For more than a decade, Brandon Barrick was a skeptic. He’d heard tales from the late night stage crew. The glimpses of a soldier standing at the banister. A woman in white pacing across the second-floor windows. But until Barrick experienced paranormal activity firsthand, he wasn’t convinced The Great Saltair was haunted.
The Great Saltair, built in 1893 on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, was a mainstay for early Utah settlers until it burned down for a second time in 1970. The site was rebuilt in 1981 and is now a venue for concerts and other entertainment events.
Once considered “The Coney Island of the West,” modern ghost-sighting lore has made The Great Saltair a hub for paranormal investigations.
When Saltair’s permanent stage crew used to work back-to-back shows, they’d stay overnight at the venue. “They had some pretty crazy stories about, you know, seeing things at night, hearing things,” Barrick, a Great Saltair employee of 15 years who is currently the events coordinator, told the Deseret News.
“The owner and even myself, when I started, we kind of chalked it up to those guys are kind of sleep deprived . ... Because at that point, neither one of us had seen anything really strange out here.”
Then, a paranormal experience in 2020 prompted Barrick to reconsider his skepticism.
During the height of the pandemic, a film crew expressed interest in using the Saltair as a backdrop. The building had been vacated for six months at that point, and most of the interior was caked in dust. So Barrick, the building’s owner and two others returned to the venue to prep for the film crew. As they tidied up, all four heard children’s laughter.
“We all heard the same thing, and we thought it was coming from outside the building,” Barrick said. “We all went out to look, and walked the entire perimeter of the building and there was nobody out there.
“So that was pretty weird. That was something.”
‘Coney Island of the West’
Almost nothing from the original Great Saltair exists today.
“The (Saltair) that’s out there now is actually on a completely different site, and its only connection (to the original) is using the name and a bad copy of the architecture,” Ian Christensen, a researcher who is currently writing a book on the history of The Great Saltair, told The Deseret News.
But the “main difference” between the original Saltair and its modern rebuild has nothing to do with its architecture, Christensen said. The biggest difference? The original Saltair was “world famous.”
Originally constructed in 1893, The Great Saltair was envisioned as a “Coney Island of the West.” The site was compromised of several different structures — A 130-foot tall main pavilion named The Saltair palace, a bathhouse on the Great Salt Lake, a boardwalk and a railroad to bring visitors in from the city.
It was once home to the world’s largest wooden roller coaster, a 10,000-occupancy dance floor, a merry-go-round, musicals, bowling, Skee-Ball and Utah’s first movie theater.
At its peak, in 1924, The Great Saltair attracted half a million visitors a year from around the world.
Tragedy struck the flourishing amusement park in April 1925, when an electrical fire burned The Great Saltair to the ground. It was rebuilt the following year, but could never attract the same-sized crowds as it had before. In 1958, the amusement park was boarded up and closed for good.
For over a decade, the site sat abandoned. Then for a second time, in 1970, the Saltair caught fire. Police suspected arson, but no one was ever caught.
In 1981, the Saltair was rebuilt roughly one mile from the original site. It’s now located off westbound I-80, providing greater accessibility to guests while still not far from the Great Salt Lake.
The rebuild was done quickly, and on a budget. “An old aircraft hangar ... bought from Hill Air Force Base,” was used to construct the heart of the modern Saltair, Christensen said.
Within two years of the rebuild, tragedy struck the venue for a third time. Salt Lake City’s 1983 flood submerged the main floor of the Saltair under five feet of water. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that the water fully receded.
In 1992, Walter Plumb restored the flood-stricken building and added a stage for local musicians and performers. The Great Saltair reopened in 1993 and was sold to its current owner, Ian Morehouse, in 2005. It is currently used as an entertainment venue.
A single piece of the original Saltair lives inside its modern successor. In a room behind the stage, strapped to a column is a plank of wood, collected from the original Saltair’s boardwalk.
To the believer, this plank is considered “active” for paranormal events, Barrick said during a tour of the building. It’s one of many spaces within the building that attracts ghost hunters searching for a paranormal experience.
Ghost hunters flock to The Great Saltair in search of paranormal activity
On a Saturday night in October, a few dozen amateur and expert ghost hunters gathered at The Great Saltair to take part in a paranormal investigation. Hunters hoped for communication with one of Saltair’s resident ghosts, or perhaps, a phantom who followed them inside.
The investigation was led by Grimm Ghost Adventures, a local group of expert paranormal investigators who have led similar investigations at the Saltair several times in the past.
Expert hunters estimate Saltair is home to 10 ghosts, but there are only a handful who have been sighted frequently. As far as experts can tell, none of these ghosts are connected to the site’s predecessor.
Likely due to its remote location, the Saltair has twice been the disposal grounds for the remains of two women. One of these women, nicknamed Saltair Sally, is believed to pace near large windows on the second floor, dressed in white. Another is a soldier, who often appears near the banister of the bifurcated staircase. The generally accepted theory is that this soldier is linked to the aircraft hangar taken from Hill Air Force Base and used in the ‘81 rebuild.
Before investigators scattered to “active” paranormal zones throughout the building — a green room with a mysteriously cool breeze, another space where lights flicker on and off at random or to a third-floor closet, where a ghost is rumored to reside — amateurs were provided with a brief set of ghost hunting guidelines.
- If a paranormal experience has a physical impact such as headache or nausea, step away from the space. Remember, it might not be a paranormal-related response.
- If you suspect paranormal activity, take photos in threes. You are more likely to catch activity with multiple shots.
- Ghosts can be “deceiving.” If you believe you are communicating with one, even if you ask a question in your head, it will still hear you and respond accordingly.
- Finally, the best ghost hunting tool is yourself. “So when the hair on the back of your neck stands up, there probably is somebody breathing down your neck,” Grimm claimed.
After getting the lowdown on ghost hunting, investigators were taken on a tour of the venue. Nearly every space came with it’s own paranormal lore. Mirrors in the green room have a tendency to reflect paranormal images, lights in the “Marilyn Manson” green room shut off at random, another space is typically eight degrees cooler than the rest of the building, and for no apparent reason.
Spaces with peculiar tendencies are considered “active” for paranormal activity, and that’s where investigators like to put their hunting gadgets to use. Investigators use various ghost hunting tools to aid in their investigation, many of which look like typical household objects.
A staple ghost-hunting gadget is the EMF meter. You might recognize this as a tool used by electricians to find live wires, but in the world of ghost hunting, this tool is used for paranormal communication. With EMF in hand, inform nearby ghosts you plan to communicate, and let them know which colors on the device represent “yes” or “no” responses. As you ask questions, ghosts will respond accordingly.
Dowsing rods, which are L-shaped copper rods, are also used to host conversations with paranormal guests. To initiate contact, loosely hold them before you. A ghost may choose to latch on, if it does, specified movements of the rods can dictate “yes” or “no” responses.
To identify paranormal movement, hunters use motion light cat balls. When these pingpong ball-sized spheres detect motion, they light up. Place a half dozen of these balls in any given space and leave them be. They can sense paranormal activity. If they do, they will light up and warn you that something paranormal is afoot.
Finally, a camcorder — any camcorder will do. Set it up in any active zone and it might catch paranormal activity while you are not looking.
When preparations are complete, all the lights inside the Great Saltair are shut off (other than the second-floor bathrooms) and investigations begin. There’s a eerie feeling throughout the entire building, especially when it goes dark. If you lean into it, your own shadow could make you jump.
None of the hunters there, including veteran investigators reported seeing a ghost the night I was there. But many of them say they have had success at the venue. The sound of whispers, a glimpse of a shadowy figure, a cool breeze or activity on a motion sensor are all considered signs of success — and enough to bring them back to the Saltair in search of more.
“I haven’t seen any full on ghosts out here,” Barrick said. “But you’ll hear whispers in the room late at night, you’ll see ... shadow figures.”
“We have a pretty good broad spectrum of all the weird paranormal activity that people experience ... that’s the reason (paranormal investigators) like to come out here, they say that they always, at least, see or hear something out here.”
