"There was a big cistern there that would hold half a million gallons of water. They pumped day and night with mules and negroes going all the time. Vann owned 100 negro slaves and he had 150 at work cutting wood and feeding the fires in the furnaces under the salt kettles. The water was piped from the cistern to the kettles where it was cooked down to a certain stage and then with a hose it was piped to large evaporators on a lower level where the cooking continued until only the salt was left. Then the negroes would get in the evaporators and shovel the salt out to the salt house.

"Wagons would be waiting to haul it off. They came from everywhere. Much of the salt was hauled to Fort Smith in wagons drawn by six oxen to each. I remember one trip my father made to Fort Smith with ten wagon loads of salt. It took four days to make the round trip as the oxen could make only about 25 miles per day.

"The Creeks came to our salt works and bought salt from my father and they always paid in gold they carried in sacks. They usually had a supply of money to buy salt with after a payment. They would come for a long distance to buy salt and I used to hear them telling about coming from Little River. They would sell the salt in their country. They were funny looking people and came to our salt works driving four ox-teams to a wagon. They seldom drove horses or mules. But they drove the prettiest oxen I ever saw, gentle as dogs. My father charged one dollar per bushel for the salt on the ground. He would collect a flour sack full of gold dollars that were about the size of a dime. The people did not rob houses in those days and the sack of gold was left lying around the house. After they quit making salt at this salt works my brothers broke up the 150 kettles we owned there and sold the pieces to Mr. Joseph Sondheimer at Muskogee for old iron."