saltpeter

"Saltpeter" is a word  I mainly run across in crossword puzzles and, occasionally, older novels. It's hard for me to think of it as anything but some special kind of salt, but I associate it also with military expeditions. Maybe an explosive. In the puzzle I was doing this morning, its meaning was revealed to be "niter." Not too useful, since I don't know what niter is either. It's high time I found the answer to this mystery.

                                                                    image by Walkerma

"Saltpeter" (sometimes spelled saltpetre) and "niter" are just other names for potassium nitrate (KNO3.). According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word saltpeter goes back through French to the Latin sal petrae, "salt of the rock," apparently because it looks like salt when it is encrusted on stone.

                              by Bobamnertiopsis

I was surprised to learn how many different ways we use this substance. According to Wikipedia, it's used in fireworks and rocket propellant, but it's also used in processed meats, extending shelf life and giving the meat a pink color. It's used to remove tree stumps. I'm not quite sure why it speeds decay when poured into a stump, but prolongs shelf life when processing meat, but that's what they tell me.

Turner Army Airfield Mess Hall, 1943

As I looked up the word, I came across many articles questioning whether saltpeter was put into army grub in order to dampen sexual desire in the new recruits. There is a fascinating article in Snopes that debunks this myth, while at the same time explaining why it is unlikely to die. Apparently it is quite common for soldiers attending boot camp to experience a dampening effect on their sexual desires. Rather than attribute it to some of the more logical reasons, like exhaustion and fear, the rumor that makes the rounds is that their meals have been doctored with saltpeter.

This need to believe that an outside force is deliberately working to keep things down fuels the saltpeter myth. Such a construct works to reassure the woodless recruit that there’s nothing wrong with him — it’s all the sneaky doings of those in charge. The myth is every bit as empowering as it is reassuring; it says “We are such rampantly virile men that those in command fear us and what we might do if left unchecked.” It thus works to build pride in the unit by helping to establish an internalized reputation for being such wild men that the group as a whole has to be drugged into docility if its commanders are to have any hope of keeping it under control.

So, although Snopes has fact checked this, as have others, such an ultimately comforting belief is not likely to succumb to the truth any time soon. 

Still another important use for saltpeter was in the manufacture of gunpowder, which was formed by mixing saltpeter with charcoal and sulfur. Much to my surprise, it turns out that gunpowder plays a key role in the history of Santa Cruz, California, the town I live in. According to Wikipedia, the West began to experience shortages of gunpowder after the Civil War led to the disruption of supply lines. So in 1861, California Powder Works was incorporated and became the first American explosive powder company west of the Mississippi. 

The powder works was about three miles up the San Lorenzo river from the city of Santa Cruz itself. But the mailing address on the poster here is a location not at all far from me here on the west side. Apparently they imported crude potassium nitrate from Chile and manufactured gunpowder from it here. (This gets a little confusing, as there is also something specifically called Chilean saltpeter, which is actually nitratine, or sodium nitrate. So I am not entirely sure which form of nitrate they were using, but it's still some form of saltpeter.) 

This company was here in the Santa Cruz area for fifty years, was a major employer and provided company housing and even a school for a time. But I'd never heard of it. Nor had I heard of the disaster at the Powder Works on April 26, 1898, when the town was rocked by a series of explosions that killed 13 men at the site and injured many more. (Although this was after the Powder Works had stopped making gunpowder from saltpeter and moved on to the smokeless powder common today.) 

California Powder Works eventually became a subsidiary of Dupont, which after the completion of the Panama Canal, ended operations in Santa Cruz and consolidated their business in New Jersey. There is not much evidence left of the old Powder Works, as the mills were dismantled and the mansions of the superintendents were razed in the thirties. But the California Powder Works covered bridge still stands, luckily maintained by the Masons, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2015. Maybe some day, I'll even manage to get up to Paradise Park to see it. (Although I think I might still have to ask the Masons for permission.) 

California Powder Works Bridge