Saratoga Resort A DESTINATION FOR DECADES

Long before Saratoga Springs became a city, it was a popular vacation spot for those seeking fun and relaxation. Here is a history of the Saratoga resort utilizing information from the article “Saratoga, Utah Lake’s Oldest Resort,” written by Richard S. Van Wagoner, which appeared in Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, Number 2, 1989.

The warm springs located on the northwest corner of Utah Lake were initially a mere curiosity to the area’s early pioneers. An exploration team led by Parley P. Pratt, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spent two days sailing up and down the west shore of the lake in December of 1847, and the first group of Lehi settlers camped about two miles northeast of Sulphur Springs (later known as Snow’s Spring).

John Conrad Naile, a German convert to the church and former member of the Mormon Battalion, settled in Lehi in 1854 and, in 1860, he purchased the area surrounding the warm springs with some of the $3,000 in gold he had panned in California. He planned to grow a large apple orchard with irrigation water from the springs. When the apple cider venture he envisioned did not develop as planned, he used the land for raising flax and grazing cattle and horses.

In 1862, 22-year-old John Beck, another German convert to the church, leased the warm springs property from Naile and raised sheep and manufactured charcoal there. Beck and other German immigrants in his employ often bathed in the springs, and he began considering the idea of a creating spa patterned after the famous Saratoga Resort in New York.

In 1884, with some of the wealth he had accrued from his Bullion-Beck mine in the Tintic district, he bought more than 1,000 acres of land on Utah Lake, including the warm springs area he had been leasing. He named the 27 acres immediately surrounding the springs Beck’s Saratoga Springs.

The Oct. 15, 1885, Deseret News reported “brisk business” at the “J. Beck Saratoga farm.” By 1890, the resort was well established. A Sept. 14, 1891, advertisement in the Lehi

Banner noted that for 25 cents, one could bathe in two large plunge baths and six hot tub baths. The ad also claimed that “these springs possess wonderful medicinal properties … for rheumatism and disease of the skin … a plunge in these health-giving waters will cure ‘That Tired Feeling.’”

In the early days of the resort, hundreds of members of the LDS Church were baptized there.

A dancing floor and picnic tables were placed in the center of the three-acre apple orchard in 1894, and, in 1895, a large plunge pool was built on the lower springs and bathhouses were constructed on the sandy beach of Utah Lake. More improvements were made in 1897 along with construction of a new chicken ranch venture on the property (which ultimately failed).

Though many resort goers went to Saratoga for recreation, many went for health reasons and stayed for days or weeks at a time in the large boarding house or camp tents. A June 8, 1897, Lehi Banner article noted that a principal attraction of the resort was the hot spring “whose waters are claimed to be superior to any other in the state for their medicinal properties.”

In 1900, financial difficulties led John Beck to sell Saratoga to the Utah Sugar Company, which used the fertile area for growing sugar beets. Operation of the resort continued under its ownership. In 1914, the property was sold to the Austin Brothers and the Austin and Sons Sheep companies for $60,000. The Austins anticipated selling lake frontage lots for homes. They even envisioned a new town rising up in the area with the proposed name of “Lake Front.”

The property development and town never materialized, but the resort continued to thrive. In 1916, a new outdoor pool and bathhouses were built. Other additions included shooting galleries, candy booths, rowboats for the lake and many new tents for campers.

Swimming was only one of the activities that took place during the early days of the Saratoga resort’s history. There was also baseball, band concerts, dancing, boating, picnick- ing and boxing exhibitions.

Frank H. Eastmond, operator of the popular Geneva resort on Utah Lake’s east side, announced in the spring of 1930 that he had purchased an interest in the Saratoga resort and would manage it during the upcoming season. Ambitious remodeling was undertaken; three new hot water wells were driven and the water piped into the swimming pools where fountains and sprays had been built. Large-capacity filtering units were installed in each pool.

After World War II, three of Eastmond’s sons joined him in the business. In 1948, they installed a new water system

that piped culinary water 2.5 miles to the resort, eliminating the need to bring in drinking water by truck. It also made modern cafe facilities available and allowed the upgrading of restrooms and showers.

Improvements continued into the 1950s, including new landscaping and thousands of square feet of sun decking. Numerous city recreation organizations began busing children to Saratoga in the ‘50s for swimming instruction and entertainment. More pools and midway activities were added to the resort.

In 1953, management of the resort was turned over to Frank Eastmond’s sons. In 1963, Mick Eastmond became sole manager of the resort while other family members remained stockholders in the corporation.

In the spring of 1968, a fire at the resort consumed two historic wooden structures: the dance pavilion and the main building. The dance pavilion had been converted into an arcade, and the main building housed the indoor pool, dressing rooms, ticket office and snack bar. The debris was cleared quickly and the resort opened in time for Memorial Day.

The Lehi Free Press indicated at the time that the resort offered abundant camping and picnic areas, a midway with 35 rides and games, a miniature golf course, Utah Lake cruises and complete boat launching facilities, and a new recreation area built on the site of the old pavilion.

By the late 1970s, Mick Eastmond felt Saratoga needed a new image. He announced that the anticipated 150,000 visitors to the resort in 1978 would find expanded picnic grounds, a new boat harbor, a few kiddie rides and “lots of peace and quiet.” The following summer, the new Kamakazi waterslide opened.

The resort’s run started to slow in the 1980s. In July of 1980, a concert featuring the band Deep Purple was planned at the resort. Just prior to the performance, the power went out and the concert could not continue. Upset fans got unruly and began throwing rocks and beer bottles, causing damage to the resort, a police car and band equipment. More than 100 officers from local police departments were called in to help quell the disturbance.

In the early 1980s, heavy snowfall runoff caused Utah Lake to rise to its highest point in history, swallowing hundreds of miles of shoreline and causing damage to the resort. The resort closed for good in 1993. Mick Eastmond sold the property in 1995 to investors planning to develop a 600-acre planned-unit community. This community was the beginning of what is now known as the City of Saratoga Springs.

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