“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”
Mark Twain
Black Rock is located on the northern edge of the Oquirrh Mountains, where the range ends abruptly on the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake. This is a very historic place and it’s a shame it’s in the condition that it is. Black Rock is now a place where chumps go to practice their graffiti or dump their trash. There are ancient pilings, large concrete blocks that no doubt once served as breakwaters for the many resorts that have been located here over the years. Old defunct dock supports jut out of the salt water here at the edge of the inland sea. The place has a sort of skeletal appearance to go along with the rock’s ghostly history.
Many years ago, Black Rock was a very different place. Lush grasses, rushes, and rushes once washed up on the lake shores in this area. Streams of pure, crystal clear water, fed by melting snow from the Oquirrh Mountains, once flowed into the lake in this area. One of the earliest mentions of Black Rock was in Heinrich Lienhard’s Diary. In this diary, Lienhard kept a daily record of what he observed and experienced as a member of an emigrant group that passed through Utah and crossed the Great Salt Lake desert on its way west, just weeks before Donner’s group. .
Here is an excerpt from that diary “August 8, 1846; In the vicinity of this spring, was an immense, isolated, rounded rock, under which was a cave, and those who entered found a human skeleton.” It is now clear that the group was in the vicinity of Black Rock at the time, but it is not clear to me if this is a description of Black Rock or one of the many caves and rocks just up the hill at the foot of the Oquirrh Mountains. There have been numerous reports of archaic human remains found in caves in the vicinity of Black Rock. The area must have had some significance to the ancients as it was a much used burial ground. University archaeologists studied the sites extensively and much knowledge was gained about these peoples who lived in this area long ago.
In 1850, Captain Howard Stansbury was conducting a survey of the Great Salt Lake and surrounding areas. He used Black Rock for various purposes. Captain Stansbury kept a careful record of this expedition and these records culminated in the following work “An Expedition to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah – Including an Analysis of its Geography, Natural History, and Minerals, and an Analysis of its Waters” by Captain Howard Stansbury – Captain; Corps of Topographical Engineers, United States Army. This volume is another one of my personal favorites on Utah history.
The following are excerpts from this volume relating to Black Rock “April 19, 1850; after erecting a station at his northern point (Stansbury Island), he intended to proceed to Black Rock, a large isolated rock on the shore south of the lake, midway between the two islands (Antelope and Stansbury), to erect a station on it”. He continues: “April 20, 1850; A new gale was blowing from the northwest which continued to increase during the day. The wind was exceedingly cold, and the men were forced to wrap themselves in buffalo skins to keep warm. Ripping out the headsail, we ran to Black Rock, a distance of more than 20 miles in 3 hours. A station was built from previously cut timbers in the mountains and they were dragged to the spot for that purpose; but the strength of the party was not sufficient to lift it.”. Stansbury goes on to claim that they were able to erect the station on top of Black Rock the next day and that he had the boat camp crew at Black Rock while he went to Salt Lake for supplies.
Upon his return to Black Rock, Stansbury decided to test a theory he had: “Before I left Black Rock, I did an experiment on the properties of lake water to preserve meat. A large piece of fresh meat was suspended from a rope.” . and immersed in the lake for a little over twelve hours when it was found tolerably well gored.After this all the beef we wished to keep while operating on the lake was packed into barrels without any salt, and the ships were then it was filled with water from the lake. No additional care or preparation was necessary, and the meat remained perfectly sweet, albeit constantly exposed to the sun. I have no doubt that meats placed in this water would remain sound and good as long as they were prepared according to the most approved methods. In fact, we were forced to mix fresh water with this natural brine, to prevent our meat from becoming too salty for present use: a very few days’ immersion changed its character from corned beef to what the sailors called “scrap.” of salt”
When I visited Black Rock and stood at the edge of the breakwater, listening to the waves crash against the rocks, I imagined Captain Stansbury and his crew, in their makeshift boat, traveling here and there around the lake. To think that those men camped near this place and erected a station with high beams on top of this rock.
Stansbury was not the only one to cross the waters of the lake. In 1854, Brigham Young had a boat built and named it the “Timely Gull” after the seagulls that saved the Saints’ crops from hordes of crickets. The Timely Gull was used for recreational purposes and to transport cattle to and from Antelope Island. The ship was basically a 45 foot barge with one sail. Timely Gull operated on the lake from her mooring at Black Rock for 4 years until a storm broke him free from his mooring and swept him across the lake to the opposite shore where she was shipwrecked.
I was thinking about these things as I walked around Black Rock looking for a possible route to its summit. It was a cold, gray, windy February day and the daylight was fading. The flash of strobe lights in the chimney of the Kennecott Foundry to the east seemed to attack the oncoming darkness with a vengeance. The wind was blowing a little stronger now and the waves were getting bigger and now crashing against the rocks. As I considered the coming darkness and realized I wouldn’t want to stay on the rock after dark, I found a notch on the west side that allowed relatively easy access to the top of the rock.
Once at the top, I stood there in the breeze and surveyed the scene. It sounds corny, but I was overcome with a feeling of loneliness and sadness, and a creepy feeling that I wasn’t alone there. I don’t necessarily believe in ghosts, but if I did, I’d probably avoid Black Rock because I had the feelings described above before learning about Mrs. Charlie White’s harrowing story.
An excellent article on Black Rock history was written by Mildred Mercer and is found in the book “Tooele County History – Volume I” Tooele County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1961. The following information on White family history was obtained from that source. When Captain Stansbury and his team visited Black Rock in 1850, his assistant Lieutenant John W. Gunnison (Gunnison died in 1853 at the bend in the Sevier River west of Delta when his expedition was massacred by Indians) mentioned in his records that Mr. Charley White and his wife had built a cabin on the shore of the lake and had a running salt production business. Gunnison noted that Mr. White had 6 large 10-gallon kettles in operation. He boiled 60 gallons of lake water at a time and could produce 300 pounds of salt per day. Gunnison said that they could get 1 bucket of salt for every 4 buckets of lake water.
Charley White also kept a herd of cattle in the area around Black Rock and was constantly in trouble with Indians escaping with their cattle. Apparently, all was not well within the White household and Charley eventually left his wife, known locally as “Mother White”, and his two children in Black Rock. Mother White continued to care for the animals and produce salt from the lake while she raised her young daughter and son. Mother White was not a character to be taken lightly, as some described her as a large woman who was always seen carrying a double-barreled shotgun. She would have had to be tough as nails to survive this long on the lakeshore, on the very edge of civilization.
If her husband’s abandonment wasn’t enough, one day in 1856, the two little boys went wading in the lake about ¼ mile from shore. If she’s ever ventured into the Great Salt Lake, she’ll understand the temptation to go further and further, as the water is still knee deep, even a mile from the shore in many places. However, winds can change the depth of the water abruptly and waves can appear suddenly. This is what happened to the children. An unexpected gale kicked up on the lake, causing waves on the children. The boy was knocked over by a wave and strangled and drowned in the brine. Her sister ran to shore as fast as she could to get help, but by the time Mother White reached the child, she was gone. She buried him on the slope of the Oquirrh behind Black Rock.
The White Mother must have been very depressed after these events. The gnats and mosquitoes that accumulate by the millions in the area would have been enough to depress anyone, but these personal tragedies certainly made matters worse. Mother White and her daughter continued in Black Rock until 1861 until they mysteriously disappeared. It was commonly believed that she had been killed by her cattle, as some of her cattle were later seen with some men in the Tooele Valley. One theory was that her body sank in the Great Salt Lake near Black Rock. Others believed that her body was disposed of in a shallow grave in Black Rock Canyon. It is not known what happened to her daughter. Whatever the truth of the story, if ever there was a reason for a ghost to haunt a place, the White Mother would certainly have every reason to haunt the rock.
Many other interesting events occurred in Black Rock and not all of them are melancholic. In 1851, 150 carriages, buggies and wagons traveled from Salt Lake City to Black Rock, where cannons were fired and a large American flag was unfurled from the top of the rock to celebrate the 4th of July. Patrick Edward Connor operated several ships out of Black Rock that hauled ore from the Stockton Mines across the lake to Corrine and the railroad for transport to smelters. There was also a large tourist center in Black Rock in the late 19th century consisting of 100 bathhouses, a large pavilion, an amusement park with a large merry-go-round, and visitors arrived by train from Salt Lake City in open-air cars. .
Today, Black Rock is not even a shadow of its glory days, as it is an attractive place for scum to paint graffiti, litter or conduct illegal and unscrupulous transactions. That said, it is a very interesting place and an important landmark and part of our heritage. I just wish some entity would somehow clean, protect and preserve it for future generations to enjoy as the view to the west from the rock on the other side of the lake can’t be beat. To get there, take Saltair Exit #104 off Interstate 80, take the North Frontage Road and drive west past Saltair and the Great Salt Lake Marina. The road will get unpaved, rocky, and bumpy, but most cars can make it the last ¼ to where the road ends at the edge of the lake at Black Rock. Again, not a place you want to be after dark, but if you haven’t been to Black Rock or the Great Salt Lake in general, it’s a very interesting if not spooky place worth a visit.
