Salt Lake City is a beautiful and amazing place. Check out these interesting and fun facts about Salt Lake City!
Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah and the most populous city statewide, with over 1.25 million residents. It’s growing fast as more people from elsewhere in the country are discovering Salt Lake City’s charms. No matter whether you were born here or recently moved to Salt Lake, there are numerous interesting tidbits that you may not know about the city.
People Believe There Are Monsters in the Great Salt Lake
Over the years, many stories and legends have popped up about monsters in the lake. One of the most well-known tales dates back to the 1800s. Workers in a salt-producing company along the north shore claimed to have seen a monster with the head of a horse and a body similar to a crocodile. They claimed it made strange noises and charged out of the water at them, forcing them to take cover until the morning. The workers claimed that when they returned the next day, the ground was torn up, rocks were overturned, and there were tracks on the ground. It’s been dubbed the North Shore Monster.
Three Fun Facts About the Salt Lake Monsters
- There have been other monster sightings, too, including one report of a monster with a dolphin-like body swimming near Antelope Island in the lake.
- Native Americans have stories about “Water Babies,” which are human-sized monsters that resemble mermaids. They make sounds like a crying baby to lure potential victims to the water so they can drag them down into the lake.
- Local legends circulate about an entrepreneur who released two whales into the lake with the intention to use them as tourist attractions, but there have never been any confirmed sightings of the whales since.
The Great Salt Lake Is Bigger Than You Realize
Did you know that the Great Salt Lake is the largest salt lake found in the Western Hemisphere? Its average depth is 14 feet, with a maximum depth of 33 feet. It’s also the fourth largest lake in the whole world that doesn’t flow into some other type of water system.
Here are some more interesting facts about the lake that you probably didn’t know:
Five Fun Facts About the Great Salt Lake
- The lake has two distinct colors, which are caused by the railroad crossing that runs through the lake. When they built the crossing, it created lakes with different ecological characteristics and different salinity levels.
- The lake has a very high salt concentration, which is why most people can easily float here.
- There are 11 recognized islands in the lake; however, the number that is visible varies at times depending on the lake’s water level.
- Antelope Island is home to one of the biggest populations of free-roaming bison in the country.
- Spiral Jetty is a beautiful piece of land art in the northwestern part of the lake, but it’s only visible when the water level drops below 1,280 meters or 4,200 feet above sea level.
Salt Lake City Was Founded by Mormon Pioneers
Salt Lake City was founded on July 24, 1847, by a group of Mormon pioneers. They were the first non-Native Americans to settle in the area.
Five Fun Facts About Salt Lake City’s Mormon Roots
- The Seagull Monument in Temple Square commemorates the “Miracle of the Gulls” story from 1848, in which several flocks of seagulls saved Mormon settlers’ crops from katydids.
- The California Gull is the state bird of Utah because the Mormons believed it was a miracle the birds saved their crops.
- Mormons were the first in the American West to utilize a large-scale irrigation system. They dammed City Creek to flood it so it would soften the soil, allowing them to plant potatoes.
- In 2014, there was an art installation called “Zion/Alien Rocky Mountain Alliance.” It was a spaceship with two figures inside: one was human, and the other was a blue alien. Both were dressed as Mormon missionaries.
- There’s a reason the streets in downtown Salt Lake City are so wide. Mormon leader Brigham Young mapped out the city and had the streets built to accommodate the oxcarts that settlers used. He wanted the streets to be wide enough so the oxcarts could easily make U-turns.
Salt Lake City Is Home to Many Unique Things
Image via Flickr by Boston Public Library
Probably every city has something weird or unique that it’s known for, and Salt Lake City is no exception. There are lots of interesting oddities about the city. Did you know the Utah Jazz isn’t originally from Utah? The team originated in New Orleans, hence the musical reference. Did you know Salt Lake City is the only state capital in the United States with three words in its name? Here are seven other odd facts that you may not know about Salt Lake City:
Seven Fun Facts About Salt Lake City Itself
- The Family History Library, which is run by the Mormon Church, is the largest genealogical library in the world.
- The world’s first Kentucky Fried Chicken was opened in Salt Lake City, not Kentucky. “Colonel” Sanders franchised his chicken recipe to a Utah-based friend, who named his restaurant Kentucky Fried Chicken after massive interest in the menu item. The original location is still there too.
- Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution was established in 1868, becoming the country’s first department store.
- Loftus Novelty, the nation’s leading manufacturer of rubber chickens, is located here.
- Salt Lake City is home to the USPS Remote Encoding Facility, which is where mail with unreadable addresses is sent in hopes the postal geniuses who work here 24/7 can decipher it.
- In 2014, it was determined that Salt Lake City had more plastic surgeons per capita than any other city nationwide.
- Kraft Foods announced that Salt Lake City has the highest JELL-O consumption (per capita) in the world. If you hear Utah’s “Mormon Corridor” referred to as “the JELL-O Belt,” now you know why.
What is your favorite fun fact about Salt Lake City? Did we share a few that you didn’t know about? If you have some interesting fun facts, be sure to reach out to us at Bountiful Mazda so we can add them to our list.
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