Modern railroad tracks.
IT was bear vs. train in early January of 1893.
According to the Ogden Standard Newspaper of January 4, 1893, a train running from the Golden Spike area of Promontory to Ogden, Utah was operated by Engineer Alexander and "struck something with terrible force but cleared the tracks without going into the ditch. The night air was filled with heartrending screams of pain but as it was quite dark and the cab had become suddenly filled with dust and gravel, nothing could be seen by the engineer or his fireman. The locomotive was backed up as near as possible to the place where the accident occurred. The cries had ceased and a careful search failed to disclose the whereabouts of the injured creature. As nothing more could be done the run in to Ogden was made without accident."
The story reported that on the return trip the Engineer "was surprised to see hanging up at the Blue Creek section house a magnificent silver tip bear.
Workers had found the massive bear lying near the track. The account stated it weighed some 1,500 pounds.
"The hide is being cured and will be used by Alexander as a rug to remind him of his narrow escape," the story stated.
This was also likely the same bear that attacked cattle in the Clear Creek mountains in the past two years.
Davis County 4th graders play in the Great Salt Lake at Antelope Island.
YES, you can drown in the briny, buoyant waters of the Great Salt Lake.
Although the GSL's waters are 3 to 5 times saltier than the ocean and you can't sink -- but "float like the cork" there, you can drown in the water.
Inhaling the water can choke and gag you and the briny water can fill your lungs and stop your breathing.
One of the FIRST, if not the first recorded drownings in the Great Salt Lake happened on Sunday, August 6, 1882.
According to the Ogden Herald newspaper of Aug. 7, 1882, J.D. Farmer, a well-known Salt Lake City businessman, drowned near the Black Rock resort, on the lake's south end. Although his body could not be initially found, his clothing was discovered in one of the bath houses. He could not be located when the day's final train was ready to return to Salt Lake City. People searched for his body, but it was not found until more than four years later.
The Salt Lake Herald newspaper of Oct. 13, 1886 reported than his body was finally found about eight miles west of Garfield, along the shoreline there. The skeleton's size apparently matched Farmer's height.
The Great Salt Lake has an average depth of 14 feet and pockets of it can be about 36 feet deep, depending on lake elevation.
A youth floats like at cork in the Great Salt Lake.
-Although no one can be certain if the first drowning in the Great Salt Lake wasn't the Salt Lake grave robber, John Baptiste, whom Brigham Young exiled to Fremont Island in the spring of 1862. This since he was never found after an escape from the isle, the Salt Lake Herald Newspaper of Nov. 14, 1895 published an account of the robber where "fact and fiction mixed."
This report was originally published in the Chicago Chronicle newspaper and was simply, "a wild, weird story." It states that Baptiste was exiled on "Church Island" (Antelope Island), when the fact is the location was Fremont Island.
This Chicago story, a forerunner of fake news, spins Church Island as haunted and avoided because Baptiste has turned into a wild man, hairy, old and dangerous. It even acts like the Great Salt Lake is extremely dangerous with many boats sunk and people drowned.
A work of fiction in the 1890s, it would make for a dismal TV movie plot today.
