What’s up explorers!?
This week we are taking a look
at the southern shore of Utah’s
Great Salt Lake.
All because of a secret treasure found in my great-great
aunt Margaret’s attic in the 1960’s.
It's a Christmas miracle!
This story involves some cool photography history,
the Mormon church, and a rather peculiar
outdoor event venue that was plagued by devastating fires.
I can’t wait to tell you all about it
but first make sure you like this video,
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I recently came into possession
of a box of Cramer dry plate photo negatives
that were discovered in the attic
of my great-great aunt’s
Dell Rapids, South Dakota home in the 1960’s.
The box was in decent shape
and there was a disclaimer on the back
indicating that the plates should be used
before August 1901,
leading me to believe
the negatives contained
within dated back to sometime
around the turn of the 20th century.
Prior to photographic film, glass plates
were the predominant capture medium in photography.
First came the collodion wet plate process
which required negatives
be exposed and developed while wet, meaning photographers
would have to bring a portable dark room
with them wherever they went.
This was a time consuming
and dangerous process
involving extremely flammable
and explosive chemicals.
In 1871, Dr. Richard L. Maddox invented the dry plate;
an improved type of photographic plate
that could be exposed
anytime and developed
at the photographer’s leisure.
With this new process,
bulky equipment was replaced
by smaller cameras;
even ones that could be disguised
as common, everyday objects.
All in all, dry plates allowed photography
to became more widely accessible
to the masses.
Out of curiosity,
I decided to scan some of my dry plates into Photoshop
using my flatbed scanner
and applying a basic invert filter
to see if I could produce an image.
While a few of the plates
were in a bad state of deterioration,
I was able to develop quite a few,
and the results were super interesting!
My assumption is that most if not all
the images were taken in the Salt Lake City
metropolitan area right at the turn of the century.
One of the images was of the Eagle
Gate Monument on State Street
in Salt Lake City, erected in 1859
and still standing to this day.
But the image I was most interested in was one
which appeared to be of an ornate palace
at the end of a long pier.
It was called the Saltair,
and it was the first of three large event venues
constructed on the southern shore
of the Great Salt Lake.
Designed by Richard K.A. Kletting,
who also designed the Utah State Capitol,
the first Saltair resort
was built by the Mormon church in 1893.
The church had two objectives for the venue:
first to provide “a wholesome place of recreation”
for Mormons and their families,
and secondly to be a “Coney Island of the West” —
something to attract tourists
and help demonstrate
that Utah wasn’t a strange place
with odd customs.
This was part of a bigger strategic plan
that Mormon church leaders set in motion in the 1890s
to bring the church into mainstream America.
Popular attractions included a roller coaster,
ferris wheel, merry-go-round,
hot-air balloons,
and dancing on what was described as
“the world’s largest dance floor.”
The Saltair reached its peak
popularity in the 1920s,
averaging nearly a half-million visitors per year.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck on April 22, 1925,
when a fire broke out
on the southern end of the pavilion
and burned the entire resort to the ground.
A second Saltair designed by
Raymond J. Ashton and Raymond L. Evans
was built one year later
on the site of the original,
but the resort’s glory days
seemed to be over.
The advent of motion pictures, automobiles,
and the Great Depression
all worked in tandem
against the second Saltair’s success.
A second fire broke out on July 22, 1931,
causing the equivalent of roughly $1.8
million in damages in today’s dollars.
Saltair was forced to close
during World War II on account of fuel
and other resource rationing
and losing the bulk of its customers and employees
who left Utah to serve in the war effort.
It reopened on May 30, 1945
after a three year hiatus,
but eventually shuttered in 1958
due to its isolated location
and alternative entertainment options
closer to the city.
Saltair II sat vacant for twelve years
until being destroyed by arson fire
on November 12, 1970.
A third Saltair was
constructed out of a salvaged
aircraft hangar from Hill Air Force Base,
but this time at a new location
roughly one mile west of the original
Saltair site.
Fluctuating lake levels
became an immediate problem,
and the resort flooded
just months after opening.
Lake levels receded quite rapidly
over the following years, and Saltair III
sat mostly vacant from the 1990s
to mid 2000’s.
It was purchased by music industry investors in 2005
and has been holding regular concerts ever since.
Today, the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake sits
roughly a half mile away from Saltair III
with the lake reaching a record low level in July 2021.
When I traveled through Salt Lake City last month,
I set out to explore the site
of the original Saltair resort
which is situated approximately
15 miles west of the city
on the southern bank of the Great Salt Lake.
I’ll put specific coordinates
in the description below,
but the site is now
part of the Lee Creek Area
managed by the National Audubon Society
and is accessible via
a small entrance off Interstate 80.
All that remains today of the original Saltair
is a roughly one-mile row of wood pilings
that made up the railway trestle
and pier leading to the resort.
Now, there’s probably
no one alive today that remembers
visiting the original Saltair resort,
but if you remember visiting Saltair II
we’d love to hear about your experience!
Please be sure to share
with us in the comments down below.
Thanks so much for tuning in,
and until next time,
remember to get out and explore!