GRAND SALINE, Texas (KLTV) – An East Texas city has a salty story that’s like no other. Grand Saline has been home to the Salt Palace since 1936. It’s built using locally-produced salt blocks.

That kind of construction doesn’t last forever. It was rebuilt in 1960, 1975, and 1993. It’s undergoing another renovation right now.

This will be the third time they are replacing the salt walls at the Salt Palace Museum. Tomasa King is a docent for the museum and says the walls last between 11 and 15 years.

“Once it starts melting, the mortar is outside more and the salt is in and then it starts developing holes in different places. We don’t want it to fall down on its own, we don’t want any of that to happen, so we go ahead and just replace it or take it down.”

The city spent Monday chipping away at the old salt.

“They take a big sledge hammer and they hit it and they pull all the stones off. That pile of stones you saw, they pull all those stones off and then they’ll clear those out of here. And then they will put the new salt back on. Like a stone guy, how you put stones on a house, that’s how he’ll do it.”

King says their salt is 98.5 percent pure salt; some of the purest salt in the world. They also mine Morton Salt.

“If you look on the bottom of your Morton Salt can and it says GS that means it came from Grand Saline mine.”

Because the salt is so pure, they’re able to do medical salts and things like saline solutions.

The museum is closed to the public until the new salt gets up and some repairs are done around the museum. King expects the closure to go through January 1.

Written by Erin Wides