Salt Flat is an unincorporated community

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 in northeastern Hudspeth County

Hudspeth County, Texas

Hudspeth County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is one of the nine counties that comprise the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas. As of 2000, the population was 3,344. By 2010, the population had increased to 3,476. Its county seat is Sierra Blanca. The largest city is Fort Hancock...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It lies along the concurrent

Concurrency (road)

A concurrency, overlap, or coincidence in a road network is an instance of one physical road bearing two or more different highway, motorway, or other route numbers...

 U.S. Routes 62

U.S. Route 62

U.S. Route 62 runs from the US-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas to Niagara Falls, New York, near the United States-Canada border. It is the only east-west US Route that connects Mexico and Canada.Parts of U.S...

 and 180

U.S. Route 180

U.S. Route 180 is an east–west United States highway. Like many three-digit routes, US 180 no longer meets its "parent", US 80. US 80 was decommissioned west of Mesquite, Texas, and was replaced in Texas by Interstate 20 and Interstate 10. The highway's eastern terminus is in Hudson Oaks,...

 north of the CDP

Census-designated place

A census-designated place is a concentration of population identified by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes. CDPs are delineated for each decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places such as cities, towns and villages...

 of Sierra Blanca

Sierra Blanca, Texas

Sierra Blanca is a census-designated place in and the county seat of Hudspeth County, Texas, United States. The population was 533 at the 2000 census, and had decreased to 510 according to a July 2007 estimate....

, the county seat

County seat

A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....

 of Hudspeth County. Its elevation is 3,730 feet (1,137 m). Although Salt Flat is unincorporated, it has a post office

Post office

A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...

, with the ZIP code

ZIP Code

ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

 of 79847. Headquarters of the nearby Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is located in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas and contains Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas at in elevation. It also contains El Capitan, long used as a landmark by people traveling along the old route later followed by the Butterfield Overland...

 use this ZIP Code although located closer to Pine Springs

Pine Springs, Texas

Pine Springs is an unincorporated community in northern Culberson County, Texas, United States. It is the closest settlement to the headquarters of Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which contains Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in the state of Texas. Pine Springs is located on U.S. Routes 62...

, which has no post office.

Salt Deposits

Just outside of the community there is a dry salt pan

Salt pan (geology)

Natural salt pans are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the sun. They are found in deserts, and should not be confused with salt evaporation ponds.A salt pan is formed where water pools...

. The San Elizario Salt War

San Elizario Salt War

The San Elizario Salt War, also known as the Salinero Revolt or the El Paso Salt War, was an extended and complex political, social and military conflict over ownership and control of immense salt lakes at the base of the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas...

 was a dispute over ownership and access to these salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

deposits.

External links

• Kohout, Martin Donell. "Salt Flat, TX". Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/hns6.html (accessed October 10, 2008).
• Guadalupe Mountains NP (Official Site), http://www.nps.gov/gumo/index.htm (accessed October 15, 2009).