Salins

Salins owes its importance to the salt-bearing waters beneath the Jura. For centuries workers drew brine from underground wells and heated it in great pans until the water evaporated and salt crystallized. The saltworks required abundant fuel, tying the town's prosperity to the forests of Franche-Comté as well as its subterranean resources.

After the French conquest of 1674 the saltworks became a royal manufactory. In the eighteenth century demand for salt and pressure on nearby forests encouraged the creation of another works at Arc-et-Senans, close to the forest of Chaux. Designed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and begun in 1775, it received brine from Salins through a pipeline some twenty-one kilometres long. There the brine could be boiled close to its supply of firewood.