Garfield & Lake Point Resorts

For a few decades the south shore was Utah's seaside. The railroads made it: bring the tracks to the water, build a pavilion, and the crowds will come by the trainload. Garfield Beach, opened in 1881, grew into the grandest of them — a pavilion the size of a tabernacle, two hundred bathhouses, a restaurant, a racetrack, even electric lights, with a steamboat named the General Garfield moored offshore. Lake Point offered a dance hall and white sand nearby. Eighty-four thousand people came in a single year. Fire took Garfield in 1904; the grand era went with it.

What the plaque says

Daughters of Utah Pioneers No. 115 Erected 1954 Garfield & Lake Point Resorts From 1881 to 1893 Garfield Beach was the most famous and finest recreation resort on the shores of Great Salt Lake, with its railroad station, lunch stand, restaurant, bath houses and pier leading to the dance pavilion, and with the pioneer steamboat "City of Corinne" exhibited at anchor. Lake Point was located 1½ miles west. A three story hotel erected there by Dr. Jeter Clinton became a stopping place for overland stages. The boulder used for this shaft was taken from "Old Buffalo Ranch" one half mile west. Tooele County

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Saltair — 7.8 mi
  A haunting lakeside resort with a storied past
• Great Salt Lake — 14 mi
  The largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere
• Bingham Canyon Mine — 14 mi
  The largest man-made excavation on Earth
• International Peace Gardens — 16 mi
  A hidden garden where 28 countries are represented in miniature

More markers nearby

• Black Rock Resort — steps away
• Buffalo Park — 2.0 mi
• Adobe Rock — 4.6 mi
• E.T. Benson Grist Mill — 5.4 mi