The Forerunner to FrontRunner: Bamberger Rail Line, S.L. to Ogden

                                                                          Photo by Roger Arave

By Lynn Arave

BEFORE today's  FrontRunner, there was the Bamberger Railroad Line ...

FrontRunner opened on April 26, 2008, after three years of construction (and added more stops in 2012).

The Bamberger basically followed today's I-15 corridor and ran for more than 60 years until 1952, when the popularity of the automobile put it out of business.

After a 56-year gap, FrontRunner came long.

Below is the story of the Bamberger railroad, forerunner of FrontRunner.

The Bamberger Railroad, a 36-mile light rail system, connected Salt Lake City and Ogden with more than 30 major stops until the last car ran in September 1952. 

While the Bamberger wasn't the only trolley transportation system in Utah, it was the first and the most successful. (A 66-mile, Salt Lake to Payson trolley system operated from 1916 to 1946 and there was a "Saltair" line, too.) 

Simon Bamberger, a successful Utah businessman and later the governor, received the first shipment of light rail, near the Union Pacific Railroad Station in Salt Lake City, in 1891. Existing railroads were concerned with through traffic, not with serving small communities as Bamberger was.

The line's original name was the Great Salt Lake and Hot Springs Railway. Not until 1917 was the name changed to the Bamberger Electric Railroad. The line converted from steam power to electricity in 1910, ushering in the "Trolley" era.

Line construction reached Farmington in 1895 and that's when Bamberger purchased the old buildings at Lake Shore Resort and moved them east to a swampy area he turned into a recreational paradise - Lagoon. Free admission to Lagoon was given to all railroad users. Lagoon stimulated railroad use - especially during the summer.

Davis was the only high school in the county while the Bamberger operated, and students used to ride the railroad before school buses were purchased. An extra dozen rail cars were needed to take students to Davis High, and these cars were stored in Kaysville until needed again at the end of the school day. The school district paid the railroad for the students' transportation.

Other steady passengers on the railway were employees of the Davis County School District, the Farmington Courthouse, the Kaysville Brick Co. and Miller Floral. "Hop the Bamberger" was the familiar term used in conjunction with the orange and cream colored cars.

The rail line reached Kaysville in 1903, Layton in 1904, Sunset in 1905 and Ogden in 1908.

The Depression hurt the railroad's business, but it survived. It also lived through the flood of 1923 that wiped out the line through Farmington and Centerville.

World War II was a boon to the Bamberger. The line had exclusive service to Hill Field, (Hill Air Force Base), increasing its passenger service threefold and its freight load by eight times. Passenger service in 1945 was the company's highest with revenues jumping from $413,000 in 1939 to $2 million in 1945.

Normal Bamberger passenger service had been from 6 a.m. to midnight, but the war necessitated service around the clock. Tickets could be purchased by several methods, destination to destination, or by the mile.

According to research by the Kaysville-Layton Historical Society, some passengers used to joke "The Bamberger went 100 mph - 90 up and down and 10 forward."

NOTE: Some of the old track rails for the Bamberger still existed along portions of Ogden's Wall Avenue, well into the 1970s.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Where you could board the Bamberger

Main stops along the Bamberger:

- Ogden, Lincoln Avenue, just north of 24th Street

- Cozydale, 4400 S. 1500 West

- Roy, near 4800 South

- Sunset, 1800 North, just east of I-15

- Arsenal, 1300 North, just east of I-15

- Clearfield, 700 South, east of I-15

- Robbins," 2200 North, I-15, Layton

- Allen, 1000 North, I-15, Layton

- Davis High School, Kaysville

- Lagoon, Farmington

- Glover's Lane, Farmington

- Chase Lane, Centerville

- Centerville, 400 S. 150 West

- Thomas, 100 N. Center, Bountiful

- Bountiful, 200 W. 200 South

- Parkin, 800 N. U-89, North Salt Lake

- Cleverly, 700 N. U-89, North Salt Lake

- Odell, 450 N. U-89, North Salt Lake

- Everett, 1455 N. 700 West, Salt Lake County

- Salt Lake Depot, West Temple and South Temple, on present-day Abravanel Hall site

SOURCES: Utahrails.net, by Don Strack and personal interviews.


(-Distilled from a Deseret News article by Lynn Arave on March 27, 1994.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

Salt Lake Cemetery is Alive with History

By Lynn Arave
IT could well be the largest municipal-owned graveyard in America. At 250 acres and containing at least 105,000 occupied graves, the Salt Lake City Cemetery is big enough to warrant its own extensive street system, a grid separate from the rest of town.

Located at 200 N. N St. (about 950 East), this is the state's oldest cemetery and has been around since 1848 -- about a year after the Mormon pioneers arrived in the valley.

Jeff Johnson, state archivist, is an expert on the cemetery and said cemetery officials refer to it as the nation's largest municipal graveyard, though he's never found any firm reference to prove or disprove that claim.

He said the pioneers buried their dead that first year of 1847 just west of Pioneer Park -- where they lived in a fort then -- in graves uncovered about two years ago by some construction work. Those are the state's oldest known grave sites outside of Indian burial grounds.

The first person buried near Pioneer Park was a child who drowned in August 1847.

The current cemetery site in the Avenues area was selected specifically because it was away from any water sources. Johnson said the pioneers didn't want water to be contaminated by graves.

Originally, the cemetery was just dirt and weeds, a barren and dry field. Some called it an ugly place for a cemetery. It wasn't until the turn of the century that it began to be treated as a Victorian park. That's when people built homes near the cemetery and irrigation water became available there.

The first two burials in the city cemetery are of two children. George B. Wallace died on Aug. 14, 1848, and his sister, Mary, died on Sept. 27, 1848. Both are buried in a section northeast of Grand Avenue and Main.

Johnson said adjacent cemeteries -- three Jewish graveyards and the Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery -- make the Salt Lake burial area even larger.

By some accounts, the cemetery may contain almost 114,000 graves, but Tania Tully of the Utah State Historical Society believes there are closer to 105,000 occupied graves there. 

Despite its huge size, the Salt Lake City Cemetery looks smaller than it is, with large trees and bushes breaking up the landscape.

The cemetery is a great place for a history lesson, too.

"It gives you a connection with the past," Johnson said

Some of the state's most famous people are buried here. You can find some governors of Utah, a few prophets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other VIPs.

Many headstones tell a short story of their own.

For example, remember Orrin Porter Rockwell, the Utah version of Wyatt Earp? This legendary Utah lawman is buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery, and visiting his grave is the closest you'll come nowadays to meeting him.

Rockwell was buried there on June 9, 1878.

"He was brave and loyal to his faith. True to the Prophet Jos. Smith. A promise made him by the prophet. Through obedience it was fulfilled," says Rockwell's epitaph.

His marker is an 8-foot-tall pyramid-like structure. It can be found by going north up Main Street in the cemetery to 280 North. There, turn right (east) and go about 100 feet, to the second pine tree on the south side of the narrow road. Rockwell's marker is next to that second tree.

In fact, some of the state's oldest graves are found in this same area, located on the northeast corner of Main Street and Grand Avenue and also adjacent sections. Some are crumbling or unreadable, but they all offer a historic flavor.

Here are some of the other prominent graves you'll find in just this one small area:

Martha Hughes Cannon, the nation's first state legislator, is buried 40 yards south of Rockwell.

John M. Bernhisel, pioneer, statesman and physician, was buried here on Sept. 19, 1887.

Besides such well-known people, there are also some intriguing headstones of lesser-known Utah pioneers found here. For example:

Anthony Woodward Ivins and Elizabeth A. Snow are buried in a grave with a huge old log positioned on top of the marker. They both died in the 1930s.

"A most perfect woman" is also buried in this historic area of the cemetery. Sarepta Blodgett Heywood, who died Dec. 4, 1881, has that heading as her epitaph.

The grave of Sarah F. Tanner, wife of John W. Tanner, is one of those heartbreaker monuments. It reads: "Farewell my dear wife, I bid you adieu, and this our dear babe, I have laid here by you. May heaven's kind angels guard o'er your grave until from its power you are eventually saved." She died on Oct. 14, 1863 -- while bearing a child who died two days later and who is also buried there.

-Take the 14 former presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ten are buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. Set aside about an hour for a walking or driving tour, and you can find all 10 graves.

                          Brigham Young's grave is in downtown SLC.

Those missing from the Salt Lake cemetery are Joseph Smith, who was laid to rest in Nauvoo, Ill.; Brigham Young, who was buried at his private cemetery in downtown Salt Lake City; Lorenzo Snow, who was buried in Brigham City; and Ezra Taft Benson, who was buried in southeastern Idaho.

Presidents John Taylor and Heber J. Grant have stately monuments marking their graves, each one about 25 feet high. Markers for others such as Presidents Harold B. Lee and Wilford Woodruff are much smaller.

Also buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery are many other LDS general authorities. For example, the gravestone of Elder Richard L. Evans, an apostle, contains perhaps the most appropriate epitaph of all — "May peace be with you. This day . . . and always." That comment always concluded his narrations of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's "Spoken Word" broadcasts.

Jedediah Grant, first mayor of Salt Lake City and counselor to Brigham Young, is also buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, as is former U.S. Sen. Frank E. Moss, to name a few.

The claim to fame of the Clarkston Cemetery in Cache County is the grave of Martin Harris, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon.

Kaysville Cemetery boasts former Utah governor Henry H. 

Blood; Provo Cemetery has TV inventor Philo T. 

Farnsworth; and Parowan has former Utah Gov. Scott M. 

Matheson.

(-Compiled from two articles by Lynn Arave in the Deseret 

News, one from May 29, 1999 and another from May 24, 

2003.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

The Shining Oquirrh Mountains

                             The north end of the Oquirrh Mountains.

By Lynn Arave

FROM Copper and mining to one of the largest man-made holes on earth to broadcasting to weather effects, the Oquirrh Mountains have a strong impact on the Salt Lake Valley.

Often, however they are often overlooked and overshadowed by the taller, bigger, longer and more prominent Wasatch Mountains.
The Oquirrhs stretch north-south some 30 miles and rise to an elevation of more than 10,600 feet — 6,000-plus feet above the valley floor.
Oquirrh is a Ute Indian word that means "shining mountain." The Bingham Canyon cooper mine is located in the Oquirrhs and has produced the "mountain that isn't there," as well as a huge hole that is visible from space and more copper than any other mine in history at 2.75 miles wide and .75 of a mile deep. (You could stack 9 LDS Church Office Buildings on top of each other and still not reach the top of the mine.) 

Note that a huge landslide inside the mine in early 2013 disrupted mining operations there.

Not always a hole, there used to be an actual mountain sticking up where the Kennecott mine is now.

Also, before so much mining took place on the north end of the Oquirrhs, the mountains were apparently much greener and forested than they are today.

Farnsworth Peak, on the north end of the Oquirrhs, only rises to 9,066 feet, but it could easily lay claim to being the single most important mountain peak in Utah. That's because 16 FM radio stations and KSL-TV and some other TV stations have their transmitters up there.

 In fact, all of Salt Lake's TV stations have a transmitter somewhere in the Oquirrhs, given their superior location for proliferating the signals on the area airwaves — even over the tallest Wasatch Mountains.

KSL used to operate a tramway on the west side of the Oquirrhs, to service its transmitter site. That is lone gone, but some of its footings are still visible along the mountainside.

Weather wise, the Oquirrhs provide what meteorologists refer to as a "rain shadow." This means at least downtown S.L. is protected by storms, or they are sometimes delayed, because of the Oquirrhs acting as a barrier.
(In contrast, the infamous 1999 Salt Lake tornado appeared to have formed in its preliminary stages over the north end of the Oquirrhs.)
Because the Oquirrhs — especially on the north end — are much more barren than the Wasatch Mountains, snow can really "white out" the area below Farnsworth Peak, far more than most local mountains.

--The four tallest peaks in the Oquirrhs are:

1.    Flat Top Peak 10,620 feet above sea level.

2.    Lowe Peak, 10,589

3.    Lewiston Peak, 10,411.

4.    Sharp Mountain, 10,006.

UPDATE: Sadly in 2013, Kennecott closed a lot of historic public access in the Butterfield Canyon area.

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net