In September 1887, while trying to draw attention to his real estate ventures in what is now South Hutchinson and hoping to strike oil, Ben Blanchard drilled a well and instead found one of the richest veins of salt in the world. A September 28, 1887, newspaper account reported that after passing through an eight-inch vein of coal, the drill penetrated a vein of rock salt at a depth of nearly 500 feet and continued through more than twenty feet of it, confirming the well as a paying investment even if gas was not found. The salt was described as exceptionally pure, and its relatively shallow depth promised mining at low cost. Blanchard did not live to see the discovery pay dividends, as his real estate schemes caught up with him and he barely escaped his creditors. In 1888, the first salt processing plant was established, and more than 5,000 people witnessed the production of the first barrel of salt. By 1910, twenty-six different salt companies had been formed, and the salt industry became one of the leading employers and most important businesses in Reno County. In 1898, Joy Morton bought land in the northwest part of South Hutchinson and began building a new salt plant. Early Reno County salt works used large open grainer pans that boiled water from brine and left salt to be collected from the bottom. In 1907, large closed vacuum pans replaced the grainer pans, creating a more efficient process that used less energy and produced more uniform salt crystals. Those three pans, along with four additional vessels, remain part of production at the Morton Salt Facility two miles north of the site, and salt products from South Hutchinson are shipped by railroads and highways as far west as California and Hawaii, north to Wisconsin and Minnesota, and southwest into northern Mexico. Salt is commonly processed by pumping water into a shaft, drawing it out, and evaporating it to leave brine that can be turned into products including table salt.