|
|
SIMON BAMBERGER AND LAGOON In 1886, the Lake Park Bathing Resort opened on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. The water slowly receded year by year until the resort was left high and dry. It closed permanantly at the end of the 1895 season. Simon Bamberger held 25% interest in this resort and was the Vice President. Bamberger owned the Salt Lake & Ogden Railroad and needed something to convince guests to travel on the railroad which just completed tracks to Farmington, Utah (it was extended to Ogden in 1908). He bought most of the original buildings from Lake Park and moved them to Farmington. He opened the new resort in 1896. The name of the resort...Lagoon. MORE ABOUT SIMON BAMBERGER (from the Utah Historical Society) "Bamberger was Utah's 4th governer. He was born in 1846 in Eberstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany. He came to the United States at age 14. He manufactured clothing in St. Louis before coming to Utah. He arrived in Utah in the 1870s or 1880s. He ran 2 small hotels and later made a fortune by investing in the Centennial Eureka Mine in Juab County as well as other mines throughout Utah and Nevada.
In 1881 he was married to Ida Maas, and had four children. He served on the Salt Lake City Board of Education from 1898 to 1903 and once donated money to help keep the schools open. Elected to the state senate in 1902, the only Democrat to win in Salt Lake County. He was defeated in a state senate race in 1912. He planned to run for the U.S. Senate in 1916, but withdrew in favor of William H. King and sought the governor's seat instead. LDS Apostle Brigham H. Roberts made a brilliant speech nominating Bamberger by calling for an end to the selection of candidates based on church affiliation. Bamberger defeated Alfred W. McCune, another wealthy mining man and a Mormon, on the second ballot of the primary election. Pledged to sign a prohibition bill, he easily defeated Prohibitionist Nephi L. Morris, running in this election as a Republican, becoming the second Jew elected to a U.S. governorship.
During World War I, Bamberger supported the Liberty Bond drives, often traveling at his own expense to promote their sale. The 1919 legislature continued the progressive trend by passing a mine tax law advocated by Bamberger despite his own mine holdings. He also urged passage of a bond issue for road building and signed bills requiring compulsory high school attendance and establishing a state securities commission. In September 1919 he called a special session of the legislature to ratify the national women's suffrage amendment.
Bamberger declined to run for reelection in 1920 and returned to his business interests. He died in Salt Lake City in 1926 of an apparent heart attack."
|
|
