LYONS, Kan. — The City of Lyons hosted a park dedication this morning at the corner of East Avenue South and West Commercial for Salt Miners Park, the home of the World’s Largest Saltshaker.
Tanner Faust, the City of Lyons Assistant City Administrator and Community Development Coordinator gave the introduction at the ceremony.
The World’s Largest Saltshaker was one of the first projects Faust worked on when he started at the City of Lyons in the beginning of 2024.
“At first I thought it was an intimidating endeavor, but it has led to one of the most incredible examples of creativity in rural America,” Faust said. “It doesn’t take long to recognize the great impact that salt mining has and continues to make on Lyons.”
Faust said Lyons is proud to have two great salt companies: Lyons Salt Company and Compass Minerals.
“This monument and park serve as a reminder of our profound gratitude for the history of salt mining in our community,” Faust concluded.
City of Lyons Mayor Alicia Hommon shared her thoughts on the project and provided further details on how it came about.
Hommon said it all started when she asked the community to answer the following question: “Who are we as a community?”
She said only about 20 percent of the people she asked gave her an answer. She mostly got responses that reflected on Lyons from its heyday in the 60s and 70s. She was trying to find something that would be a good representation of Lyons today as well as Lyons in the past.
She rephrased the question to “What is special about Lyons?” That brought her to asking herself what is something the city has had since the beginning?
“I very quickly found that the salt mines were what we’ve had since the beginning,” Hommon said. “Even down to when the Santa Fe Trails came this direction. It came this direction because they were following animal trails. The animals followed water and salt. So even back to the Santa Fe Trails this was why we were here.”
Hommon said she will never forget the look on Lyons City Administrator’s face when she walked into his office with the idea of building the World’s Largest Saltshaker.
“His face kind of fell,” she said. He asked her how big the current largest saltshaker was at the time, to which Hommon answered that it was the size of a trash can. They planned to not only beat that size but wanted a saltshaker the size of a building.
A lot of research went into the project and Hommon said the city was able to partner with “an incredible artist and incredible community.”
The salt mural behind the saltshaker was a project started by Hommon and the former Executive Director of the Rice County Community Foundation, Karly Frederick.
The two got together and thought the space needed to have some color if it was going to be a park.
“Karly is largely responsible for this beautiful backdrop that we have today,” Hommon added, referring to the salt mural behind her. Together, the two also built the grant for the saltshaker.
“I’m so thankful as Karly has moved on to a different opportunity in her life as I have moved on to a different opportunity, that we have people to come up behind us who can also take up that torch and love our community like we do,” Hommon said.
Hommon thanked the current RCCF Executive Director Joy McBee for also seeing the project through along with Tanner Faust.
She also thanked City Parks and Grounds Superintendent Matt Detmer.
“I look forward to what the future is,” Hommon said. “I know Matt has dreams for how to grow and develop this park and other opportunities in the community, and I know we have lots of dreams economically for how to utilize this resource as a way to bring people into our community and tax dollars into our community that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.”
Donors to the saltshaker project (mural donors included)
- Lyons Endowment Association
- The Lyons Chamber of Commerce
- Lyons Salt Company and Compass Minerals (Project and Mural donation)
- Southern Star (Donated Solar Bench)
- Lyons Rotary Club (Little Free Library)
- Luke Fawl and Crystal Fawl (Donated Property)
- Brickmob (Built Mural)
- Stewart Miller (Gave permission to utilize their building for mural)
- Miles Morton (builder of saltshaker and mastermind behind it)
- Mike Knowles (helped Morton)
- EBH Engineering (helped make sure saltshaker was built safely)
- Kansas Tourism (Attraction and Development Grant for the saltshaker project)
- Kansas Arts Commission National Endowment for Arts Grant (Mural project)
- Lyons Parks Department led by Matt Detmer (Labor and Landscaping)
“This was built on a lot that pretty much nothing could be done on,” Hommon pointed out. “And so now we have something beautiful to look at, something for people to come and see.”
The Gathering Place in Lyons is another example where something “derelict” was brought to life according to Hommon. The Gathering Place is having its grand opening tonight at 7 PM.
“I’m really excited for what the future of Lyons is with the work that we started here,” Hommon said.
