THE LAGOON RESORT: A THRILLING URBAN ESCAPE (CONTINUED)
Of course, The Lagoon did not forget its family oriented mission and the park-like atmosphere from the former lakeside resorts. One could stroll through the gardens, swim in the fresh lagoon, and visit the rowdy Midway all in a single day and place. It was an amusement park for every taste and any class. Many parks started this same way throughout the United States. Forest Park Highlands in St. Louis was owned and operated at first by the city to control Victorian ethics in a public place. Anton Steuver bought the park after the trolley reached its limits in 1896 and built an amusement park in much the same manner as The Lagoon. Colonel Briton created an amusement park by a popular resort near New Castle, Pennsylvania and built a streetcar line to it to promote the park in 1894. The park was bought and remodeled by the trolley line company, renamed Cascade Park, a dam was built to create a lake for swimming and boating, and the park opened in 1897. A very popular amusement park that still runs today with the same beginnings is Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. It started in 1897 as a "trolley park," as almost all amusement parks at the time were called. By the turn of the century almost every major city had a trolley park.
For The Lagoon to be successful, it needed to have patrons. Patrons needed to have time to attend the park and money to spend at the Midway and on rides. As we have seen up to this point through its general history and conformity with the general history of amusement parks, The Lagoon followed the general trend of the rise of amusement parks in evolving from a resort to a miniature world’s fair. From this we can assume that the patrons that frequented the park underwent the same social and economic transitions the rest of the U.S. encountered at the turn of the century.
Social, cultural, and economic changes created more free time, a rise in spending money, and new attitudes regarding the spending of both time and money. When looking at the statistics the U.S. Bureau of the Census produces we can compare the hours and annual earnings of those in 1890 and 1925 for low-skilled wage earners in manufacturing industries. From this report we can deduce the general economic situation and how much free time Americans had. From 1890 to 1925 hours decreased from 60 hours per week to 50.3 hours. This is an increase of 19 percent more free time. By today’s standards a 40 hour work week would be reduced to 32.4 hours. What would you do with an extra 7 hours and 24 minutes? To compliment the increase in free time, workers also saw an increase in earnings from $439 to $1280, adjusted for inflation. That is an increase of 192 percent. Today’s average household income is around $43,000 a year. Imagine 35 years from now your wages increasing from the old average to a new average of a little less than $83,000 a year at today’s values. The major difference between then and now is that $439 a year was barely scraping by and $43,000 today is a very comfortable lifestyle. The change was huge during this time period. The greatest increase in salary occurred after World War I and stimulated an economic boom and a spending frenzy.
Accompanied by this increase in free time and money was a new attitude about how to spend the money. According to another report by the U.S. Census Bureau spending on recreation increased gradually from 2.9 percent of yearly earnings in 1909 to 4.0 percent in 1925. Before 1909, recreation was not a category in the U.S. Census Bureau revealing even more the change in attitudes toward recreation. Another striking change is visible when breaking down recreation and seeing what the money was spent on. Julius Weinberger did some research on recreation in 1937 revealing some interesting trends. By 1920 vacation travel and motion-picture attendance were the preferred venues of spending money, musical events and plays leveled off, and the transportation transitioned from the railroad (trolleys included) to the automobile. Americans seemed to enjoy the sitting down and moving or being entertained sorts of entertainment. Amusement parks began to cater to this trend and consequently boomed during the 1920s.
The Lagoon saw the increase of its rides and attendance increase dramatically before and especially after the First World War catering to the new trend of exertion-free entertainment and new found free time and wealth. A new carousel with 45 hand-carved horses and characters replaced the merry-go-round, the fun house was updated, and the most exciting ride of its time, the roller coaster, was added to the list of rides in 1921. Another huge attraction was the million-gallon swimming pool with "water fit to drink."
The Lagoon still saw problems with acceptance in the Utah community during this time. The same committees organized to suppress Lake Park continued their work on The Lagoon. Most of the concerns were about unsupervised mingling of youth and the selling of alcohol. One committee complained to the city of Farmington about moonlight dancing and dances on Sundays to an electric organ as sources of promiscuous and irreverent behavior. The manager at the time, Andy Christensen, agreed to halt those activities.
Alcohol was the other issue. The Salt Lake Tribune explained that "it pleases Mr. Bamberger to see people drink at Lagoon, because being a philanthropist, he wants to make them feel good." Alcohol was a large source of revenue for the park. Another article in the Salt Lake Tribune said of his saloons: "Any list of Mr. Bamberger’s gold mines is certainly incomplete without mention of his Lagoon saloons." Consequently, concessionaires sold beer from the beginning of The Lagoon.
Problems arose with the sell of alcohol when some concessionaires were found to be selling without a license and to the youth. When caught by a Farmington City officer, the bartenders moved their goods a short distance across the county line. One newspaper article in the Davis County Clipper explained, "the west line of the city runs through the centre of the barroom." To avoid legal problems it was not difficult for alcohol vendors to move their wares to where it was legal and out of Farmington official’s jurisdiction. As a result, Farmington officials issued licenses in an effort to get some control. They issued licenses in restricted numbers and to certain concessionaires as a way of controlling the influx of alcohol and its associated lewd behavior. The Lagoon helped out as well by paying the salaries of city police officers that patrolled the park. Not many complaints were made about the use of time to entertain oneself after the turn of the century revealing a change in the work-ethic ideal in Utah.
A few events and trends in U.S. history contributed to the general decline of "trolley parks" after the roaring twenties. In 1920 there were around 2,000 parks similar to The Lagoon in America. By 1954 that number had decreased to around 400. This decline can be contributed to the Depression, World War II, and the permeation of automobiles in common households.
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