Black Rock (Great Salt Lake)

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Black Rock Site
Black Rock Beach, Great Salt Lake, Utah (69279).jpg
Postcard image of Black Rock and Black Rock Resort (no longer standing)
USA Utah location map.svg
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Location2.5 miles (4.0 km) west of jct. UT 202 and I 80
Coordinates 40°43′30″N112°13′40″W / 40.72503°N 112.22774°W / 40.72503; -112.22774 Coordinates: 40°43′30″N112°13′40″W / 40.72503°N 112.22774°W / 40.72503; -112.22774
Area6.81 acres (2.76 ha) [1]
NRHP reference No. 100006332 [2]
Added to NRHPMarch 24, 2021

The Black Rock on Great Salt Lake near Lake Point, Utah is a historic landmark. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2021 as part of the Black Rock Site. [2] [3] The site includes Black Rock and foundation ruins of the former Black Rock Resort. [1]

Contents

The site was the location, in 1847, of "the first recreational bathing in the Great Salt Lake in recorded history." [4]

The ill-fated Donner Party, taking the Hastings Cutoff alternative route to California, came by in 1846. Journal entries and interviews describe the Donner Party meeting the "Hastings Trail" on the south side of the Great Salt Lake in August 1846. In later interviews Donner Party member, Reed, was quoted multiple times saying that they had met Lansford Hastings near the landmark (on the eastern border of Lake Point) known as Black Rock and that they were the ones who had given the rock its name. [5]

The rock was described in 1870 by travel guide writer Fitz Ludlow as grim and ugly, yet part of a charming scene:

"A fifteen minute [horse] ride, and Black Rock rose grim and ugly, like the foundation of some ruined tower...we had expected a grim and desolate landscape; a sullen waste of brine, stagnating along low ready shores, black as Acheron, gloomy as the sepulcher of Sodom. Never had Nature a greater surprise for us. The view is one of the most charming which could be imagined." (Ludlow 1870:385) [1]

As depicted by Alfred Lambourne Lambourne-SaltLake.jpg
As depicted by Alfred Lambourne

It has been depicted in landscape paintings and lithographs of many artists including Alfred Lambourne, George M. Ottinger, Waldo Midgley, James Taylor Harwood, and Albert Tissandier. [1]

The Black Rock itself measures approximately 39 feet (12 m) tall upon an approximate 130 by 60 feet (40 m × 18 m) base. [1] Over the years, it has been an isolated rock out in the lake, or upon a peninsula into the lake. [4]

While the Black Rock is entirely in Tooele County, the entire site listed is an area about 300 by 800 feet (91 m × 244 m) and spans into Salt Lake County. [1]

See also

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The following places in Utah are known as Black Rock:

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Lake Point is a city on the eastern edge of northern Tooele County, Utah, United States. It is located 17 miles southwest of Salt Lake City International Airport and 11 miles north of Tooele, Utah. At its location on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake, the city is served by Interstate 80 and Utah State Route 36.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe Rock</span> A hill, more specifically, a large rock face pediment located south of Lake Point, Utah

Adobe Rock is described by the USGS as a pediment (geology) at Lake Point, Utah. The large rock outcropping sits adjacent to SR-36 just north of SR-138 at Mills Junction. Because of its distance from the steep incline of the Oquirrh Mountains and its prominent location on the edge of a hill, Adobe Rock has served as a natural landmark in Tooele Valley ever since the first pioneers traversed the Hastings Cutoff trail. Though not officially a national monument like its nearby peer Black Rock, it has equal significance as a navigating landmark and cultural significance as a monument with businesses using the Adobe Rock name, books using its images on their covers, and Lake Point, Utah depicting its likeness as their city logo.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Christopher W. Merritt (January 21, 2021). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Black Rock Site" (PDF). Retrieved January 26, 2022.
  2. 1 2 "Weekly List 2021 03 26". National Park Service.
  3. Mark Watson (April 29, 2021). "Black Rock listed on National Record of Historic Places". Tooele Transcript Bulletin.
  4. 1 2 Christopher W. Merritt (April 25, 2021). "A Colorful History: Black Rock's History and Graffiti Woes". Utah Division of State History . Retrieved February 25, 2022.
  5. Rosen, M Daniel. "Donner Party Diary". donnerpartydiary. Retrieved Jan 31, 2023. We then followed Hasting's road around the Lake without incident worthy of notice until reaching a swampy section of the country west of Black Rock, the name we gave it". "We overtook Mr. Hastings at a place we called Blackrock, south end of Salt Lake, leaving McCutchen and Stanton here, their horses having failed.

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