The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-07-07

amused. If you can't be amused at
any of them, you are too old or too fat
mentally or in love with a girl in an
other town, who is probably. at an
other amusement park with somebody
else. I'll admit that last as a detri-
ment But looking at people who are
happy is good even for that The
amusement park represents the last
word of Mother Nature plus the
American inventor 10 get the smiles
out of the American heart and put
them on exhibition.
The Lagoon is a Luna park with
western accent. If YOU could get at
the soul of it, it would tell you a long
story about how much it cost, its ex-
act largest crowd, and lie. The people
are not so well dressed as they would
be at Coney Island, but they have the
COney Island smile. But if you'd go
back east and tell them how the La
COON was dug out of a swamp and the
park filed in about it, of the fight with
sand and salt. Of the effort to get a
thousand trees to grow where there
Was not before a saSebrush, he would
take off his hat, as the easterner al
ways does to the last great American
epic, The Defeat of the Desert"
The Lagoon Described.
The Lagoon is seventeen miles north
of Salt Lake City, and is reached by a
railroad which is also in winter as we'll
as summer the outlet for a respectable
enough milk and suburban trade to
justify its existence. The road is now
extended beyond the park toward Og-
den, which place it will eventually
reach. 1t is also intended to electrify
it at the proper time and so to make
-Tr.
two cities of Salt Lake and Ogden. The
season at the park is, as is the case
with practically all the Salt Lake City
resorts, from Decoration day to Labor
day.
The lagoon, the lake, was formed by
damming up q former salt swamp and
is now fed by means of an elaborate
system of artesian wells. There are
supposed to be fish in it. l don't want
to be particular, but it's an awfuIly
good rule not to use a stronger word
than supposed" with regard to fish
you have not seen. On the lake is a
puffy square-tailed launch, also row.
boats, of particular kind which you
can rock, if you are that kird, and not
get drowned. About the lagoon are the
shoot the chutes, a continuance consist
ing of an hundred-fOOt inclined plane
up which you are hauled in d fiat bot
tom car by means of a cable attached
to a gasoline engine. WhereupOn, you
are shot down again into the lagoon.
At the exact moment your car hits the
water 1t is transformed into Ken
lucky flatboat, the chauffeur becomes
a gondOlier and the occupants scream.
Incidentally. you buy your tickets at
the entrance gate. They are collected
by the individual at the top, who turns
the car about for il to shoot down.
want to know what would happen if
you should appear at the top tiCketless.
There would certainly be no better
method of election than to fire you
down the shoot, whereupOn you would
get your ride, tiCketless. This would
seem to me to present a problem of a
proper revenge against the grating
penniless. Next door is a roller coast
er. In front is, of course, the ubiqui-
tOus merry-gO-round. These three are
entered as the final tribute to the sixth
American sense-Of speed. The fast
car on the roller coaster has made the
trip in thirty-seVen seconds. Not be-
ing good at figures, I've forgotten the
distance, but it beats automobiling or
riding on the under side of a Standard
Oil car as the guest of John D., on a
train of empties-and I've tried all
three. Around the corner is a shooting
gallery and place where you hazard
a nickel, a lovely lady turns a wheel
and you draw a gift you don't want.
It's called a gift, because it viii be
about Is of a cent in value. Between
the two is the booth where you throw
baseballs at niger babies. I mean,
Senator Foraker, "a booth where you
project leathern spheres at embryo
voters" Then there are square gar
dens lined with box hedges, prize lem
Ons which are kept carefully away
from the ascetic acid stands, and
which have to be taken in each winter
and set out again in the spring, a roll
er rink, trees with benches under them
for you to eat the lunch which you
have brought in the paper bag. and