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Morton Salt
Morton Salt is an American food company producing salt for food, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use. Based in Chicago, the business is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt. It is a subsidiary of holding company Stone Canyon Industries Holdings, Inc.
The company began in Chicago, Illinois, in 1848 as a small sales agency, Richmond & Company, started by Alonzo Richmond as agents for Onondaga salt companies to sell their salt to the Midwest. In 1910, the business, which had by that time become both a manufacturer and a merchant of salt, was incorporated as the Morton Salt Company. In 1889, it was renamed after the owner, Joy Morton. Joy Morton started working for E. I. Wheeler in 1880, buying into the company for $10,000, with which he bought a fleet of lake boats to move salt west.
In 1896, Alfred Bevis founded the Bevis Rock Salt Company, building on the failed Lyons salt company in which he had previously invested and run. His daughter, Florence, married Charles Howard Longstreth, whom Bevis brought into both the Lyons and Bevis salt companies as an executive. Their son, Bevis Longstreth, became president and general manager on his return from service in World War I.
In 1919, Morton Salt acquired Bevis. About ten years later, Bevis Longstreth founded Thiokol Corporation. In 1969, the name "Morton-Norwich" came into use. Thiokol merged with Morton Salt in 1982 to form Morton-Thiokol. This merger was divested in 1989, following the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which was blamed on Morton-Thiokol products. Morton received the company's consumer chemical products divisions, while Thiokol retained only the space propulsion systems concern.
In 1924, Morton Salt contributed to a major public health intervention by introducing and nationally distributing iodized salt. Prior to this, iodine deficiency was a widespread problem, particularly in regions such as the Great Lakes, Appalachians, and Pacific Northwest, areas collectively known as the "goiter belt". In these regions, iodine-poor soils contributed to high rates of goiter and other iodine deficiency disorders, sometimes affecting up to 70% of children.
Morton owns the second-largest solar saline operation in North America, which it acquired in 1954, in Matthew Town, Inagua, The Bahamas.
Around 1958, the company realized that their salt was not living up to their slogan. A chemist, Richard A. Patton, was given the assignment to solve this problem. He invented a machine that would coat the salt with a byproduct of salt mining, magnesium oxide. Calcium silicate is now used instead for the same purpose. The same chemist developed a total of 27 patents, along with fellow chemists, that expanded Morton's commercialization of magnesium oxide.
In 1999, Morton Salt was acquired by the Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas Company, Inc. and operated as a division of that company along with the Canadian Salt Company, which Morton had acquired in 1954.
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Morton Salt
Morton Salt is an American food company producing salt for food, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use. Based in Chicago, the business is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt. It is a subsidiary of holding company Stone Canyon Industries Holdings, Inc.
The company began in Chicago, Illinois, in 1848 as a small sales agency, Richmond & Company, started by Alonzo Richmond as agents for Onondaga salt companies to sell their salt to the Midwest. In 1910, the business, which had by that time become both a manufacturer and a merchant of salt, was incorporated as the Morton Salt Company. In 1889, it was renamed after the owner, Joy Morton. Joy Morton started working for E. I. Wheeler in 1880, buying into the company for $10,000, with which he bought a fleet of lake boats to move salt west.
In 1896, Alfred Bevis founded the Bevis Rock Salt Company, building on the failed Lyons salt company in which he had previously invested and run. His daughter, Florence, married Charles Howard Longstreth, whom Bevis brought into both the Lyons and Bevis salt companies as an executive. Their son, Bevis Longstreth, became president and general manager on his return from service in World War I.
In 1919, Morton Salt acquired Bevis. About ten years later, Bevis Longstreth founded Thiokol Corporation. In 1969, the name "Morton-Norwich" came into use. Thiokol merged with Morton Salt in 1982 to form Morton-Thiokol. This merger was divested in 1989, following the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which was blamed on Morton-Thiokol products. Morton received the company's consumer chemical products divisions, while Thiokol retained only the space propulsion systems concern.
In 1924, Morton Salt contributed to a major public health intervention by introducing and nationally distributing iodized salt. Prior to this, iodine deficiency was a widespread problem, particularly in regions such as the Great Lakes, Appalachians, and Pacific Northwest, areas collectively known as the "goiter belt". In these regions, iodine-poor soils contributed to high rates of goiter and other iodine deficiency disorders, sometimes affecting up to 70% of children.
Morton owns the second-largest solar saline operation in North America, which it acquired in 1954, in Matthew Town, Inagua, The Bahamas.
Around 1958, the company realized that their salt was not living up to their slogan. A chemist, Richard A. Patton, was given the assignment to solve this problem. He invented a machine that would coat the salt with a byproduct of salt mining, magnesium oxide. Calcium silicate is now used instead for the same purpose. The same chemist developed a total of 27 patents, along with fellow chemists, that expanded Morton's commercialization of magnesium oxide.
In 1999, Morton Salt was acquired by the Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas Company, Inc. and operated as a division of that company along with the Canadian Salt Company, which Morton had acquired in 1954.
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