December 13-19, 1976: A Vacation in Acapulco, Mexico
	October 9-10, 1976: A Weekend in Tampa, Florida
	Return to Index for 1976

After another period out in San Francisco, I broke up my flight back to Chicago with a stop in Salt Lake City. The purpose of doing so was two-fold. First, I'd not been here before, and I thought I would like to see the area. Second, my college roommate, Peter Guerrant, was in the area, stationed at Tooele Army Depot outside the city.

I stayed Friday night at Greg's apartment, and left early on Saturday morning for my flight to Salt Lake City. I just planned on spending one night in Salt Lake before heading on back to Chicago on Sunday.

When I landed at Salt Lake City, I rented a car and then followed the directions Peter had given me to get down to Tooele, Utah, and out to the Army Depot. When I talked to Peter on the phone, it seemed as if he were looking forward to the weekend, and when I got to the Army Depot I thought I understood why. It is out in the middle of nowhere, and it looked like a really boring place to live (which Peter did, in officer housing on the base).

Tooele Army Depot serves as a storage site for war reserve and training ammunition. The depot stores, issues, receives, renovates, modifies, maintains and demilitarizes conventional munitions. The depot also serves as the National Inventory Control Point for ammunition peculiar equipment, developing, fabricating, modifying, storing and distributing such equipment to all services and other customers worldwide.

Tooele Army Depot originally opened in 1942 during the early phase of U.S. involvement in World War II, but the workforce at the post is now primarily composed of civilians with a full colonel in command. I didn't take a picture of the post, for honestly there wasn't much to see, as most of the base is one-story storage buildings. But in case you are curious, here is a stock panoramic picture of the facility:

I met Peter at the gate and, after I made a motel reservation in Tooele, we headed off to drive around the Salt Lake City area. Peter has been here for about five months, I think, and I understand that he is in the process of getting out of the Army to become a civilian worker for the Defense Department. He's been around the area quite a bit, and had a short list of some places we might want to see.

I thought that since we were already on this side of town, that I would like to drive up to the Great Salt Lake and, if not actuallyt float in it, take off my shoes and wade out into it. Peter knew the way, so we headed up there. You can see the lake on the map above, and you can see where we stopped as I have marked that with a star.

The Great Salt Lake, located west of Salt Lake City, is the largest salt water lake in the Western Hemisphere, and the eighth-largest terminal lake (a lake with no outlet other than evaporation) in the world. In an average year the lake covers an area of around 1,700 square miles but the lake's size fluctuates substantially due to its shallowness. For instance, in 1963 it reached its lowest recorded size at 950 square miles, whereas today it is almost twice that size. If you want to see a larger lake in the United States, you'll have to go to the Great Lakes to find one.

The lake is the largest remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric pluvial lake that once covered much of western Utah. The three major tributaries to the lake, the Jordan, Weber, and Bear rivers together deposit around 1.1 million tons of minerals in the lake each year. As it is endorheic (has no outlet besides evaporation), it has very high salinity (far saltier than seawater) and its mineral content is steadily increasing. Due to the high density resulting from its mineral content, swimming in the Great Salt Lake is similar to floating.

We parked in an area off the highway, and just walked across the scrub to the shore of the lake. There were a good many people around but I was able to crop them all out of the one picture I took here. Then it was off with the shoes and socks and I waded out into the lake. If I'd had a bathing suit on, it would have been nice to try floating, as a number of other people around were doing, but even just walking through the water up to my knees I could feel a difference. (Another reason I didn't actually go floating was that there seemed to be an incredible number of flies around.)

"This is the Place" Monument

Peter then guided me directly across Salt Lake City to the east, and we went out Sunnyside Avenue towards the Wasatch Mountains and Emigration Canyon and the "This is the Place Monument."

The "This is the Place Monument" is a historical monument in a parklike setting on the east side of the city at the mouth of Emigration Canyon. It commemorates Brigham Young's famous statement in 1847 that the Latter-day Saint pioneers should settle in the Salt Lake Valley. Sculpted between 1939 and 1947 by one of Young's grandsons, it is a monument to the Mormon pioneers as well as the explorers and settlers of the American West. It was dedicated by the LDS Church President in 1947, the hundredth anniversary of the pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley.

The road to the monument continues up into Emigration Canyon, and Peter and I decided to drive a ways up to see what we could see.

"This is the Place" Monument (Back Side)

My picture of the monument taken from its front side wasn't all that great; I had the lighting off. But from just a short ways up into Emigration Canyon, the view of the monument was much better, and you can see it in its general setting. I think that this picture is much better than the first one.

Emigration Canyon itself was significant in early Utah history as the original route used by pioneers entering the area. It was part of the Hastings Cutoff route used by the Donner Party in 1846, and where the Mormon Pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. As Brigham Young looked over the canyon, he declared, "This is the right place. Drive on." These words have become famous in Utah history. Throughout Emigration Canyon, there are several historic markers designating camps, trail markers and milestone where the Mormon Pioneers passed while on their way to the Salt Lake Valley. One example of these milestones is called Lost Creek Camp.

We went a good ways up into the canyon; Emigration Canyon Road ends at the head of the canyon, and there are numerous houses right along the roadway, and at places like Emigration Oaks, a community of perhaps a hundred homes.

Brigham Young University as Seen from Emigration Canyon

As the legend at the memorial pointed out, this was the route that the Mormons took to enter the valley.

We came back out of the canyon, and took a local street that wound its way along the slops of the Wasatch Mountains above the city, and soon we had good views of the city itself.

This is the state capitol and the valley of the Deseret beyond.

From the hills above, this is much of Salt Lake City.

You might think that Salt Lake City would have clean Western air, but this is not the case. The mountains form a natural trap for pollution, and as a result the city air is almost always hazy like this. A real shame, because the area is generally quite beautiful.

Part of Salt Lake City

In this last picture I took from the hills as it was getting dark, you can see that there is indeed, a great deal of pollution here in Salt Lake City. Since this was my last picture of the weekend, I should end this page with a bit about the city itself, which I would like to have seen on a nicer day with clearer weather and no air pollution.

Salt Lake City is the major population center in a corridor of contiguous urban and suburban development stretched along a 120-mile segment of the Wasatch Front that has a population of well over a million people. Of course, the city is most well-known for being the world headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).

The city was founded in 1847 by followers of the church, led by Brigham Young, who were seeking to escape persecution that they had experienced while living farther east. The Mormon pioneers, as they would come to be known, at first encountered an arid, inhospitable valley that they then extensively irrigated and cultivated, thereby establishing the foundation to sustain the area's present population. Salt Lake City's street grid system is based on the north-south east-west grid plan developed by early church leaders, with the Salt Lake Temple constructed at the grid's starting point.

Immigration of international members of the church, mining booms, and the construction of the first transcontinental railroad initially brought economic growth, and the city was nicknamed the Crossroads of the West. It was traversed by the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway, in 1913. Two major cross-country freeways, I-15 and I-80, now intersect in the city. Salt Lake City has developed a strong outdoor recreation tourist industry based primarily on skiing.

I enjoyed spending the day with Peter, and we saw quite a lot before ending up with dinner at a restaurant in Tooele. On Sunday, we did some more driving around, but my flight back to Chicago left about 2PM, so we didn't have all that much time. We did drive by the Mormon Tabernacle, which was very pretty, but it was raining lightly and so I don't have a picture. I would hope to be back this way sometime, and perhaps I can tour the church then.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	December 13-19, 1976: A Vacation in Acapulco, Mexico
	October 9-10, 1976: A Weekend in Tampa, Florida
	Return to Index for 1976