Good point, Danny. The extensive saltworks, with expensive kettles etc., were along the river because they needed river transportation of salt to make it profitable. There were other salines and saltworks but they were very small scale since they were not near a river. Sequoyah's saltwork north of Salisaw is a case in point. It generated some income for Sequoyah (the saltworks were a gift from the Cherokee Nation as thanks for development of the Cherokee syllabary) but it was not profitable enough for major investment because it cost too much to move the salt by wagon to get it to the river. (Triva for the Day: Sequoyah died in Mexico in the late 1840s. His gravesite has never been found.)

I also remembered that when Watie, with half his regiment, moved (beginning Dec. 2, 1862) from Webbers Falls to Evansville AR and up the Arkansas border during the Prairie Grove campaign, he had no wagons with him (per Lt Col R.C. Parks). I don't think Watie visited the saltworks he was ordered to get the kettles from -- he returned via Dwight Mission to Webbers Falls -- and Parks made a scout through Park Hill/Tahlequah and over to the Grand and back south to Webbers Falls but makes no mention of the saltworks or kettles (he only had about 50 men with servicable mounts).

They could have dumped them in the river if they didn't have means to float them down. There were a large number of kettles so if they were moved by wagon, it would take a lot of wagons to move them all.