1924: When the Great Salt Lake was ‘drying’ up for good

              The Great Salt Lake has much more shoreline and marshes these day.

JUST over nine decades ago, some geologists believed the Great Salt Lake was drying up for good, not then understanding its natural cycles.

“America’s famous ‘Dead Sea’ soon to be dry land” was a Feb. 3, 1924 Standard-Examiner headline.

“Why the water in Great Salt Lake is rapidly vanishing and how one of the richest mineral deposits on earth will be laid bare when this immense ‘sink’ is empty,” was the sub headline with this national news story.

“Within a century the Great Salt Lake, in Utah, will have dried up,” the story predicted. It likened the GSL’s demise to that of its predecessor, Lake Bonneville. The Great Salt Lake had dropped 10 feet in depth from 1900-1915, until some exceptional wet years had recently gained most of that loss back.

“Were it to disappear, Salt Lake City would lose its principal attraction,” the story surmised. Also, a lack of buoyant bathing would be lamented by area resorts.

It stated that what would be left with the lake gone would be an immense sink, which would be worthless for agriculture, given its salty soil.

The story also noted the many similarities between the Dead Sea/Palestine and the Great Salt Lake/Salt Lake Valley.

(Some ninety-one years later in 2015, the lake is still there, though it is in another of its lowest ever cycles.)

More historical tidbits:

-“Syracuse Junction: North end of Davis County transformed by push to its people” was a May 7, 1907 Standard headline.

Although Syracuse would not even have a town board until 1935, it was steadily developing in its early years.

“No spot in Utah has developed more genuine push within its history than this district. Fifteen years ago the traveler was stared at by nothing but sage brush and burning sand for the entire distance between Layton and Ogden,” the story stated. “Today this same spot furnishes the canneries of the state with a product superior to any other in the inter-mountain region, and farms, supplied with everything the agriculturist could desire, dot the landscape.”

The Stewart Investment Company was dividing and developing the land there and the Weber River waters now diverted there for irrigation, had caused the desert to bloom.

 -“Selling the Fair Grounds” was a Dec. 19, 1913 Standard headline. William Glasmann, Standard publisher and former Ogden Mayor, responded to proposals to sell the Ogden fair grounds. He said the people of Ogden would later regret such a move.

“Fairs are not intended as profit makers,” Glasmann stated. “But improvers of products and breeds … Fairs pay indirectly, not directly.”

He also stated that if the Salt Lake Fair, which receives a $20,000 budget, can’t come close to making a profit, why should the Ogden Fair expect otherwise.

(More than a century later of fairs, their often lack of profits and gate receipts are still a controversy …)

 -Originally published on-line and in print on Aug. 27-28, 2015 in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, by Lynn Arave.

-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

Old Syracuse Resort: Oasis of Trees By GSL

              The area today just south of where the Syracuse GSL resort would have been.


 Saltair and Lagoon ("Lake Park") traditionally dominate the history of pioneer era resorts along the shores of the Great Salt Lake.
However, just northeast of the east end of the causeway to Antelope Island and northwest of 4500 West and Antelope Drive in Syracuse was the location of the lessen-known seventh of eight Great Salt Lake shoreline resorts.
 This short-lived, 93-acre "Syracuse Resort," which predated the community of Syracuse, opened on July 4, 1887, in an era when “floating like a cork” in thick salt water was a very popular activity and a railroad regularly delivered patrons to this paradise. 
According to Don Strack on Utahrails.net, the Ogden and Syracuse Railway was built from Ogden, southwest to Syracuse, a distance of some 15 miles. The line broke off the Clearfield junction and went 5.85 miles southwest to the resort.

The railroad wasn’t built just for the resort, it had other uses. For example, salt was taken by wagons  from the great Salt Lake to railcars. Most of it in that day was shipped to Montana for use in mines.

Later, several canneries were built near the railroad line and crops, like sugar beets, were also transported readily by rail out of the Syracuse and west Davis County area.

          Looking northeast from the causeway to where the old Syracuse resort probably was located.

  Today's entrance to the Antelope Island causeway.


Notwithstanding, a historical article by Irene Woodhouse in the Nov. 3, 1985 Ogden Standard-Examiner stated that the Ogden and Syracuse Railway charged 50 cents for a roundtrip to the resort and made at least two trips there a day.
The infrequent Trains would sometimes strand people at the resort. For example, on July 8, 1889, an Ogden group had to spend the night there when the night's only train left suddenly and early.

The Syracuse’s opening day on the Fourth of July in 1887 attracted an estimated 2,000 visitors, with about 1,100 people coming from Ogden, another 600 from Salt Lake and the remainder from nearby towns.

The Syracuse Resort’s claim to fame was that it was the “only resort on the Great Salt Lake with trees. It was described as "an oasis in the desert."
According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner on March 25, 1888: 
"The finest beach anywhere on the lake shore is at Syracuse. It is not muddy, in fact, it is just exactly what is wanted for a first-class bathing resort. A strong, substantial pier has been constructed, and on it are erected a large number of handsome bathhouses with every convenience for bathers. There is abundance of fresh water ... The shade is excellent ... Every opportunity for enjoying all of the pleasures of a seaside, without the rush, heat and worry ..."
According to "A History of Syracuse," (1965) by Cora Bodily Bybee, a rare, twin  grove of trees were transplanted from Weber Canyon and survived the salty soil in the area. There were trees on each side of the railroad line, near its end, some 400 yards from the edge of of the lake's waters.

Bathhouses, where floaters could change clothes and receive a limited fresh water shower afterward, dotted the west side of the resort.
Wooden piers initially helped bathers get past any mud and into the briny lake waters.

The Great Salt Lake was still high in 1887, being about 4,199 feet above sea level. However, it was decreasing gradually.
In fact, resort visitors initially complained about the long walk from the lake to the 70 small bathhouses. They were soon moved closer and a street car, pulled by two mules, shuttled guests to the bath houses and back.
There was also a dirt track for bicycle races nearby, plus a horse-powered merry-go-round.
Soon after the resort opened, D.C. Adams and Salt Lake City and Fred J. Kiesel of Ogden (also one of Ogden's 19th Century mayors), teamed up to construct Utah's largest dance pavillon at the resort. This building was 125 feet long and 75 feet wide. coal lamps lit up the resort at night and music was provided by various bands from Ogden to Salt Lake. Wrestling matches and even magic shows were held there.
A title ownership dispute over the resort’s land were said to be its demise in 1892, after just a five-year run. There’s also little doubt that the shrinking lake level didn’t help visitation either.
The dance hall was moved east to the Syracuse Canning Factory in 1903 or 1904. It was used for storage and for one more year of dancing. However, sitting on a foundation of poles and rock, one side slipped and warped the wood dancing floor. So, the building was closed and soon torn down.
Some of the old dressing rooms were used as sheds on local farms for decades afterward.

By the early 1950s, most traces of the western railroad in Davis County, were removed.