HGB Ep. 628 - Lagoon Amusement Park

Moment in Oddity - Sea Themed Pulpits (Suggested by Chelsea Flowers)

Most people have been to a church service at one time or another even if they're not a regular congregant. Those giving the sermons, generally known as priests or pastors, will usually deliver their message from a pulpit. These can be as simple as a raised platform, to very elaborate artistic designs. The ocean holds a strong place in Christian iconography. From the book of Jonah, to the Ichthys fish representing Christ, anchors as a symbol of hope and scalloped shells representing baptism. Churches of the modern day do not typically have ocean related representations such as these, in their place of worship. However, in the 18th century in central Europe, a trend evolved with the creation of some very unique forms of pulpits. They are known as Sea Pulpits, generally consisting of giant fish, whales and boats. Many of the fish and whales styled with giant mouths bearing sharp teeth and the ship styles looking as though they are in the middle of a fierce storm. Their appearance harkens thoughts of the fire and brimstone passages of the Bible. The pulpits themselves are beautiful pieces of art right down to the finely sculpted scales of the fish or wood grain on the ships' hulls. The majority of Sea Pulpits can be found in Poland and Czechia (CHEH-kee-ah), but as to why the popularity of this style of pulpit is concentrated there, it is unknown. But one thing we do know is that maritime sea pulpits, although unique and beautiful, certainly are odd.

Lagoon Amusement Park

Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington, Utah is one of the oldest amusement parks in America and still continues to thrill children and adults with rides, entertainment and special events. It is North America's largest family owned amusement park and features world record breaking thrill rides. And while it is a place of great fun, it has also hosted some tragedy and death and perhaps that is why several areas of the park have unexplained experiences and ghosts. Join us for the history and hauntings of Lagoon Amusement Park.

As was the case for much of Utah, Farmington was first settled by Mormon settlers, the Haight family, in 1847. They created a farm and built an inn and within a couple of years, they were joined by several other families. These early pioneers called their community North Cottonwood and in 1852 the name was changed to Farmington, which was inspired by the fact that this was a farming town. This became the county seat and a wall was built around the city. Lagoon Amusement Park didn't start in Farmington. The original park was on the shores of the Great Salt Lake was founded by the Denver Rio Grande Western Railroad and was called Lake Park. It opened in July of 1886 and featured a dance pavilion, bowling alley, water sports and mule-drawn merry-go-round. Simon Bamberger was a prominent businessman who came to Utah in 1870. He had his fingers in many businesses ranging from mining to hotels. He started the Bamberger Railroad in 1891 and named it the Great Lake & Hot Springs Railway. This line ran between Ogden and Salt Lake City and reached Farmington in 1895. Bamberger was vice president and co-owner of Lake Park. The same year that the railroad reached Farmington, the Great Salt Lake receded forcing Lake Park to close. Bamberger got an idea. Perhaps the park could be moved to Farmington. He bought most of the original buildings and moved them the three miles to Farmington. The patch of land he chose was, well, a lagoon, so he drained it and then built the Lagoon Resort.

This early rendition of Lagoon had a nine-acre pond and was set up on 40 acres. The dance pavilion was one of the buildings moved. The cupola of that pavilion was designed by architect Richard Kletting, best known as the architect of the original Saltair, which we covered on Ep. 232, and that cupola still is at the park. The Lagoon advertised "Bowling, Elegant Dancing Pavilion, Fine Music, A Shady Bowery and Good Restaurants." In 1899, the first thrill ride was opened at the park. This was an early type of log flume ride called "Shoot-the Chutes." These were sliding boats that went down a ramp and splashed down into water. 

The Lagoon featured live music and dancing and restaurants and in 1900, guests started rowing boats and swimming in Lagoon Lake. Other rides were added over time. The park started its own minor league baseball team that competed in the Inter-Mountain League in 1901 and the Utah State League in 1902. In 1906, a Herschell–Spillman carousel built in 1893 was installed with 45 hand-carved horses. At least that is what the park claims, that it was built in 1893, but that would be impossible since the Herschell-Spillman Company was founded in New York in 1903. They were a premier early 20th-century manufacturer of ornate, hand-carved wooden carousels featuring "country fair" style animals. So the carousel was probably built in 1906 - it is still in the park today. There was also a Cagney miniature railroad. The Cagney Brothers opened their Miniature Railway Company in 1894. They made 15-inch gauge coal-fired steam locomotives, many of which were called "Pint-sized Pufferbellies." They made great amusement park rides. Other attractions included hot-air balloon rides, boxing and wrestling matches, horse racing, roller-skating, swimming, bicycle racing, a zoo, motion pictures, live theater, rodeos, a midway, marching bands, Wild West shows and fireworks. Then came the huge breakthrough, a roller coaster! The first roller coasters are traced back to Russia during the 17th century. Rich aristocrats had these slides built with ice on them and they would slide down them on sleds, eventually adding wheels to cart for year round use. Catherine the Great was a huge fan and had one built on her property. The French had something similar in the early 1800s. But the roller coaster that we all know and love was created in America by La Marcus Thompson. He has been called the “father of the roller coaster” and he created a switchback railway at Coney Island in 1884. Lagoon's original roller coaster, simply named Roller Coaster, still is in use and was built in 1921 from the design of coaster engineer John A. Miller. It was built from wood by the Colorado Construction Company. Its highest height is 57 feet and it has 2,500 feet of track. The ride lasts just under two minutes, and reaches speeds up to 45 mph.

The next big addition for the park involved more water. A million gallon swimming pool was added that claimed to hold water "fit to drink." This was the first filtered public pool west of the Mississippi and opened in 1927. In 1929, came a Fun House and midway shows, rides, and games. All the well known Big Band performers came to the Lagoon to perform including Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Glenn Miller.

When World War II started and America joined, the park was shut down and that lasted for three seasons. Along with disuse came disrepair and when it was time to reopen in 1946, the Bamberger family looked around and thought maybe it would be better to raze the whole park. That was when Ranch S. Kimball and Robert E. Freed approached the family and asked if their company could lease the park. Their company was the Utah Amusement Corporation and the Bambergers decided that they would do that. Freed decided to some overhauling and he rebuilt the Fun House and renovated the pool. He also pushed back on a town ordinance that prohibited blacks from using the pool or ballrooms. Freed added rides too in 1951: The "Dodgem Cars" and the "Lakeshore Express" miniature railway. He was really excited to add a Ferris Wheel in 1953. Everything was great that year until a fire ripped through and burned up most of the park. Half of the Roller Coaster was burned and the carousel still has scorch marks. This didn't stop Freed. He decided they would come better than ever and they did. And many of Freed's family members joined him. As a matter of fact, the family formed the Lagoon Corporation and bought the park from the Bamberger family in 1983 and they continue to run it today. In 1956, Mother Gooseland was created between the Midway and the swimming pool and was a themed land with kiddie rides. Today, the kid's area is called Kiddieland.

Lagoon's chief rival, Saltair, permanently closed after the 1958 season and so it was off and running without competition. The 1960s brought many new rides like a mini-car ride, the Space Scrambler, a shooting gallery, a spook house and in 1968, the 300-seat Lagoon Opera House was built and hosted Broadway style productions. The Lagoon was a popular place for music at that time with the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors,  the Kingston Trio, Johnny Cash and the Beach Boys all playing the Park. The Beach Boys even mention Lagoon Park in their song "Salt Lake City." 

Then came an ambitious project. The Park decided to add a Pioneer Village in 1976. The Pioneer Village was founded originally in 1938 by Horace and Ethel Sorensen and contained nearly 20 buildings that included a bakery, barber shop, chapel, post office, print shop, schoolhouse and several cabins. These were all moved from Salt Lake City to Lagoon. Some run as the actual shop they are and other buildings are museums full of artifacts. There was also a 2 ft. narrow-gauge "Pioneer Village Railroad" featuring "Old Ironsides" that is no longer at the Park. In 1976, the Jet Star 2 roller coaster was added from Spokane, Washington's Expo '74. In 1983, Colossus the Fire Dragon opened as the first extreme coaster in the park. This has an 87 foot hill with back-to-back double loop and two large helices, which are spiraling turns of at least 360 degrees. People Magazine named this as one of the top 10 coasters in the country in 1984. In 1987, the swimming pool was closed as was the Haunted Shack and the original Fun House. In place of the swimming pool came the $5.5 million, 4.5 acre Lagoon-A-Beach water park, which was completed in 1989. In 1997, Rattlesnake Rapids was added to the Pioneer Village, which is a river rapids ride. The year 1999 brought the park its first attraction above the height of 200-foot called The Rocket, a drop tower. The 2000s would bring many new coasters and thrill rides. The Bat opened in 2005 and is the only inverted coaster at the Park and is tame enough for kids to ride. Wicked opened in 2007 and cost $10 million to build. It is a Zierer tower launch coaster with a zero G barrel roll and it launches riders up a 100-foot tower at 55 mph in 2.5 seconds. Several other cool rides were added, usually around one a year, but it wouldn't be until 2015 that a new crazy roller coaster was added. It's called Cannibal if that gives you any idea. This features a 208-foot elevator lift hill, a 116° beyond vertical drop, three inversions, and a top speed of 70 mph. This is the second steepest coaster in America. In 2023, Primordial opened as a 4D interactive dark ride roller coaster. The ride is inside an artificial mountain and is a shooter game attraction with multiple ride endings. A new themed area entitled The District opened last year with three new rides and 2026 has The Nutcracker coming, which is an S&S Screamin' Swing thrill ride. 

So today, Lagoon features 11 coasters, 5 thrill rides, 2 dark rides, 1 water ride, 14 family rides, 19 kiddie rides and various X-Venture Zone rides that have an upcharge. There is the Pioneer Village and the water park and there had been a zoo, which was under a cloud of controversy over poor treatment and has now been closed. The Park also offers an RV park, a campground, and a walking trail outside the park that stays open all year. Every autumn, the park offers Halloween-themed shows and attractions, collectively known as Frightmares. And most importantly to us, there are ghosts.

There are a couple of reasons that there might be ghosts here. First, the Pioneer Village is full of old buildings and stuff. And then, as is the case with all amusement parks, there have been accidents and deaths. There have been 27 fatalities in total at the Park. This ranks it as number 11 in most dangerous amusement parks in the nation. Henry John Barnes was the first death on August 3, 1907 and he drowned in Lagoon's lake because he was intoxicated. His body wasn't found until the following morning. The lake would feature the most fatalities. Herbert Lee Reeder drowned in the lake on June 5, 1909 when the boat he was in capsized. He didn't know how to swim and his friend was unable to rescue him. In 1912, Emma Youngquist drowned in the lake when she and her boyfriend fell out of their boat because they were changing positions. Albert Fulton drowned in the pool when he struck his head on the bottom of the pool after diving in. Earl E. Logston was killed in a vehicle accident on the Lagoon racetrack on Sept. 5, 1921. Another man died in a car on the racetrack on July 24, 1922. You have to be pretty stupid to stand up on a roller coaster, but two people have died doing that. The first was George Burt who died on July 26, 1924 when he fell 25 feet from the Dipper roller coaster after standing up during the ride. The other was Ernest Henry Howe who died on August 20, 1934 when he stood up and fell out of the Roller Coaster. They apparently didn't have seat belts back then. 

A Tobias Oritz died on July 4, 1925 when he dove into the pool and drowned after hitting his head on the bottom as did Samuel Marler from the same thing on August 14, 1942. Mrs. Luka La Fay Goodfellow died on July 13, 1930 she dies in an accident in the Fun House when she was thrown from the “fun wheel” and struck her head against a post. James Young Hess was an employee and he was repairing scaffolding on Roller Coaster on Sept. 1, 1946 when he was hit by one of the coaster's cars and fell 18 feet, suffering skull, leg and arm fractures. 

Six-year-old Ryan Beckstead was riding the “Puff the Little Fire Dragon” ride at Lagoon on April 30, 1989. The ride operator was new and since nobody else was waiting for the ride she said, "How about another ride?" She hit the button for the ride to go again without noticing that Ryan had already started getting out of his seat. He was tossed out of the ride and stuck in between the tracks. People tried to reach him before the coaster came back around a second time and were ubable to. He was struck and killed. Kilee King was 13 when she died on July 9, 1989 after she fell 35 feet from the lead car of the roller coaster. She apparently had figured out that since she was smaller, she could “get air” by pushing her legs against the seat of the car as it went over a hill. The final time she did this she was thrown out of the ride’s car after slipping out from the safety bar. The most recent death happened on August 14, 2021 when a 32-year-old man fell 50 feet after dangling from the park's Sky Ride. No one knows if it was a suicide attempt or a stunt gone horribly wrong. However, he didn't die at the Park, rather the following day at the hospital.

Here are some of the haunting experiences people have had. Zestyclose_Series123 wrote, "I was a supervisor with the security department in the late 90-early 2000s. It was common knowledge that the top floor of the communications building was haunted. By the way no way you would catch me in the carriage house after the part closed." Different-Zucchini70 wrote, "I heard a story on the radio a long time ago about a security guard went to turn off some lights in a storage area by pioneer village. He turned the lights off and began walking back. He noticed the lights were on again, so he went to turn them back off, but this time he looked inside and saw mannequins moving."  

Ill_External4276 wrote on Reddit, "Hi! I have had a paranormal experience in pioneer village in lagoon amusement park. My dad told me the place where the carriages are is haunted, so when I was a teenager, a few of my friends and I went there and we were being dumb teenagers and decided to take photos sitting in the carriages (totally not allowed) and in almost all of the photos, there were orbs of light around us. The same day, (we were in the area near closing time and there was absolutely nobody else in the village) we all of a sudden heard what sounded like hundreds of voices talking and walking past us. The air was also super thick and musky, almost like we could see particles in the air. What’s so Erie and creepy is that years later, none of us have any of the photos on our phones anymore. There is only one photo left of me and it’s the one that doesn’t have the orbs (and we had over 20 photos with the orbs in them). I still sometimes search my camera roll hoping I’ll come across them but they’ve totally disappeared. This is the only paranormal experience I’ve ever had where I was fully conscious (not falling asleep or waking up from a dreamlike state) so it fully spooked me!"

Dustin Baird said on Facebook, "I was the overnight security guard for several months one summer. You have to trust me when I tell you the stories are real. The place has spirits. I've seen lights in buildings with no power and doors that were closed when I walked by open just after I passed." Laura Bernice said three years ago, "I was there a few weeks ago. I made it to the village 15 minutes before closing so it was mostly empty, the only place open was the ice cream shop everything else was completely empty, I decided to take a look around the Barber shop and I heard a knock on the glass and someone saying "come with me" I turned around and there was no one else but me in there or outside." 

There are claims that there is the ghost of a little girl in the arcade next to Dracula's Castle. This whole area had once been a dance pavilion that had burned down. Employees didn't like to work in the arcade because it creeped them out. They claimed there were ghosts from the fire there, including this little girl. The smell of smoke is detected many times. When closing up, employees would be chasing this little girl around who wouldn't leave. They would hear her giggling and running and sometimes see her and if they managed to find her, they would see that she was burned really bad on part of her body. Employees who actually saw her would usually quit. Patrons claim to feel as though a small child is grabbing their hand and children claimed to have been talking to a little girl in old timey clothes. One woman named Jody shared her experience with the Ghost Box Podcast in 2021. This was back in 1978 when she was 8-years-old and her parents had taken her to the park. They were in the Pioneer Village where there was an old buggy and horse drawn carriages and her parents had walked ahead of her. Jody spied this little girl and the two started playing with each other. She figured that the little girl worked there because she had a pioneer dress on. They played for over 30 minutes together before Jody went to find her parents. They asked her where she had been and she said she was playing with a little girl who work at the park. There was a female employee standing there and she said that the park didn't employ children. She went to call a manager because she assumed the kid was lost. The employee told the manager that Jody had said this little girl had blonde curly hair and a pioneer dress on and that she said her name was Ella. The manager quickly said, "Oh, that's our resident ghost Ella. She's been seen by quite a few people." No one is sure if Ella comes from the fire - we think probably not since Jody didn't say that she was burned - or if she had come with the Pioneer Village.

This area where the carriages are kept seems to be the most haunted area of the park. People claim to hear the sound of horses there and no horses are kept there. And no sound effects are used at this old livery stable. For one group of paranormal investigators, the livery stable gave them their most evidence over more than one visit. They heard disembodied steps on the stairs several times. They heard an audible female voice and they wondered if there was a female employee in there, but they found no one. They heard the voice again and then again. And then one of the female investigators felt a tug on her jacket and she jumped and screamed a bit. A shadowy figure was seen then moving from the side of her into a hearse.

At the Dern House, a security guard said he saw someone walking around in the front parlor after hours through a window. He went and checked the house and the doors were locked and then they checked the house and it was empty. This happened a couple of other times. An employee who was working there years ago when she was 15, said that she and a couple of other employees decided to do a seance in the village in the telephone museum that was stored in an old house. On the right hand side when you enter the museum is an old switchboard with a big picture featuring the women working the switchboards. There are no sound effects in the museum. This group set up their seance in the switchboard room and they aren't being really serious about it and nothing happened. Then they jut sat around talking and all of a sudden the atmosphere changed and the temperature changed. And then there were waves of these sounds the were like multiple voices and sounds like the switchboard was actually working. The sounds got lousder and louder until they could actually see the plexiglass vibrating from the sound. The girls in the group ran out of the house. The boys followed a little later and asked why the girls ran out and they answered, "Didn't those sounds scare you too?" The boys frowned and were like, "What sounds?" When the girls described the sounds the boys were like, "We didn't hear anything like that. It was quiet." Was this some kind of a time-space over lap?

Amusement parks are great fun. These classic parks that continue to update and yet keep some of their nostalgia are some of the best. Lagoon Amusement Park is beloved by Utahans. And while it offers thrills via the rides, is it possible there are some from paranormal experiences? Is Lagoon Amusement Park haunted? That is for you to decide!