Exploring Lansing’s layers: Salt Point series digs into local history with Donna Scott

For the past eight years, the Salt Point Speaker Series has been delivering valuable community conversations to Lansing residents about life in the town. 

The next presentation in the series, which will feature local historian Donna Scott, will be no different. The presentations typically take place on Saturdays, with Scott’s taking place June 7 from 10-11 a.m. at Salt Point Natural Area, 1 Salt Point Rd. Salt Point is a natural area with a storied past and stunning present. The area is part of the delta formed by the nearby Salmon Creek.

Scott’s presentation will touch on the geological and human history of the area, including stops for attendees to catch a glimpse of birds such as ospreys, orioles, warblers and others. The presentation is put on by the local organization Friends of Salt Point — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the restoration and care of the Salt Point Natural Area in Lansing.

Scott is a director of Friends of Salt Point and a member of Lansing Historical Association. A retired Cornell University employee, she has many interests, including the history of bicycles, old houses and salt production in Lansing and the state as a whole. Scott is also an officer in the Funeral Consumers Alliance of the Finger Lakes and a member of the Cayuga Bird Club.

“I start out by telling attendees how, about 450 or 500 million years ago, this whole place was covered with a shallow inland sea,” Scott said of her presentation on the area’s history. “And then over the eons, lots of beds of salt got deposited. Now around here, a good layer of salt is down about 2,000 feet. In 1891, people knew the salt was down there, and so they started to drill wells into it, and by pumping water down into a layer of salt, they could make brine. They pumped it back out, and then they could evaporate it and make really refined salt products.”

Scott said that that process of salt pumping and refining led to the creation of the International Salt Company, which merged with the Cayuga Salt Lake Company in 1904. 

After a couple more corporate transactions and moves, the at-the-time iteration of the company was absorbed by Cargill in 1997, eventually leading to the current salt mining operation on Cayuga Lake. Operations, products and procedures have all changed throughout the years, Scott said.

“As we walk around, I’ll probably be able to show people some bricks or some other stuff that has worked its way up through the soil that people could see,” she said. “It is all underneath there, but somehow a lot of trees and bushes got to grow. So, I just kind of give them that background of the history of the place that it once was: completely covered by many buildings in this big industrial company.”

Scott said that her talk is part of her effort to preserve and spread local history.

“I get excited about learning about various aspects of the history there,” she said. “It’s just neat to know about what geologists have found out about our whole area in general.”

Robert Rieger, president of Friends of Salt Point, said that Scott’s presentation is reflective of the organization’s mission and what Friends of Salt Point provides local residents.

“We’re hungry for knowledge,” Rieger said. “We are excited to share the history of Salt Point in all of its facets. Our group tries to focus on the site from three perspectives: to maintain the site as a natural area, to preserve the natural and industrial histories and to offer a recreational space for residents and visitors to Lansing.”

The wide-ranging list of topics covered in the speaker series also mirrors the myriad interests of the local community.

“We’ve had this whole range of topics, and what we try to do is appeal to a  wide range of people,” Rieger said. “We’ve even had hunting presentations there, as well. Harmful algal blooms are also always an issue. So, I mean, the goal, really, is to present the community with new perspectives on Salt Point.”

Lansing at Large appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com. Contact Eddie Velazquez at edvel37@gmail.com.