1887 Syracuse
A lakeside resort on the Great Salt Lake, and the four summers it lasted
The Syracuse bathing resort, and the lake that ended it
In 1887 a railway ran out from the main line to a bathing resort on the Great Salt Lake, on the shore west of what is now Syracuse. People rode the excursion trains for about fifty cents round trip and floated in the buoyant salt water off a pier lined with bathhouses. Four summers later the lake had pulled back so far that the beach was mud, and the resort closed. It is the direct ancestor of the causeway, and an honest look at what buying near this shoreline really means.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
The Syracuse Bathing Resort was a lakeside pleasure resort on the Great Salt Lake, built in 1887 on the shore west of the present city and reached by its own railway from the main line near Ogden.
People came out on excursion trains to float in the buoyant salt water and dance at the pavilion, and after four summers the lake receded far enough to leave mud where the beach had been, so the resort closed at the end of 1891.
What it was
A railway, a pier, and a resort built for the salt lake
For a few summers at the end of the 1880s, the fastest growing thing on this stretch of the Great Salt Lake was a resort. Daniel C. Adams built it in 1887 on what the city still calls the only spot along the shore with a natural grove of trees, and he set out to make it the finest resort on the lake. The same year, the Ogden and Syracuse Railway was laid to reach it, running close to six miles from a junction on the main line out to the water. Trains ran daily in season, and a round trip from Ogden cost about fifty cents, half that for children.
It was a beach, a dance hall, and a picnic ground at once. A pavilion about 125 feet long held a bar and an orchestra stand. A pier ran out into the lake carrying bathhouses, steps down to the water, and covered platforms, and the draw was the water itself: the Great Salt Lake is salty enough to hold a bather up, so people floated rather than swam. There was a dance floor and a bowery, refreshment stands, swings, and a merry go round, and by the second summer a streetcar shuttled the last stretch out to the bathhouses. It opened for the 1887 season, and thousands came out on the excursion trains.
The railway had a second customer, and it was part of why the whole thing penciled out. A salt company worked evaporation ponds along the same shore, and the branch line carried salt as readily as it carried bathers. Salt is also where the town got its name: William Galbraith, a salt maker on the lake, printed the word Syracuse on his salt bags, after a salt company back in Syracuse, New York. The resort borrowed the name next, and the city took it after that.
1887, in numbers
5.85 mi
of railway from the main line out to the shore
50c
for a round trip from Ogden, half that for children
125 ft
of pavilion, with a bar and an orchestra stand
4
summers, and then the beach was mud
Why it faded
The lake pulled back, and four summers was all it got
The resort did not fail for want of visitors. It failed because the lake left. The Great Salt Lake has no outlet, so its level rides up and down with the weather over years, and through the late 1880s it was falling. By the end of the 1891 season the water had withdrawn far enough that the fine beach sand had turned to brackish mud, flies covered it, and drying algae along the shore had begun to smell. A quarrel over ownership finished what the water had started, and the resort closed.
It is sometimes said that Saltair, the grander resort at the south end of the lake, put Syracuse out of business. The dates do not line up. Saltair did not open until 1893, and the Syracuse resort was already gone by then. What closed it was the shoreline, not the competition.
Can you go and see it
What is left
Nothing on the shore, and the reason it matters to a buyer
There is nothing standing to visit. The pavilion was moved off the shore around the turn of the century to the old Syracuse canning factory, where it served as a storehouse for a while. The salt operation was sold on, and the beach went back to being farm ground and open shore. The ground the resort stood on lies west of the last streets in unincorporated Davis County, with no structure, no marker, and no public access. The photographs and the story are kept at the Syracuse Regional Museum in town.
Here is why a resort that closed in 1891 still matters to a buyer. The single most common thing people misread about Syracuse is the phrase on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, which sounds like waterfront and is not. The city holds about an acre and a half of water inside its own limits, and no beach, no dock, and nothing to launch. This is not a guess about the future, because the city already ran the experiment. Someone built the finest resort on the lake right here, with a railway, a pier, and a pavilion, and within four summers the water had gone out from under all three.
What the west side of Syracuse actually offers is not water frontage but a horizon. The land and the lake beyond the last row of houses are unincorporated county ground the city does not contain and cannot fill in, so the open view is likely to stay open. That is a real thing to want, and it is a different thing from waterfront. The same westward pull that laid the railway in 1887 built the causeway to Antelope Island in 1969, and the current state of the lake, its level and its bug seasons, is carried on the Antelope Island page rather than restated here. The mover page takes the west side from there.
There is no site to visit and no ruins to find. The shore is private, unincorporated county land with no public access, and the resort left nothing standing. The place to actually meet the story is the Syracuse Regional Museum in town.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
The Syracuse resort, answered
Yes, for four summers. The Syracuse Bathing Resort opened in 1887 on the lake shore west of the present city, built by Daniel C. Adams on what the city calls the only lakeside spot with a natural grove of trees, and it closed at the end of 1891 after the lake receded and left mud and flies where the beach had been. A railway, the Ogden and Syracuse, was laid the same year to carry visitors out to it from the main line near Ogden.
A lakeside pleasure resort on the Great Salt Lake. It had a pavilion with a bar and an orchestra stand, a pier lined with bathhouses reaching into the water, a dance floor, a bowery, refreshment stands, swings, and a merry go round. The main attraction was the water itself, which is salty enough to hold a bather up, so people floated rather than swam.
To reach the shore. It ran close to six miles from a junction on the main line out to the lake, and it served two customers at once: the new bathing resort and a salt company working evaporation ponds along the same beach. It carried bathers in the summer and salt the year round.
About fifty cents for a round trip from Ogden, and half that for children. Trains ran daily through the season, so it was a scheduled excursion rather than an occasional outing, and by the second summer a streetcar shuttled the last stretch out to the bathhouses.
Because the lake left. The Great Salt Lake has no outlet, so its level rises and falls with the weather over years, and by 1891 it had pulled back far enough that the beach sand had turned to mud, flies covered it, and the drying algae had begun to smell. A dispute over ownership finished the business at the end of that season.
No, and the dates are the proof. Saltair, the larger resort at the south end of the lake, did not open until 1893, and the Syracuse resort had already closed at the end of 1891. What ended it was the receding shoreline, not the competition.
No. The pavilion was moved off the shore around the turn of the century to the old canning factory to serve as a storehouse, and nothing was left standing on the beach. The ground it stood on is west of the last streets in unincorporated Davis County, with no marker and no public access. The photographs and the local story are kept at the Syracuse Regional Museum in town.
From a salt bag. William Galbraith, a salt maker on the Great Salt Lake, printed the word Syracuse on his salt bags, after a salt company he knew of in Syracuse, New York. The bathing resort took the name next, and the city adopted it after that.
That on the shore of the Great Salt Lake describes a direction, not waterfront. The city holds only about an acre and a half of water inside its limits, so there is no beach, no dock, and nothing to launch. What the west side genuinely offers is an open county horizon beyond the last streets that is unlikely to be built on, which is a real amenity and a different one from water frontage.
A railway, a pier, and a pavilion and four summers before the lake answered
There is a plain reason a shoreline history matters to a buyer. On the shore of the Great Salt Lake does a lot of work in listing copy, and it means less than it sounds like, and the proof is a business that failed here in 1891. What Syracuse's west side really offers is a permanent open horizon over county ground the city cannot build on, which is worth something real and is not the same as water frontage. If you are weighing the west end of town, the questions are how far west, what sits behind the last row of houses, and what the road out front does on a causeway Saturday. Tell me what you are looking at, and I will connect you with a Davis County partner agent who knows this shore, and stay on for the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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