The ‘Lady’ Lived Amidst Glamor By ROBIN TIBBETS SALTAIR — Sometimes, when the wind is just right, you can hear the ghostly echoes of mil¬lions of footsteps, the huffing of a passenger train and the faint cries of children leaping along the massive timbers of the rubble that was once a boardwalk. Wheeling seagulls overhead mourn raucously the departure of the seashore. A loose board creaks as a lonely wind searches restlessly among the charred skeletons of pleasure palaces. Saltair is dead- a victim of fire and 20th Century progress. OWN RAILROAD Opened on June 1, 1893, three years before Utah became a state, Saltair was served by its own railroad which in the first 30 years of its existence unloaded tens of thousands of sight¬seers on the boardwalks an¬nually. Characterized by writers as "the greatest watering resort pavilion in the world," Saltair was a miniature Coney Island built over the waters of Great Salt Lake on pilings a half mile from shore. Visitors from all over the world flocked to the resort, many of them transcontinental travelers who wanted to float in its buoyant waters. In the early years they rode to the site in the passenger coaches of the Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad Co. The line, never built beyond Saltair except for tracks to Gar¬field, changed its name in 1916 to the Salt Lake, Garfield and Western. SALT FLATS Early in 1917 it was electrified and, even after the resort lost much of its popularity, contin¬ued to operate by carload freight switching in the western part of Salt Lake City and to salt plants on the lake's shores. Plagued by fires and wind which in 1925, 1931, 1957, 1967 and 1970 destroyed the roller coaster, the Moorish dance hip¬podrome, the main entrance, maintenance buildings, amuse¬ments, rides, until today the re¬sort is only charred rubble. By 1960, the lake had receded until the shoreline was a half mile away, even though five years before a valiant effort to save the resort was made. The company that operated it spruced up the buildings and diked off a five-acre area next to the main pavilion, making a 7-million-gallon bathing pond. The tourists came back, but not Utahns. The combination of receding water and pollution of the lake combined to spell doom for the resort. Instead of being called the "Lady of the Lake" the resort was overshadowed by descrip¬tions which termed the lake "the cesspool of Northern Utah" —a dump for waste and sew¬age. Turned over to the Utah Parks and Recreation Commission in 1959 by the Salt Lake, Garfield & Western Railroad, various at- tempts have been made to re¬store the resort to its former glory. All failed. Once in July, 1967, Saltair was declared "off limits" by Salt Lake County officials who refused to permit a public dance to be held there. Plans had been to use the proceeds from the event to im¬prove the resort. But the state said "no," bas¬ing its action on inadequate toilet facilities, lack of drinking water and other health hazards, including the lack of fire pro¬tection. Further efforts to resurrect the crumbling old relic of more grandiose times failed and to¬day Saltair is little more than a memory.