According to our records the salt kettle was acquired by A. B. Sanford and James Harvey in October of 1935 for the Historical Society when the two visited pioneers in South Park and the San Luis Valley. It was purchased at a store in buena Vista and states that it was from the Salt Works, Colo. A note in Colorado Magazine from November of 1935 states that the kettle came from the old salt works in South Park. The article also notes that it was one of the original cast iron evaporating kettles used in South Park in the early 1860s in the manufacture of salt. The company name listed is Salt Works. A letter in the file from 1979 notes the Hayden Survey book from 1867 which lists the owners of the Salt Works as Rawlins & Hall, started by Mr. Rawlins in 1861.