mechanical vapor recompression process to produce evaporated salt. A modern packaging and warehouse facility were constructed and United Salt Saltville, LLC now manufactures our food grade and swimming pool salt. Customer orders ship directly from these manufacturer’s warehouses to minimize transportation costs for our customers.