Ghosts of black rock

“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”

Mark Twain

Black Rock is located at the northern end of the Oquirrh Mountains, where the range abruptly ends on the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake. This is a very historic place and it is a pity that it is in the state it is in. Black Rock is now a place where fools go to graffiti or dump their trash. There are old piles, large concrete blocks that undoubtedly once served as breakwaters for the many spas that have been located here over the years. Old missing dock supports jut out of the salty water here at the edge of the inland sea. The place has a kind of skeletal appearance that accompanies the ghostly story of the rock.

Many years ago, Black Rock was a very different place. Lush grasses, rushes, and reeds once crept onto the lake beaches in this area. Streams of pure, crystal clear water, fed by the melting snows of the Oquirrh Mountains, once flowed into the lake in this area. One of the earliest mentions of Black Rock was Heinrich Lienhard’s Journal. In this journal, Lienhard kept a daily account of what he observed and experienced as a member of a group of emigrants who passed through Utah and crossed the Great Salt Lake Desert on their way west, just weeks before the Donner Party.

Here is an excerpt from that diary “August 8, 1846; in the vicinity of this spring, there was an immense, isolated and rounded rock under which there was a cave and those who entered found a human skeleton.” It is now clear that the party was in the vicinity of Black Rock at the time, but it is unclear 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 heavily used burial ground. University archaeologists studied the sites extensively and a lot of 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 the adjacent 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 Great Salt Lake Valley 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 Topographic Engineers, United States Army. This volume is another of my personal favorites on Utah history.

The following are excerpts from this volume that relate to Black Rock “April 19, 1850; after erecting a station at its northern point (Stansbury Island), he intended to go to Black Rock, a large isolated rock on the coast south of the lake, halfway between the two islands (Antelope and Stansbury), to erect a station on it “To carry out his study of the lake, Stansbury erected triangulation stations on the high peaks of the islands and other points of prominent reference. He continues: “April 20, 1850; a new gale was blowing from the north-west which continued to increase during the day. The wind was excessively cold and the men were forced to wrap themselves in buffalo skins to keep warm. Set the headsail.” , we ran to Black Rock, a distance of more than 20 miles in 3 hours. A station was framed with beams previously cut in the mountains and transported to the site for that purpose; but the strength of the group was not enough 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 crew from the boat camp at Black Rock as he made his way to Salt Lake in looking for supplies.

Upon his return to Black Rock, Stansbury decided to test a theory he had: “Before leaving Black Rock, I did an experiment on the properties of lake water to preserve meat. A large chunk of fresh meat was suspended by a rope and submerged in the lake for just over twelve hours when it was found to be fairly well preserved.After this, all the meat that we wished to keep while operating on the lake was packed in barrels with no salt at all, and the containers were then put away. filled with lake water. No additional care or preparation was necessary, and the meat remained perfectly sweet, although constantly exposed to the sun. I have no doubt that the meats put in this water will remain healthy and good while prepared with the more approved methods. In fact, we were forced to mix fresh water with this natural brine, to prevent our meat from becoming too salty for the current use: very few days dipping changing its character from corned beef to what the sailors called “Salt Junk”

When I visited Black Rock and stood on the edge of the breakwater, listening to the waves crash against the rocks, I envisioned 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 tall timbers on this rock.

Stansbury was not the only one plying the lake. In 1854, Brigham Young had a boat built and named it “Timely Gull” after the seagulls that saved the Saints’ crops from cricket accumulations. Timely Gull was used for recreational purposes and to transport livestock to and from Antelope Island. The ship was basically a 45 foot barge with a sail. Timely Gull operated on the lake from his mooring at Black Rock for 4 years until a storm freed him from his mooring and dragged him across the lake to the distant shore where he was shipwrecked.

He was thinking about these things as he walked through Black Rock looking for a possible route to its top. It was a cold, gray, and stormy February day and the daylight was fading. The flash of strobes in the Kennecott Foundry Pile to the east seemed to attack the coming darkness with a vengeance. The wind was blowing a little stronger now and the waves got bigger and were now crashing against the rocks. As I considered the coming darkness and realized that 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 upstairs, I stood there in the breeze and watched the scene. It sounds cheesy, but a feeling of loneliness and sadness came over me, and a creepy feeling that I wasn’t alone there. I don’t necessarily believe in ghosts, but if I did I would probably avoid Black Rock because I had the feelings described above prior to hearing the heartbreaking story of Mrs. Charley White.

Mildred Mercer wrote an excellent article on the history of Black Rock and it is found in the book “History of Tooele County – Volume I” Tooele County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1961. The following information on the history of the White family 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 of the Sevier River west of Delta when his expedition was massacred by Indians) mentioned in his records that a Mr. Charley White and his wife had built a cabin on the shore of the lake and had a working salt production business. Gunnison observed that Mr. White had 6 large 10 gallon kettles in operation. It would boil 60 gallons of lake water at a time and could produce 300 pounds of salt per day. Gunnison stated that they could get 1 bucket of salt from every 4 buckets of lake water.

Charley White also had a herd of cattle in the area around Black Rock and constantly had problems with Indians running away with their cattle. Apparently, all was not well within the White house and Charley eventually left his wife, known locally as “White Mother”, and their two children in Black Rock. Mother White continued to care for the animals and produce lake salt while raising 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. It would have had to be tough as nails to survive as long as it did on the lake shore, at the very edge of civilization.

If the fact that her husband abandoned her wasn’t enough, one day in 1856 the two little boys went wading in the lake a quarter of a mile from shore. If you’ve ever wandered into the Great Salt Lake, you’ll understand the temptation to go further and further, as the water is still knee-deep even a mile offshore 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 rose on the lake, sending waves toward the children. The boy was knocked over by a wave and strangled and drowned in the brine. His sister ran to the shore as fast as she could to seek help, but when the White Mother reached the child, he was already gone. He buried it on the slope of the Oquirrh behind Black Rock.

Mother White must have been very depressed after these events. The gnats and mosquitoes accumulating 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 at Black Rock until 1861 until they mysteriously disappeared. It was commonly believed that she had been killed for her cattle, as some of her animals were later seen with some men in the Tooele Valley. One theory was that his body was sunk in the Great Salt Lake near Black Rock. Others believed his body was discarded in a shallow grave in Black Rock Canyon. It is not known what happened to his 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 many reasons to stalk the rock.

Many other interesting events occurred at Black Rock and not all of them are melancholic. In 1851, 150 carriages, buggies, and railcars 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 from Black Rock that carried ore from the Stockton mines across the lake to Corrine and the railroad to transport it to the smelters. There was also a large resort in Black Rock in the late 1800s that consisted of 100 bathhouses, a large pavilion, an amusement park with a large carousel, and visitors came by train from Salt Lake City in open-air carriages.

Today, Black Rock is not even a shadow of the glory days gone by, as it is an attractive place for scum to paint graffiti, litter, or conduct unscrupulous and illegal transactions. That said, it is a very interesting place and an important landmark and part of our heritage. I just wish that some entity would clean, protect and preserve it in some way for future generations to enjoy as the view to the west from the rock on the other side of the lake is unbeatable. To get there, take Saltair Exit # 104 from Interstate 80 and take the North Front Road and drive west past Saltair and the Great Salt Lake Marina. The road will become unpaved, rocky and bumpy, but most cars can make it the last ¼ of the distance to where the road ends at the lake’s edge in Black Rock. Again, it’s 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.