The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-13

ca the rows OF bath houses stood up high
and dry quarter OF a mile from the salt
zone that confined the lakes liquid green;
the redroofed pavilion was deserted and
wind-swept. and empty. sun-cracked
benches were set forlornly about the I'M
used walks; the lake had turned its back
I upon the Park and would have none of
H. The handsome new buildings, whose
sole tenants are now the birds OF the
air and the horned toad. but add fun
desertness 10 the wide, lonely waste Of
Lakeside. The long wharf. once the moor
Ing Of pleasure craft, is left TO the desul-
tory use of stockmen. who anchor an &C.
casional cattle boat" alongside after its
believing cargo has been unloadod on the
chute hard by
one Of the first things that strikes
newcomer is the comparative absence Of
! boat life on the Great Sale Lake. A sail
IN sight is the exception, and has rather
startling effect on the otherwise empty
water. There are several schooners own
ed by private parties, kind of toy steam
er called the Tuilla, that makes excur-
sions out from Saltair. and the gay little
cambria. There are also two or three
schooner rugged cattle boats which are
really the safest boats on the lake, and
are used chiefly 20 transport stock from
Antelope and Fremont
The lake yarns one hears have a true
! Clark Russell flavor that whets the dullest
imagination. We had the good fortune TO
fall In with an old-time herder of Church
lsland'-the name given to Antelope by
the Mormon pioneers of Salt Lake valley
and heard his graphic recitals OF happen
ings on this strange water and its weird
islands. 1t was late one afternoon at Lake
Park and the only life in the wide, salt
blstered landscape was confined to patch
OF white sand and indigo brine a rod or
two west Of the empty wharf. The central
object was a cattle boat sprawled notion
less alongside chute. down which forty
cattle were crowding to the shore. The
old herder was the captain of this scow,
and after he and a lanky youth had made
| things shipshape aboard we all lounged
about the straw-littered hold, while the
hot sun went out in liquid silver, and twi-
light came on In delicious approaches of
soft air and subdued brllliance of color
with a new moon cleaving the white wing
! of cloud.
The captain proved to be an out and out
optimist, despite his years of hermit living
on the mountainous strip OF Antelope
which now stretched inky outlines to the
north twenty miles off our bows.
Some folks takes the boat history of
! the lake as proof that this water is dan
gerous.' he said to us. with smiling as
servativeness. but l don't. say its how
| boats is built that makes EN- mostly get
wrecked here. hat-bottomed. heavy
topped vessel amt safe where water don't
average more'n twelve feet deep an Is so
| hefty with salt that big wave'n crush in
boats side like an egg she'll There amt
nauthing equal to a catamaran for smart,
| safe sailing. But for downright work
! gi'me this old scow. TN stan deal o
pounding an hosting an not spring
nail Two years ago she held to her tim
| bers when she was throwed up twenty
| yards on Church Island " his use OF the
old name identifying him as Latter
! Day Saint" THAT same wind bowed
i -g-f.s Nasa. sole IulF a
| city. sixteen miles off, so folks on me
streets got their clothes spoiled. or
course, where gales come up so sudden
as they do here, there's boun' to be more
or less danger, but a catamaran like the
| Cambria has sailed here twelve years an
| he'd no c'dent worth telling.
The Indians made the first boats o skins.
then come Central Fremont with his
| rubber boat; then the Mormons in A. who
| made rowboats. and afterward Capt in
| Stansbury with his sail yacht Salicornia,
which was nicknamed the Sally The
! Walker brothers he'd n boat in 6S, an
! Central Conner of Camp Douglas built
| the small schooner Kate Conner, but
don't reclect If that was afore the time
| O. the Gull an the Star O. the West. Then
| there was the Lady O. the Lake, one o
the foolshers O. John W. Young, the son
| Of President Young. Johns awful smart
| in most ways, an he'd lots OF money,
/
| boats Some yankee back east sold him
/ an old canal boat as a fast pleasure
| steamer an he fitted her up an got
| lot o. fun out o. her. She had TO steam up
| and down from Jordan Bridge to the
| lake the sparks from her funnel settin'
/ fire to the haystacks long the river, till
| the farmers voted her a nuisance But
the best steamer ever on the lake was the
! Garfield, that cost $4,000. Then there
| was the little side-wheeler, the Susie Rit-
ter. owned by Cap'n Dauris.
! She was a daisy-safe enough If you
| didn't 20 beyond reach o. fresh water to
fill up her tank. The lake water is that
| hard on machinery that it 'ud rust out a
| boiler in less'n a month"
but the vessels-what became of
| them?"
wrecked. All wrecked from the Sally
down Kate Conner was lost near the
| mouth O. the Jordan, the Gull keeled over
in a squall off South Antelope, the Star
| o. the West was throwed up on Promon-
| tory, John Young's steamer went TO
pieces in Weber Bay, an the Susie Ritter
sunk at anchor at Garfield in heavy
storm"
| The honest face of our entertained was
the picture of whole-souled cheerfulness
while he summed up this array of gloomy
facts. He shifted the cigar he was chew
| ing and at word of encouragement re-
turned to his subject:
There was Capn Dallin o. the Mabel
/ Davis. The cap'n was new to these wat
! ers, but reckoned it didn't take no extra
| seamanship to sail the Mabel cross from
/ Garfield TO Lake Park, so he started alonr.
/ but somehow missed the Three-mile Gap,
/ an went up the west side of Antelope
! past Pilots Knob. The coast there IL
| something grand-all o. big rocks cut in
| to holes an steeples an SIGH precipices
/ as makes a man dizzy to look at. The
/ lake from that point is lonesome sight,
| with nauthing 10 make you thing o hu-
man critters an all o. fifty miles of open
| sea way on to Gunnison. an no sail
! but the Susies. Boats don't often come
this fur, cause its likely to blow up sud
! den from the north, an so it did with
| Cap'n Dallin. First thing he knew :he
yacht was over an he swimming for the
! rocks. He got there safe, but this didn't
strike him as much gained. He thought,
! like all the other islands, Antelope had no
| spring an no one living on it, an mis-
| chances for being rescued looked mighty
slim. When it got dark the poor fellow
! crawled into cave in the limestone. an
by morning he he'd worried himself most
crazy
1.-THE sea looked lonesomer'n ever, now