The Salt Shed

About this audio guide

This guide to The Salt Shed in Chicago starts with the Umbrella Girl, the Morton Salt sign that has topped this riverside warehouse since 1929, and traces salt's long history as a substance loaded with superstition, from Roman blessings to the toppled salt cellar beside Judas in Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. It describes how the building's reinforced concrete was engineered to hold twenty-ton mountains of salt, and how the company's 2015 departure left the shed empty for two years. Look up at the sign before you head inside.