The park Farmington
Three operating rides listed on the National Register on one day in October 2012
Lagoon, and the three rides the federal government listed in one day.
Lagoon moved inland from the lake shore and opened on this ground on 12 July 1896. On 24 October 2012 the National Park Service listed three of its operating rides with consecutive reference numbers: a Herschell-Spillman carousel manufactured about 1913 and installed here in 1918, a John A. Miller wooden roller coaster built in 1921, and a Bisch-Rocco Flying Scooter installed in 1941. All three are within a minute's walk of each other at the south end of the midway, and the record on them is a set of federal documents rather than a park brochure.
I work Southern Utah, a long way south of Davis County, so these pages are researched rather than lived. The spine of this set is federal: five National Park Service registration forms were pulled and read in full, for the two historic districts and for three Lagoon rides. The rest was read at the body that issues it, meaning Farmington City, Davis County, UDOT project records, the Utah Transit Authority, the Division of Wildlife Resources, the Census Bureau's own data files and the park's own calendar. Each figure carries the date it was checked. A Davis County partner agent handles the work on the ground.
The live question
Which rides at Lagoon are actually on the National Register?
Three of them, and every list that says two is undercounting. On 24 October 2012 the National Park Service listed the Lagoon Carousel, the Lagoon Flying Scooter and the Lagoon Roller Coaster with consecutive reference numbers 12000883, 12000884 and 12000885, all at 375 North Lagoon Drive. All three are still operating. All three were certified at the statewide level of significance rather than the local one. And all three were nominated under a single umbrella document that the Utah State Historic Preservation Office wrote for one amusement park, the multiple property listing titled Historic Resources of the Lagoon Amusement Park, 1886 to 1976.
They are also within a minute of each other. The carousel nomination describes the site: the ride stands at the south end of the historic midway, with the arcade to the north, the kiddie ride area and food service to the east, the lagoon and the train ride to the southeast, and the historic roller coaster loading station immediately west. The Flying Scooter has moved five times inside the park but sits in the same corner. So the whole federal walking tour of this park is one stop, and it is the oldest corner of it.
The last thing worth knowing before you go looking is that one date on the park's own website does not match the federal record. Lagoon's site associates the carousel with 1893 and files it under a 1906 heading. The registration form, a 47 page researched document, states that the carousel was manufactured circa 1913 by the Herschell-Spillman Company of North Tonawanda, New York, and that in 1918 it was installed at its current location. It has never moved since. This page follows the nomination and says so rather than choosing quietly.
The federal record, in numbers
1896
the year the resort opened on this ground, on 12 July
1921
the year the wooden roller coaster was built, to a John A. Miller design
2,598 ft
of track on the coaster, 62 feet high at its tallest point
3
operating rides listed on the National Register on one day in 2012
The carousel
Forty odd hand carved animals, no replacements, and two that exist on no other machine.
The registration form calls this the only historic hand carved wood carousel currently operating in Utah, and it is worth reading that sentence as what it is: federal document language from 2012, not marketing. The same form records that of an estimated 3,000 American carousels operating in the first half of the twentieth century, this is one of about two hundred surviving examples, and one of only eight surviving full menagerie carousels the Herschell-Spillman Company produced. Seven of those eight, this one included, were originally installed on the west coast.
Menagerie is the technical word and it means what it sounds like. The nomination counts nineteen menagerie animals alongside twenty three traditional carousel horses, plus two chariots and a spinning tub, three abreast, on a Park model machine divided into sixteen sections. The standers include two giraffes, a deer, a lion, a tiger, a stork, an outer row goat and a sea dragon. The jumpers include zebras, mules, ponies, two frogs the form calls hop toads, two roosters, a dog, a cat and a pig. Then there are the two anomalies: a toddler sized swan and a toddler sized bear, fixed straight to the platform, present in a photograph taken on 17 June 1937 and assumed original, and unlike anything else the company built.
Do not go looking for a figure count, because there is not an agreed one. The nomination says forty three animal figures in one place and gives tallies that come to forty two in another; the park's website says forty five. The interesting number is zero: the form states that the carousel includes no replacement figures at all, which makes it an exceptionally consistent example of the Country Fair style of carving. What is not original is stated just as plainly. The 7.5 horsepower motor is an in kind replacement made around 1977 when the clutch and brake were replaced with a switch, and the calliope was built in 1986 after the original wore out and sits in a replacement band organ box whose maker's logo reads Freedola.
It arrived because a manager went shopping. In the winter of 1917 general manager A. C. Christensen visited coast cities looking for amusements, and came back in January 1918 having bought a fourteen thousand dollar merry go round and having arranged to ship two trainloads of California sand for a beach themed swimming area. The park opened that season on 30 May 1918 and a contemporary account says the new ride did a big business. There had been at least two merry go rounds here before it: an 1898 Sanborn map shows one under the largest pavilion, and a 1902 newspaper account describes an accident on a horse powered one, in which a rider hit the animal with a palm leaf fan until, in the paper's words, the animal finally rebelled.
The details
Getting there
Lagoon publishes its own freeway access: exit 322, signed 200 West, if you are travelling north on Interstate 15, and exit 325, signed Park Lane, if you are travelling south. The auto park opens thirty minutes before the gates and there is a separate drop off and pick up area with a fifteen minute limit and no fee. The free route 667 shuttle links the commuter rail station and the retail district to both the park gate and the campground, which is the way to arrive without paying for parking at all.
Before you go
- The carousel and its shelter are counted as two separate structures on the National Register, and the shelter's footprint is a sixty foot circle of 0.06 acres.
- There is no elaborate designated lead horse. The nomination notes that none of the horses are traditional standers, and that white flag horses with gold and silver manes do the lead horse job instead.
- An operator has a plaque on the ride. Elwin J. Garlock ran the carousel between 1924 and 1929 and Lagoon fixed an Honored Employee plaque to it on 27 August 1986.
- Do not expect the same hours twice. Lagoon publishes a day by day calendar and its own footnote says dates and times are subject to change without notice.
The coaster
A 1921 ride boarded from a 1954 Streamline Moderne station.
That single sentence carries the whole history of the thing. The Lagoon Roller Coaster was built in 1921 to a design by John A. Miller, one of the defining coaster engineers of the period. On the night of 14 November 1953 a fire destroyed the original station and part of the lift hill. Miller's lift hill was recreated in 1954; the station was not, and what went up in its place is a Post-War Streamline Moderne building that the registration form lists as part of the property in its own right. So the queue is thirty three years younger than the ride, and both halves are federally listed.
The measurements on the form are surveyed rather than rounded, and they differ from the park's own. The nomination gives approximately 690 feet in length including the station and waiting area, 62 feet high at its tallest point, a total track length of 2,598 feet, a classification of double out and back, and a footprint of about 1.35 acres. Lagoon's own site says 2,500 feet of track and hills rising to 60 feet, and adds a top speed of 45 miles per hour that the nomination does not state. Where the two disagree this page uses the surveyed figures and attributes the speed to the park.
The ride carries four other names on the nomination's cover, all of them period: Lagoon Dipper, Silver Coaster, Giant Coaster and White Roller Coaster. The form chose Lagoon Roller Coaster because across ninety years it has been known simply as the roller coaster. Lagoon Dipper is the 1921 name, and it is the one to look for in anything written before the war.
Two maintenance facts are on the form and both are more interesting than they sound. The coaster is inspected daily during operation for rot, insect damage and cracking, with major structural replacement done in the off season between November and March. And the reason it is no longer white is a decision, not neglect: Lagoon has been replacing the bents and the batter bracing with treated wood that does not need paint, because unpainted wood gives a better visual inspection for defects. Signs telling the public about the policy went up around the ride in 2004.
The sentence that ties this ride to the canyon above the town
The registration form records that because Lagoon is located near the Wasatch Fault and Farmington Canyon, the latest in kind replacements have been designed as both a seismic and a wind retrofit, with the bents held together by heavier bolts and more gusset plates while still being designed to flex as needed. That is the east canyon wind that Davis County residents talk about all winter, appearing in a National Park Service document as an engineering load case on a hundred year old wooden roller coaster. It is also the only place in this companion where the park and the canyon are the same subject.
The one thing on the coaster that dates to a flood
The first upgrade came two years after construction, when the foundation was damaged by a 1923 flood and a few concrete footings were added. That is the entire verified extent of the 1923 flood story as it touches this site: it reached the park and it damaged footings on a two year old roller coaster. Nothing in the nomination supports a wider account of the flood, its cause, its reach or its toll, so nothing wider is written here.
The season
Four different calendars run inside one park season, and they do not end together.
This is the part that decides whether a visit works, and it is the part every list gets wrong by publishing one set of hours. In 2026 the park, the water park, the campground and Frightmares all ran on different dates, and the water park shut nine weeks before the gates did. Every figure below is from Lagoon's own published pages, checked in August 2026, and every one of them is annual: re-check them each January or February before planning anything.
| The park | Lagoon-A-Beach | The campground | Frightmares | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 dates | 28 March to 8 November, with daily operation from 23 May to 19 August | 23 May to 7 September | 17 April to 8 November | 11 September to 8 November, weather permitting |
| What that means | Weekends first, then every day through the summer, then weekends and selected weekdays again | The water park has the shortest season of the four and closes on a Monday | It opens three weeks after the park does and closes on exactly the same day | Included with regular admission. There is no separate gate price for it |
| Hours pattern | Spring weekends 10am to 7pm, some Sundays to 6pm; peak summer 10am to 9pm most days and 10am to 10pm Friday and Saturday | Runs inside park hours | Check in after 1pm, check out before 11am, maximum eight people per site | From 5pm on Fridays and from around midday on Saturdays and Sundays, to 11pm on Friday and Saturday |
| Published 2026 cost | Parking 20 dollars regular, 30 oversized, 35 preferred, 85 for a season parking pass. Admission pricing is not published as plain text on the public site | Included with park admission | Weekday sites from 48 dollars for a tent to 73 for a deluxe pull through, with weekend rates 5 to 7 dollars higher and a two night minimum | Included, except Seance, a separately ticketed experience at 17 dollars or 15 with a season pass |
| The catch | Hours vary day by day all season. The park's own footnote says dates and times change without notice | An October visit is an amusement park visit and not a water park one | Extra person aged four and over is 4 dollars a night and an additional vehicle is 15 | The park's schedule page flags Frightmares dates from 5 September while the Frightmares page itself says 11 September |
All figures from lagoonpark.com's schedule and hours, camping, directions and parking, and Frightmares pages, checked in August 2026. Prices exclude tax where the park states so. This whole table is volatile by construction and belongs to a single season; treat any of it that is more than a year old as wrong until re-checked at the park.
Parking is not included in admission, and the two most useful numbers on this page are the ones the ticket does not cover. Lagoon charges separately for parking, at 20 dollars for a regular vehicle in 2026 and more for oversized and preferred spaces, and the auto park does not open until thirty minutes before the scheduled park opening. That combination is the single most common surprise for a first visit and it is also the mechanism behind the overflow onto surrounding streets on a peak day. There is a published free alternative: Utah Transit Authority route 667, the Lagoon and Station Park Shuttle, states on its own route page that it requires no fare payment, and its stop list includes Farmington Station, the retail district, Lagoon and the Lagoon campground. Its published schedule leaflet in hand is dated April 2023, so confirm the current season and times with the transit authority before you build a day around it. There is also a free drop off and pick up area at the park with a fifteen minute limit, and no overnight parking anywhere on site.
Living with it
A quiet garden resort in 1907 became the loudest ground in the county, and the record shows how.
The park did not start here and it did not start loud. Lake Park opened on 15 July 1886 on the edge of the Great Salt Lake, three miles west of the city of Farmington, with an open air dance pavilion, roller skating, water sports, target shooting, a bowling alley and a mule drawn merry go round. It failed for a reason that will sound familiar to anyone watching the lake now: within a few years the water receded and left the resort beaches with what the nomination quotes a period source calling a sticky brand of blue mud. In 1896 Simon Bamberger moved the attractions inland to the western edge of Farmington, built the resort around artificial lagoons that gave it its name, and opened on 12 July 1896. The ground Lake Park stood on is the western half of this city, and the birding there has its own county page.
The railroad is why the park is where it is. The 1898 Sanborn map shows the interurban Salt Lake and Ogden Railway running along the east side of the resort, which is to say Simon Bamberger built an amusement park on the line his own trains served. A visitor in 1907 recorded that there was not any clang or whirr of machinery. Then came the machines, in a dated sequence: the Captive Aeroplanes circular swing around 1918 and 1919, a roughly sixty foot iron tower with four aeroplanes that swung out over the lagoon and were pronounced the sensation of the season for 1919; the Lagoon Dipper coaster in 1921; a large funhouse north of it in 1923. By the 1926 Sanborn map the midway you walk today was fixed in place, with the coaster and carousel anchoring its south end.
The train that built the park eventually lost to the car. The nomination quotes a period line about the Bamberger interurban being the victim of a collision with the family automobile, and notes that while some old timers mourned it, most of the park's patrons preferred to drive. That is the direct line from an 1898 rail siding to a 20 dollar parking charge in 2026, and it is also why the free shuttle from the commuter rail station reads as a return rather than a novelty: the rail came back about a mile west, a hundred and ten years later.
Two present day things are worth naming and one is worth not naming. Pioneer Village, at the park since 1976, is a reconstruction of a frontier community containing, in the park's own words, 42 authentic 19th century stores, buildings and artifacts, including a one room schoolhouse, a print shop, a doll museum, a Carriage Hall of period vehicles and a rock chapel originally built in Coalville in 1853. That chapel is not Farmington's Rock Chapel, which is a different building at 272 North Main and is covered on the district page. The park added a swing ride named Nutcracker for the 2026 season; its published specifications did not survive verification and are not printed here. And the park's named coasters on its own current rides list are Cannibal, Centennial Screamer, Colossus: The Fire Dragon, Roller Coaster and Wild Mouse, which is five, and the total ride count that circulates is not a number Lagoon publishes.
The other side of it
Living next to Lagoon
The nineteen week off season, the evening hours by day of the week, and what the campground opening three weeks early does to Lagoon Drive.
The mover pageHow to arrive
The Park Lane district
The commuter rail platform, the free shuttle that reaches this gate, and the freeway work happening a mile west of it.
Read the guideThe rest of the county
Family weekends in Davis County
What every other paid attraction in Davis costs and when it opens, written once for all fifteen towns.
Read the guideThe canyon in the record
The Davis canyons
The bench canyons the coaster's wind retrofit is engineered against, and the road that starts at the pond above town.
Read the guideThe other listed thing
The Sycamore district
Sixty six contributing buildings on Main Street, and the Rock Chapel that is not the one inside Pioneer Village.
Read the guideThe practical side
The Farmington city guide
Everything with a dollar sign on it, from the price ladder to the utility providers and the live listings.
Open the guideKeep reading
More of Farmington on The Local.
The old core
The Sycamore district
Sixty six contributing buildings, and an 1890 courthouse sealed inside a 1932 one.
Read the guideThe first name
North Cottonwood
The name before the name, a two block survey, and a wall nobody ever finished.
Read the guideThe canyon mouth
Farmington Pond
A state managed fishery with a dock, and eleven graded bike trails on the hill above.
Read the guideThe west end
The Park Lane district
A rail platform, a fare free shuttle, and an interchange arriving in winter 2026.
Read the guideMoving here
Living next to Lagoon
Thirty three weeks on, nineteen off, and three other cities inside the same limits.
Read the guideThe companion
Farmington, in full
A county seat with a 1921 coaster at one end and an unfinished district at the other.
Read the pageQuick answers
Lagoon, answered.
The National Register registration form states that the Lagoon Carousel was manufactured circa 1913 by the Herschell-Spillman Company of North Tonawanda, New York, and that in 1918 it was installed at its current location in the park, where it has stood ever since. Three years circulate: 1893 appears in Lagoon's own website text, 1906 is the heading the park's site files it under, and 1913 with a 1918 installation is the nomination's finding. The nomination is a 47 page researched document prepared for the National Park Service, and it is the source this page follows.
Three, all listed on 24 October 2012 with consecutive reference numbers and all at 375 North Lagoon Drive: the Lagoon Carousel, reference 12000883; the Lagoon Flying Scooter, reference 12000884; and the Lagoon Roller Coaster, reference 12000885. All three were certified at the statewide level of significance and all three were nominated under one multiple property listing, Historic Resources of the Lagoon Amusement Park, 1886 to 1976. Lists naming only the carousel and the Flying Scooter are missing the 1921 wooden coaster.
It was built in 1921 to a design by John A. Miller. A fire on the night of 14 November 1953 destroyed the original station and part of the lift hill; the lift hill was recreated to Miller's design in 1954 and the station was rebuilt in Post-War Streamline Moderne style, which is the building you queue in today and which is itself part of the listed property. The registration form gives a total track length of 2,598 feet, a height of 62 feet at the tallest point and a classification of double out and back.
Because paint hides cracks. The registration form records that Lagoon has been gradually replacing the bents, which are the transverse structural frames, and the batter bracing members with treated wood that does not require painting, and that the unpainted wood provides a better visual inspection for defects. Signs informing the public of the policy were posted around the coaster in 2004. The same form records that the ride is inspected daily during operation for rot, insect infestation and cracking, with major replacement done in the off season between November and March.
On 12 July 1896. The park began as Lake Park, which opened on 15 July 1886 on the shore of the Great Salt Lake three miles west of Farmington, and failed within a few years when the receding lake left its beaches muddy. In 1896 Simon Bamberger moved the attractions inland to the western edge of Farmington and christened the new resort the Lagoon Summer Resort and Picnic Grounds, after the lagoons it was built around. Lagoon's own website files the move under 1899; the National Register nomination gives the specific opening day, names the developer and dates the whole context period from 1896.
The park operated from 28 March to 8 November 2026, with daily operation from 23 May to 19 August and weekends and selected weekdays either side of that. Lagoon-A-Beach, the water park, ran 23 May to 7 September. The campground opened 17 April and closed 8 November, the same day as the park. Frightmares ran 11 September to 8 November, weather permitting, and is included with regular admission. Every one of those dates changes annually, so re-check them at the park before planning around any of them.
No, and it is the most commonly missed practical fact about a visit. Lagoon published 2026 parking at 20 dollars for a regular vehicle, 30 for oversized, 35 for preferred and 85 for a season parking pass, and the auto park opens thirty minutes before the scheduled park opening. There is a free drop off and pick up area with a fifteen minute limit, and no overnight parking. There is also a free alternative: the Utah Transit Authority's route 667 shuttle states on its own route page that it requires no fare payment, and it links the Farmington commuter rail station and the retail district to the park gate and campground.
A reconstruction of a frontier community, at the park since 1976, which the park describes as containing 42 authentic 19th century stores, buildings and artifacts. The named contents include a one room schoolhouse, a two story sawed log house, a smokehouse, a millinery shop, a clock shop, a tool museum, a hardware store, a cobbler shop, a print shop, a music hall, a doll museum, a Carriage Hall of period wheeled vehicles, and a rock chapel originally built in Coalville in 1853 that served as fort, courthouse, schoolhouse and church before being relocated. That last building is frequently confused with Farmington's own Rock Chapel at 272 North Main Street, which is a different building.
Lagoon does not publish a total, so this page does not print one, and the round number in circulation is not the park's. What the park's own rides listing does publish is five categories, being Family, Kiddie, Roller Coaster, Thrill and X-Venture, and five named coasters: Cannibal, Centennial Screamer, Colossus: The Fire Dragon, Roller Coaster and Wild Mouse. A swing ride named Nutcracker joined the park for the 2026 season; its height, speed and opening date could not be verified on any Lagoon page and are not printed here.
A hundred and thirty years of one park, and a city that has grown up around its fence line.
The park is the reason most people know this town, and it is also the reason an address here needs a different set of questions than an address two towns north. Which streets carry the arrival traffic and which carry the exit traffic. What thirty three weeks of operation followed by nineteen weeks of silence does to a block. Whether a specific parcel is inside the noise window on an October Friday or well outside it. None of that is answerable from a listing photograph and all of it is answerable by standing on the ground at the right hour. Tell me what you are weighing and I will put you with a Davis County partner agent who works Farmington every week, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.