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- Courtesy Photo
- The ATK Promontory Rocket Garden in Corinne
Sentimental journeys
When taking your summer road trips, consider these unique stops.
By Thomas Crone
Utah's blessed with more than a few guidebook-worthy attractions, many of them accessible within a couple hours and visible from the comfort of your own automobile (e.g., the internationally known "Spiral Jetty," which, due to our drought, is no longer submerged by the Great Salt Lake and is completely visible). For some travelers, though, the appeal lies not so much in the sites that register with the masses or mainstream tour flyers. The fun, instead, lies in the hunt for the weird, the obscure, the forgotten.
Among these sites, too, Utah doesn't lack for options.
Here're a few throwbacks to the past you may've missed on your own adventures. Some can be completed quickly, while on your way to/from other locations. We'll give you a quick location check, with miles and time logged from a convenient starting point for any trip, Coffee Garden (98 E. 900 South).
ATK Promontory Rocket Garden (9160 N. Highway 83, Corinne). Total travel: 81 minutes; 83 miles. Located a goodly ways outside of Corinne, this boneyard to the 20th century's finest space technology sees a host of rockets, missiles and pieces of actual space shuttles displayed in an open air setting, set just off the highway. Also, it's not a far jump to Marble Park, listed below.
Historic Wendover Airfield (352 E. Airport Way, Wendover): Total travel: 104 minutes; 123 miles. There's an official museum, which is a fine place to learn about the history of this WWII flight hub. But you can also just wander about the facility, which offers a relaxed way to self-tour a partially intact vision of Utah's wartime past. There are also some smaller, satellite museum-like displays within the old barracks; some of these are open, some are not, some require secret passwords. (No lie.)
Iosepa Historical Memorial (Iosepa Road, Grantsville): Total travel: 62 minutes; 61 miles. The history of this Skull Valley ghost town was a relatively brief one, lasting only from 1889–1917, with Polynesian LDS members the core population. Though all members of the settlement had left during the time of WWI, an annual festival finds descendants of the small town meeting here; structures for their annual gatherings remain, such as a playground and a basketball court. Those elements juxtapose with a large gravesite that sees death dates going back a full century. You can have a very thoughtful moment here, weather permitting, with striking views in all directions.
Marble Park (116 N. Tremont St., Tremonton). Total travel: 73 minutes; 76 miles (Note: some maps list Bothwell as the town, rather than Tremonton). Let's say you're driving around the countryside near Tremonton. If in that state of mind already, you might not mind a stop at a park that just seems to pop up out of nowhere, full of metal-and-wood art with a heavy emphasis on 19th-century Western motifs. The neighboring businesses appeared closed, but the park's as open as can be, with magnificent views; in fact, if you throw horseshoes on a serious level, bring some with you, as you won't find many horseshoe pits with this kind of rugged, beautiful backdrop.
Saltair I and II (12408 W. Saltair Drive, Magna) Total travel: 24 minutes; 19 miles. While we give the address to the "new," circa-1980s Saltair facility above, you can also drive to the remains of the original two Saltairs by traveling roughly a mile northeast on the outer road that feeds into Saltair's venue grounds. Entering through a slim gate that sees some historical markers on the other side of the fencing, you can walk out to the lakeshore, if so desiring, coming across bits-and-bobs of the first two Saltairs, including crushed concrete, rebar and wooden footings. Walking through this haunting section of the Great Salt Lake's footprint, you can truly imagine the life being lived here a century back.
Thistle (39.99134 N, 111.49824 W, unincorporated Utah County). Total travel: 69 minutes; 67 miles. Known online as "Spanish Fork Canyon's ghost town," Thistle's the kind of place you can drive past without much thought, with a single, worn building sitting half-submerged in water as you drive on US 89.
Founded in roughly 1878, the town lasted just a bit more than a century, having been lost to a fast-moving mudslide in 1983.
Today, there's not much town to locate, and GPS may leave you as you undertake the quest, thanks to the rural terrain. But the drive's a lovely one, and if you walk along the highway (with eyes peeled, of course), you can form a picture of the few-hundred hardy souls who called this place home—well past the heyday of the railroads that initially gave Thistle life.