Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- The Great Saltair, rebuilt in 1981, is now a hub for ghost hunters.
- Employee Brandon Barrick became a believer after hearing unexplained children's laughter in 2020.
- Ghost hunters, led by Grimm Ghost Adventures, estimate the site hosts 10 ghosts.
MAGNA — For more than a decade, Brandon Barrick was a skeptic. He'd heard tales from the late night stage crew. The glimpses of a soldier standing at the banister. A woman in white pacing across the second-floor windows. But until Barrick experienced paranormal activity firsthand, he wasn't convinced the Great Saltair was haunted.
The Great Saltair, built in 1893 on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, was a mainstay for early Utah settlers until it burned down for a second time in 1970. The site was rebuilt in 1981 and is now a venue for concerts and other entertainment events.
Once considered "The Coney Island of the West," modern ghost-sighting lore has made the Great Saltair a hub for paranormal investigations.
When Saltair's permanent stage crew used to work back-to-back shows, they'd stay overnight at the venue. "They had some pretty crazy stories about, you know, seeing things at night, hearing things," Barrick, a Great Saltair employee of 15 years who is currently the events coordinator, told the Deseret News.
"The owner and even myself, when I started, we kind of chalked it up to those guys are kind of sleep deprived . ... Because at that point, neither one of us had seen anything really strange out here."
Then, a paranormal experience in 2020 prompted Barrick to reconsider his skepticism.
During the height of the pandemic, a film crew expressed interest in using the Saltair as a backdrop. The building had been vacated for six months at that point, and most of the interior was caked in dust. So Barrick, the building's owner and two others returned to the venue to prep for the film crew. As they tidied up, all four heard children's laughter.
"We all heard the same thing, and we thought it was coming from outside the building," Barrick said. "We all went out to look and walked the entire perimeter of the building, and there was nobody out there.
"So that was pretty weird. That was something."
'Coney Island of the West'
Almost nothing from the original Great Saltair exists today.
"The (Saltair) that's out there now is actually on a completely different site, and its only connection (to the original) is using the name and a bad copy of the architecture," Ian Christensen, a researcher who is currently writing a book on the history of the Great Saltair, told The Deseret News.
But the "main difference" between the original Saltair and its modern rebuild has nothing to do with its architecture, Christensen said. The biggest difference? The original Saltair was "world famous."
Originally constructed in 1893, the Great Saltiar was envisioned as a "Coney Island of the West." The site was comprised of several different structures — a 130-foot tall main pavilion named The Saltair Palace, a bathhouse on the Great Salt Lake, a boardwalk and a railroad to bring visitors in from the city.
It was once home to the world's largest wooden roller coaster, a 10,000-occupancy dance floor, a merry-go-round, musicals, bowling, Skee-Ball and Utah's first movie theater.
At its peak, in 1924, the Great Saltair attracted half a million visitors a year from around the world.
Tragedy struck the flourishing amusement park in April 1925, when an electrical fire burned the Great Saltair to the ground. It was rebuilt the following year, but could never attract the same-sized crowds as it had before. In 1958, the amusement park was boarded up and closed for good.
For over a decade, the site sat abandoned. Then for a second time, in 1970, the Saltair caught fire. Police suspected arson, but no one was ever caught.
In 1981, the Saltair was rebuilt roughly one mile from the original site. It's now located off westbound I-80, providing greater accessibility to guests while still not far from the Great Salt Lake.
The rebuild was done quickly and on a budget. "An old aircraft hangar ... bought from Hill Air Force Base," was used to construct the heart of the modern Saltair, Christensen said.
Within two years of the rebuild, tragedy struck the venue for a third time. Salt Lake City's 1983 flood submerged the main floor of the Saltair under five feet of water. It wasn't until the late 1980s that the water fully receded.
In 1992, Walter Plumb restored the flood-stricken building and added a stage for local musicians and performers. The Great Saltair reopened in 1993 and was sold to its current owner, Ian Morehouse, in 2005. It is currently used as an entertainment venue.
A single piece of the original Saltair lives inside its modern successor. In a room behind the stage, strapped to a column is a plank of wood, collected from the original Saltair's boardwalk.
To the believer, this plank is considered "active" for paranormal events, Barrick said during a tour of the building. It's one of many spaces within the building that attracts ghost hunters searching for a paranormal experience.
Ghost hunters flock to The Great Saltair in search of paranormal activity
On a Saturday night in October, a few dozen amateur and expert ghost hunters gathered at the Great Saltair to take part in a paranormal investigation. Hunters hoped for communication with one of Saltair's resident ghosts, or perhaps, a phantom who followed them inside.
The investigation was led by Grimm Ghost Adventures, a local group of expert paranormal investigators who have led similar investigations at the Saltair several times in the past.
Expert hunters estimate Saltair is home to 10 ghosts, but there are only a handful who have been sighted frequently. As far as experts can tell, none of these ghosts are connected to the site's predecessor.
