THE LAGOON RESORT: A THRILLING URBAN ESCAPE
By Jacob Smith
Copyright 2005
It was 1892 and the whole world came out to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Discovery of Christopher Columbus. Among those who came to the celebration in Chicago at the World’s Columbian Exposition was a Jewish family from the predominantly Mormon State of Utah – the Bambergers. Simon Bamberger came from Germany as a poor immigrant in the 1860s while in his teens and was able to financially advance enough to pay for the immigration of his entire family to America. He worked as a store manager for the transcontinental railroad, which brought him to Promontory Point in Utah. He made Utah his home and began to entrepreneur several restaurant, hotel, and mining businesses. He owned a few resorts to bolster an interurban rail line, but many of them were beginning to languish at the time that he feasted his eyes upon the World’s Columbian Exposition.
Many prominent citizens of Utah visited the fair; in fact, Utah can boast the largest percentage of its population to visit the fair. This heavenly encounter with the fair would feed the investment of fair like amusement parks across the United States. The Bambergers would start their park in Utah and call it The Lagoon.
The Lagoon Amusement Park, located in Farmington, Utah is a family run park that has evolved from a 19th-century wooded pleasure park on the banks of the Salt Lake to a ‘trolley park’ and finally to the large amusement park that it is today. I will trace the beginning stages of The Lagoon and attempt to place amusement parks rightfully in the annals of American history. In so doing I will explain the various social, economic, and cultural factors that influenced the evolution, survival, and conformation of the park during its Bamberger era.
Fifty-seven percent of the total population of the United States in 1997 attended one of the 607 amusement parks in operation and while there spent 7.3 billion hard-earned dollars. Utah amusement parks brought in 24 million. Americans spent more on raucous enjoyment than they did at the many museums, historical sites, and similar institutions available throughout the United States. Amusement parks have become a popular destination for mobile Americans today; yet, little research and time has been invested in tracing the beginnings of the proliferate, modern amusement park. Margaret J. King in "The New American Muse: Notes on the Amusement/Theme Park" points out that "some of the best observations ever made about [amusement] parks have been tossed off in passing…as casual asides in the course of pursuing weightier matters." Yet in her article she simply urges scholars to investigate the topic and does not do any pursuing herself.
Some recent scholarship has almost investigated the history of amusement parks, but has stopped short. In the book, Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States by Cindy Aron, she addresses the use of leisure time in pursuing various vacations. She gives a brief history of vacations focusing on the problem of deciding between work and play. She demonstrates how resort vacations came into existence, which are the fetuses of amusement parks. Unfortunately, she stops short at resort vacations and does not give any history or problems with amusement parks.
Russel B. Nye investigates amusement parks a little further in his article "Eight Ways of Looking at an Amusement Park." He points out that amusement parks can be considered a symbol of American culture. He gives a brief and broad history of the different venues available in parks. Still the information is not specific to any park and the information he wants to cover is too broad a topic to cover in ten pages. When it comes to using specific parks as examples, two are used the most: Disneyland and Coney Island. Many Americans will visit these parks a few times in their lives, but what of the yearly excursion to the humble amusement park closer by?
The Lagoon has a unique history but its history closely conforms to other parks that started at the same time. They all had the same roots, philosophies, and had to adapt to changing circumstances. Since not much has been done on the history of amusement parks, I will give a brief one here to set up the circumstances and environment as it directly relates to the evolution of The Lagoon as both a resort and a technological thrill escape.
The idea and history of Lagoon can be traced back to the medieval years. Two sorts of parks existed – one stemmed from church sponsored trade fairs open to all classes, the other from "pleasure gardens" open to those that behaved and blended in. The fairs were largely commercial at first consisting of booths exhibiting various wares. Gradually, entertainers and pleasure seekers began frequenting the fairs. The fairs became longer in duration and evolved into the tradition of the carnival complete with freak shows and raucous behavior; consequently, by 1855 the English government banned these carnivals. The reputation of mob mentality and rude, illicit behavior of the carnivals persisted in the minds of most individuals, including Americans and Utahns. This mentality would persist into the early stages of the formation of resort parks and The Lagoon and threaten its existence, as we will see later.
