The Great Salt Lake

The following is quoted from Richard H. Jackson. The Utah History Encyclopedia online (University of Utah Press) is a great resource on the Great Salt Lake and many other historic sites in Utah. Check it out.

"The Great Salt Lake is both the largest body of water between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Ocean and the largest salt lake in the western hemisphere. The Great Salt Lake is the major remnant of Lake Bonneville, a large freshwater lake of the Pleistocene era (75,000-7,250 B.C.) that occupied much of western Utah. The lake occupies one of the basins of the Great Basin, and is located at the western margin of the Wasatch Mountains of the Rocky Mountain Range."

Request for Photos: We are looking for photographs taken from around the Great Salt Lake, particularly from the rarely-seen western shore of the lake. We would also like to post interesting photos of the Great Salt Lake Desert, nearby land forms like the Newfoundland Mountains, Stansbury Island, Antelope Island, and other islands in the lake. We would also appreciate your commentary and descriptions along with the photos. You will be credited, quoted and linked as appropriate. Please send any photographs to Dave.

The following is quoted from John S. McCormick's book, Saltair (1985). The Utah History Encyclopedia online (University of Utah Press) is a great resource on Saltair and many other historic sites in Utah. Check it out.

"Saltair opened on Memorial Day 1893, and was officially dedicated on 8 June. Its main attractions were always swimming in the Great Salt Lake, where people could bob around like corks, thanks to its 25 percent salt content, and dancing on what was advertised as the world's largest dance floor; but the resort always had a wide range of other attractions. They included a roller coaster, a merry-go-round, a ferris wheel, midway games, bicycle races, touring vaudeville companies, rodeos, bullfights, boat rides on the lake, fireworks displays, and hot-air balloons."

Antelope Island, taken from Interstate 80 near Saltair, looking northeast.

Sunset looking west from Erda, Utah July, 2000. There was a fire at the north end of the lake that made for an absolutely stunning sunset. 9:00 PM

Stansbury Island from Erda. 8:30 PM

Dave and Ryan on the Salt Flats.

The following were sent to me by the Hounder on December 30, 2000. His commentary is found below each photograph. We appreciate ALL who submit photos and information for the site and will post everything that is relevant. Please pay the Hounder a visit--his site includes photos from all corners of the Utah.

The Great Salt Lake, view southeast from the top of the Lakeside Mountains near Rowley.

A shot of the mangnesium plant at Rowley from the top of the Lakeside Mountains. View east. Carrington Island on right

Taken from the flats about 5 miles south of the Rowley magnesium plant. [View southeast] This shot doesn't do justice to how blue the Stansbury Mts. really get at sunrise. The morning light reflects off the water and the Mts. literally glow.

 

The Salt Lake Tribune, January 28, 2001

Newlyweds George and Kate Wenner arrived in Salt Lake City in 1880 to start a family and launch his legal career. They built a home on Brigham Street, today's South Temple, and by 1883 they had a son, George Jr., and a newborn daughter, Blanche.

The governor named Wenner judge of Salt Lake's probate court. In their spare time, the young family fell in love with the haunting beauty of the Great Salt Lake.

Billboards and an interstate highway now hide the lake's natural loveliness, but then, as now, a select few appreciated the secrets of this gem of the desert.

The view to the west from the lake's seven main islands looks into another world, where an inland sea meets an enchanted desert. The lake can be as captivating as a siren's song, and it captured the Wenners.

Judge Wenner contracted consumption in 1885 and his doctor advised him to take up a life in the sunshine and open air. Instead of retreating to a sanitarium, the judge and his family struck out on a great adventure. They bought part of Fremont Island from Union Pacific and decided to spend the summer beneath the craggy peak that lies between Antelope Island and Promontory Point.

John "Pathfinder" Fremont thought so little of the place that he named it Desolation Island, but here the Wenners found a home. After a 20-mile voyage that took three days, they pitched their tents on the south shore, close to the shack where grave-robber Jean Baptiste lived after Brigham Young banished him in 1861. When their rented "Ark" sailed away, the family and their hired help were alone on the island.

A month later, the Ark returned loaded with lumber and provisions and left with the family maid, who could not stand life without a looking glass. The judge's health improved dramatically and the children thought they had moved to paradise.

George imported horses, pigs, chickens and purebred sheep to the island and brought enough lumber to roof and trim a two-story rock house they named The Hut. Kate lined the house with books and European paintings and made it a home.

Friends wrote to insist they return to civilization, but Kate recalled: "We learned to know ourselves, and enjoy ourselves, children and books." She devoured the monthly mail and newspapers, a "part of life we never gave up."

After two years on the island, Kate and the children, along with their pet pelican and horned toads, left to bring another Wenner into the world in Illinois. George Jr. and Blanche had never been sick a single day on the island, but they met a whooping cough epidemic in the Midwest. Their concerned grandfather asked, "Children, have you had it?"

The precocious Blanche assured him, "Grandpa, I think we had all the diseases but polygamy before we went to the island."

Three months later, Kate brought a new baby, Lincoln, back home to Fremont Island. Judge Wenner greeted his children with two Shetland ponies, a goat with its own wagon and harness, and a shepherd dog. He added ducks and turkeys to the island menagerie. They christened the old boat they bought the "Argo" and carved a ram's head for the bow. Their garden and orchard did not do well, but the children and animals thrived.

In the summer, after a dip in the lake, their father put the children to bed with a lullaby: "Down falls a golden dream for thee, sleep, baby, sleep."

"There was so much to do," Kate Wenner remembered five decades later, and "so much to think about in this new life." Continued next week Bagley is a Utah historian and author.

Send your photos!

 

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