One-shot #9: Procuring Salt in Ithaca, NY

It is no secret that I love industrial scenes – looking at them, traipsing about them, photographing them. It’s probably less well-know that I’m a huge fan of the small city in Upstate New York where I finished my undergraduate studies – Ithaca, a little liberal mecca in the midst of the bucolic Finger Lakes region in the middle of the state. So when I come across information on a large industrial operation that once operated in my haunt of four years, and of which I’ve never heard, I’m intrigued. And when I see a $4 eBay stereoview like this Keystone card…

…which features an industrial site that I’ve never even heard of, I’m sold. Or rather, the card is sold – to me. I had (and have) no idea which of Keystone View Company’s many sets this card was #42 in – more than likely, one of their many “Tour of the World” series. One thing’s just about certain with KVC – their cards almost always have descriptive text on the back of it. So not only would I get a new stereoview for my “random stuff that interests me” box, but I’d find out about a presumably-lost part of the city’s history.

So in however many days Free Shipping takes to deliver a stereoview, I get something in the post, open it up, and remember that I’d even bought the card. At which point I pop it into a scope and take a look – and I’m blown away. This is a really great use of stereo, in a wonderfully lit industrial scene! What more could an easily-excited industrial archaeologist dream of? Eager to find out more, I flipped the card over to find…

…nothing. Or at least, nothing whatsoever about the picture, besides a vague description that could equally well apply to a salt evaporating facility in Salt Lake City, Kalamazoo, or Kazakhstan, as well as information that might be of interest to a child about what salt actually is. Thanks, Keystone. A quick web search gave me some basic information on various salt mining and production companies in Ithaca (and moreso in nearby Lansing), but exactly sod all regarding this particular plant – which makes sense, because it’s a relatively anonymous-looking industrial plant.

But at the end of the day, I’ve no reason to be upset – for less than the price of a Brooklyn bodega sandwich, I got a really lovely stereoview that I’ve looked at a number of times since. I might not know exactly what I’m looking at, but I know that I like looking at it. That’s enough, really – I mightn’t have bought the view had it stated that it was about procuring salt in Kazakhstan, but I’d have been missing out on a really wicked image. Context is great, but not absolutely necessary. And I did, in fact, learn something – salt as currency in Tibet? Far out!

Anaglyph