One of the most interesting enterprises around the region was the Buffalo Salt Works in the Smoke Creek Desert. It is so easy today to take many things for granted, but back in the early days of settlement of the mid-1850s, those hardy souls did not have that luxury.
First of all, it boggles my mind, how B.F. “Frank” Murphy and Marion “Comanche George” Lawrence discovered and claimed the salt marsh in the summer of 1864. For most of its existence Murphy was the main operator of the Buffalo Salt Works. Two types of salt was produced. The first being table salt that 99.8% pure. A lesser grade was sold to mining operators with a smelting plant that utilized the salt. The salt was obtained from wells, the brine pumped into vats, and left to dry. In 1888, it was reported that 200 tons of salt was produced annually.
As the salt works was located in a remote region, the documentation of its operations are some what sketchy. In the spring of 1871 Murphy advertised the entire operation for sale, including the nearby Sheepshead Station. It was reported that ill health forced the sale and the asking price at $1,000. The Washoe County Assessor for that same year placed a value of $4,050. Whatever the case may be, Murphy’s health quickly improved and that fall built a warehouse measuring 40 feet by 20 feet to store salt.
In 1910, Marguerite Heller Vassar, who grew up on a nearby homestead recalled, “Brine was pumped by a turbine and windmills into huge vats. When the water evaporated the snow white salt was left to dry in the shallow vats, then hauled to the mill. It was then ground into different grades by horses plodding around in a circle pulling the hopper endlessly. Some was sacked in burlap sacks or sold in blocks. The table salt went to the drying room and sacked in muslim bags.”
According to long time Smoke Creek resident Jack Bonham, the operation ceased during World War I.