Great Salt Lake and Lucin Cutoff SEA OF GLASS by Darrel S. Willey A little touch of the Holy Land can be found within our borders in a vast body of brine eight times more salty than the water of the Pacific Ocean. This expanse of water has been the subject of myth for centuries. Indians lamented it in ceremonial chants; Jim Bridger believed that it reached to the Pacific; today tourists enrich our coffers to view it. It is a saint and a devil. One can bob lazily around in it like a fishing float or be crushed like a berry box in the madness of bad weather. Great Salt Lake is a remnant of the huge Lake Bonneville that disappeared some 25,000 years ago. Marine life in it is scant a simple blue-green algae supplies the food for an arthropodic brine shrimp. These two creatures have been able to increase to the extent of their maximum food supply. Father Escalante heard of the natural wonder from Ute Indians about the time of the founding of our republic in 1776. Jim Bridger stumbled upon it while trying to determine the course of the Bear River. Mythology would have it that when Bridger reached the lake in 1824, he sampled the water and spat, "Hell! Here we are on the banks of the Pacific!" His explanation was exploded two years later when James Clyman and his men circled it and announced that it had no outlet. The famed soldier, John C. Fremont, paddled about the lake in a canvas-covered boat, and reached Fremont Island in 1843, to find that five gallons of salt water would boil down to approximately fourteen pints of pure salt. Shortly after the arrival of settlers in Utah, Brigham Young's men under the leadership of Albert Carrington fully explored the body of water and reaffirmed its extreme saltiness. Captain Howard Stans-bury, a regular army officer, was commissioned in 1850 to make a detailed study of the area. He established a base on Antelope Island, from which he surveyed the entire lake. Stansbury used the brine to cure beef, which, when removed after twelve hours of submersion, was pronounced to be "tolerably well corned." Page 10 Extensive records on the rise and fall of the waterline have been kept since 1851. The waterline has been found to fluctuate more than eighteen feet in an eighty-nine year period. This variation has affected the snoreline to tne extent of more than fifteen miles in a single year. It is estimated that a ten-foot rise in the lake will cover an additional 480 square miles of lake bed. The Great Salt Lake has been utilized as a route of watergoing commerce. It has always managed to extract just returns in the form of destroying the vessels that sailed upon it. Brigham Young launched a craft called "The Timely Gull" in 1854. Within four years it had been ravaged from stem to stern by gales. Sheep barges were often claimed by the elements of the water. The waves in heavy storms have the power to roll heavy boulders, as is witnessed by the removal of them along the Lucin Cutoff. The belle of the lake was a large three-decker boat hopefully christened "City of Corinne" in 1872, but was soon to fall short of its intended purpose. "City of Corinne" was used to haul ore from the lake point of Corinne, but within four years the lake had receded so that it was no longer possible to sail up the Bear River. Its remaining days were spent as a pleasure craft carrying passengers. A few other craft sailed at the time, most of which were removed by storms. Few boats now traverse the lake, the principal ones being sheep barges which run between Antelope island and the mainland. For the most part, lake transportation is a romantic chapter from the state's historic past. The lake also supplied entertainment in the form of resorts which dotted the mainland near populated areas. Saltair, the most famous of them all, still remains a source of entertainment. Sunset and Black Rock beaches both draw large crowds of swimmers. The old Syracuse Resort has long since disappeared from the scene; it was best known for a dance floor of highly polished hardwood extremely rare in the new West. Railways have also had to subdue the Great Salt Lake by means of the Lucin Cutoff. Southern Pacific completed the Cutoff in 1903 at a cost of a little more than $8,000,000. Thirty miles of this span was constructed directly over the lake. This required 3,000 men and a year and a half of effort. Elements of the lake were fought in the project, one of the worst hazards being quicksand that could absorb trainloads of rock and soil and then beg for more. Timber from 38,000 trees was used as piling, further depleting already sparse forage. Upon completion the Cutoff eliminated forty-four miles of dangerous curves around the north end of the lake. Ten islands dot the lake, but only one of them Antelope Island is of any importance. The island has claimed the attention of the intermountain area more than once. A grave-robber of some repute was once apprehended in Salt Lake City, was branded and shackled, and then was banished to Antelope. The condemned man tried to escape, and was found several years later near a river mouth. The heavy chain was still attached to the skeleton. Antelope and buffalo once roamed the island, but gradually dwindled away until none remain. A dozen head were donated in 1892. Some of the descendants of this group survive today. Now the island is privately owned, and is used for grazing purposes. Nine remaining small bodies of land are scattered about the lake. Only Gunnison Island and Bird Island are worthy of mention, as they are nesting grounds for pelicans and seagulls. Pelicans present a problem interesting to birdlovers, for they must fly up to one-hundred miles to obtain fish to feed their young. The birds are on the decrease; consequently they are now protected by rigid laws. The Great Salt Lake has left its mark on the history of the West. As the mother of myth, it puzzled early explorers with its size and saltiness. Recreation stemmed from its presence to occupy the few lax hours the pioneers had to spend. The lake has added to the wealth of the state as a source of mineral products. Olden days found stern-wheelers pushing water aside to hasten cargo to its destination. In the main, the lake is a familiar physical factor in the landscape we gratefully hail as home. INDUSTRIALISTS by Sylvia Bobolis When the Mormon pioneers settled here, they had nothing but their strength of character and the rich natural resources of the west to their advantage. It was a problem of making the most of what the state had to offer as a beginning. At first, most of the work in progress was agricultural and home manufacturing. But all this began to change. "From sagebrush to steel" was a Provo, Utah county, slogan, and other such promotional axioms put heart into industrial movements throughout the central part of Utah. Many ambitious men of the state were interested in making this new land into an industrial empire. Meatpacking, lumbering, sugar making, smelting and mining, brewing, besides transportation, preoccupied Utah interest. Among the noted names were David S. Eccles, colossus among early day lumbermen, the Browning brothers, known by their invention and manufacture in the gun field, and Gus Becker, pioneer brewer. In the Ogden area, E. J. Fjeldsted, chamber of commerce executive, has for two decades of the recent years been in the forefront of every progressive move to industrialize. Likewise, the names of numerous business men could be added for their tireless efforts. During World War II, the several war plants of northern Utah did considerable in the way of processing and manufacturing. They came here, and their work was aided through the efforts of such progressives. Page 11