The Continuation - Summer 2019

In June of 2019 I embarked on a second research roadtrip, this time through the American Southwest. I had not visited Las Vegas to document thematic design in some ten years, and I was also eager to see several of the wonderous National Parks scattered throughout the state Utah. Along the way I found some unexpected surprises—bits of theming here and there that has prompted some new thinking for me about the mythical American Old West.

As before during the summer of 2017, my intrepid travel companion was the ever creative and hilarious David Janssen, Jr.—an artist, designer, and educator who currently teaches in the Fine Arts Department at Washington State University as an instructor in 2D Foundations. Our ultimate goal was to reach Phoenix, Arizona and tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West studio retreat.

The Fun Spot of Utah

Our first stop, however, was Utah’s premiere amusement park / quasi-theme park, Lagoon. Located just north of Salt Lake City in Farmington, Utah, Lagoon has a long history dating back to the 1880s. As such the park has the same sort of layered charm as Cedar Point which dates from roughly the same period. Era upon era has been built upon and over, augmented, and expanded.

Lagoon opened to the public on July 12, 1896 and was billed as a destination resort featuring “Bowling, [an] Elegant Dancing Pavilion, Fine Music, A Shady Bowery, and Good Restaurants.” Just like the trolley parks which sprouted up all across the United States in the first couple decades of the twentieth century, Lagoon was the brainchild of a railroad magnate—Simon Bamberger, the fourth Governor of Utah—who wanted to increase passenger traffic on his lines.

The park’s first thrill ride attraction, a typical “Shoot the Chutes” water voyage, opened for the last season of the 19th century. The following summer, swimming and boating were permitted for the first time in the small lake which is Lagoon’s namesake.

This early map shows the small scale of the Lagoon park in its first few decades. The park’s very first roller coaster, the Scenic Railway, is indicated here as the “Double Eight” in reference to its double figure-eight track layout with a height of 40 feet.

The attraction was built for the 1907 season adjacent to the Shoot the Chutes. By the early 1920s it had been demolished. There’s a nice short documentary online about the ride.

By mid-century, Lagoon had expanded considerably and added numerous Midway-type rides, games, and concessions. This once quiet bathing and boating retreat had morphed into a full-blown amusement park.

A Lushly Landscaped Midway

The central spine of the Lagoon park is a typical Midway. However, unlike the wide concrete jungles found at Cedar Point or Kings Island, the Midway area here is narrow, resplendent, and full of mature trees. They provide a cool canopy in spite of the summer sun, and also add scale to the various structures.

Lagoon’s Midway has all the classics you’d expect, like a this carousel which was built in 1893. It was installed in the park for the 1906 season, and as such is Lagoon’s oldest standing attraction. A blaze on the Midway in 1953 threatened to destroy it, but it was saved by firefighters dousing it continuously with water. In 2003 the Lagoon carousel was lovingly restored for its 110th birthday.

It’s not a traditional American Midway without some carnival-style games. These are spaced along both sides of the span, and are styled in the expected Theme Park Gingerbread motif.

Just like at Cedar Point and many other parks featuring midways, a sky gondola ride hangs overhead. Lagoon’s Sky Ride was added in 1974 and is the much smaller, open air feet-dangle of the ski lift variety nearly identical to the Sky Glider at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, rather than the more substantial, closed-cabin Von Roll model.

Travelling over the Midway at about two and a half miles per hour some 60 feet in the air made for a calm seven minute journey from one end to the other. It was so nifty we rode it roundtrip (though you do have to exit and queue up again to reboard). And just like the trees, the Sky Ride provides an intimate sense of scale for this portion of the park.

The Wild Kingdom Train opened for the 1967 season as the “Animaland Train” and follows a route of about a third of a mile around Lagoon’s namesake lake and fountains, and through a tunnel to the Wild Kingdom Zoo area, which is actually the state's second largest.

The train depot is a mixture of Theme Park Gingerbread and a Frontier Old West look, decked out in patriotic red, white, and blue with mustard yellow accents—just like the locomotive and cars of the Wild Kingdom Train itself.

I have to wonder if this 24" narrow gauge steam railroad, the Sky Ride, and other additions which came to Lagoon in the late 1960s and early 70s were an attempt to import the popular trappings of Disneyland. Just like what happened at Cedar Point during the same period, parks with long histories began to adapt in response to Disney slowly and successfully rewriting the script of audience expectations for amusement parks nationwide.

Lagoon’s namesake lake, in which swimming is no longer permitted.

“Lagoon-A-Beach”

Which is fine, because there’s a complete water park area right in the middle of Lagoon called Lagoon-A-Beach. Prior to the late 1980s, this part of the park was the location of a massive swimming pool. The waterpark initially opened with a additional, separate gate admission, but has since been folded into a single price for all.

In the grand Disney tradition, the name of the waterpark area is a cheesy wordplay on Laguna Beach, California (which is quite near to where I grew up, actually).

Lagoon lacks separation and transition between its various themed areas, so you can see the ten slides of Lagoon-A-Beach towering overhead from many different settings. Just like at Cedar Fair parks which have internal water park areas—such as Valleyfair—this is a visual intrusion which disrupts scale and staging throughout Lagoon’s landscaping as a whole.

The Creative Director for Lagoon-A-Beach appears to be Captain Obvious. Here we have the infamous “Easter Island Heads” from the monolithic human figures scattered about Rapa Nui National Park known as Moai. If the designers had only waited a couple of decades, they would have known that the heads have hidden bodies buried in the ground beneath. Moai are a common trope at water parks.

Also common are volcanos, as they make excellent water features. Castaways-style suspension bridges fashioned from shipwrecked wood and rope are also expected in such settings. Nothing surprising here, all decently executed, but of course nothing on the scale of a Disney or Universal water park.

Just a Simple “Roller Coaster”

Lagoon has a real vintage treasure creeping and crawling out into its main parking lot area—the fourth oldest wooden coaster in the United States (sixth in the world)—plainly called Roller Coaster.

Sometimes advertised in decades past as the “Giant Roller Coaster,” and known affectionately by locals as the “White Roller Coaster,” the ride is actually only 62 feet tall at the first drop. It was designed by the legendary John Miller and opened at Lagoon for the 1921 season. Damaged by the same 1953 fire which threatened the park’s carousel, it was rebuilt and has been restored more than once since.

Much like the rest of the park itself, Lagoon’s Roller Coaster has a layered aesthetic that shows the passage of time. The ride is from the 1920s, yet the queue and station suggest the popular Art Deco stylings of the 30s and 40s, as I saw at Lakeside Park in Denver two years before.

It’s all part of the historical personality of a park as old as Lagoon, though the grounds are not immune to some of the more tacky tropes of the amusement park industry as seen at Cedar Fair and Six Flags, as well as the more detailed and immersive thematic cues of leaders such as Disney and Universal.

Continued in Part 2.