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Show Sf Ufeliifi we f! WiM IP ;Pipi ff C fliP r?Nt-v- a JrkKS&QsiTj K'aWj ' v. !.. s :- -.v- , ' . - .- , a Uv i , - i-VV-53' i I ' .l..-r-t,';yr. -',( $'.'' EREAT SALT LAKE -l&g-J&X h1 AND ITS "LONGEST :;;S:W BRIDGE" " zSnnwax, yjifp 4 I WOULD HE KNOW IT? r If "Old Jim"' Brider cme j back to Great Salt Lake would t ho recognize it as the body of ! water be discovered in 1525? Just let your imagination travel f up and diwn the century, dur- ? ing wbicb the American has made the Utah dosert to bios- f som like the rose. Would he 4 , know it? Or woulda't La? What j do you say ? j Ey ROBERT H. MOULTON I 1 A. NIKS (otberul-e knoun in W V "Old Jim") I'.rldger. it jiln -P. U mnn, mountaliK'i r. In II. 111 u 8 trader, explorer, i n t h-V h-V 8 3 tindi r. dic-ovei ed (Ireat NLt Suit lake In lvj. If ,e should come luick nw, be ueild be Uliuieil to see llie l"n-est l"n-est bridge e'T con-Irui'ted. uln-re the trin-k (if the Southern l'ni'itlc railway "-.m the lake on a t i . - ti I Ainerb-au timber treble 'J'l miles In length. Or ginally II. U lr!dgi- win 'JH ml!"S In b-iigih. but eight miles of I J 1 trestle liae bei n replaced by 11 mi. Ollielally Ibis bridg- Is relied U,e (in at Salt lake i-iii-oiT of the Southern South-ern Pacific road. It Is 11 railway line laid In an old lake . I from l.ueln to Ogdeii, I'lnh, l'l.'l mill's. part of ibis lake bed U dry. part Is under water. The j part under water Is (ireal Sill lake. The cut-orf Is us straight 11s the crow llles. It was built to save the grealer gredes mid cur.es nnd dilance of Hie eld line. The eurxes the new line saves would turn 11 train mound eleven tims, The power saved in moving 11 n average freight Irani because be-cause of lower grades, would lift nil iieinge man H.r.im miles. Once upon 11 time. long, long ago. there was a great lal.e In Chili, far l.uger Hum the present ireui Sail lal.e. IPiiimlabont was a lot of high land which looked lio a saucer with mountains for its rim. This lake was II thousand feef deep. Its sill face was Just 11 mile higher (ban Hie face of Hie ocean. The lake w as .'t Id miles long, 1 l-i miles wide, and 'J.'JMI miles around. It was nlinosl as larg- as I, like Michigan, ami much deeper. The liisl 1 1 who wrote about It was Captain I'onniw le. hero of one of Wii'ihiiigi on In lug's talcs. In Is:', I he saw the murks high on Ihe i-lill's where the waves once ihr-hed. So Ihe lake thai once was ha-i beep named Cake I'.iuiniw llle. Cut no one eer saw It, for II was all In prehistoric I lines. (Mice 11 river ran from Cake I'.oti-nele I'.oti-nele lo Ihe I'ncllh' ocean. This river ran north through lied Hock pass Into the Snake river, and the Hniike river runs Inlo the Columbia, and (he Columbia runs Inlo Hie sen. I be place where Salt Luke City now stands wns then '.ski feet under water. l;ut by and l there was less rain. Cake r.otinevllle grew smaller und smaller until It was no larger than Cake Crle. No stream now ran from H. for Its surface was lower thun the pass to the north. Now, If you pour water Inlo a pun. anil Ket It out into the warm Kunslilne. by nnd by the water will be gone. It will have evaporated. Cut If there were ever so little salt In the water, the mi It will still be In the pan lifter the water Is gone. Thus It was with Lake P.onneville ; The rivers tl at ran Into It hail a little j sail In them. So long 11s a river I ran nut of Cake lUinnevllle It carried : this salt away s fast us It came In. I Cut when no river (lowed from It, nnd I the water went up In the nlr by evaporation, evap-oration, the sail remained. In lime Cake Coe.neviile grew very j salty. The seasens grew drier and , drier until one hot summer day Cake ' Co time, llle was no longer a lake'of j waier. but Just 11 bike of salt. No j one knows bow long Cuke I'.onneville j wns dry. eventually, however, an-i.lher an-i.lher change came. The seasons grew j 1 elder. The water did not eanor.ite so f.ist. I'erliaps more rain fell 11 ml the rivers that ran into the Mincer ! grew Inrger. Al imv rate, a new bike ! 1 ame where the old one had I n. Il jwns not so large 11s Cake I'.onneville. Al present this lake Is cry sally, and It is called Croat Salt lake. Creal Salt lake covers 'J.l0 sspmr I miles. Is To miles long. .'!! miles wide 1 ami. In Ihe deepest places, :t() feet ' deep, It is the most sally sea on earth evcept the I'ead son. In every live pounds of water Is one pound of salts, of which l.'t ounces nre coin-moil coin-moil salt. (ieoloirlstM have e-.tlmaled that Croat Salt lake lu at least 'J.'l.'N h) enrs old. They calculate. Minn, over, that there are -liKljmi.ixK) tons of sail In Its w aters. livery three years and n half Hie sun draws up from Ihe lake as much waler as Is now In It. ltut the slreaius fh wing Into Hie lake keep II pretty well lllleil, .lust the siime. The water in the lake Is so homy Hull one cannot can-not sink In It. There nre no llsh In (heal Sail lake. A shrimp rarely exceeding ex-ceeding one third of an Inch lu length lives there. Ccilaili young llles live in the lake before Ihey gel Ilielr w ill!',''.' Seagulls make Ilielr home along Hie shore, and thousand of pel-llcaus pel-llcaus have Ilielr homes on Ihe Islands of (heal Sail lake. II Is said Hint no one knows where Ihey came I'rom. I'ifly jours ago nnd more, some very enterprising and able men said Ihey would build a railroad across the couu-irv. couu-irv. They did so. They built Hie Cnloii I 'nil Hi' east from Sail IT1111-cImco. IT1111-cImco. In I SI IS Ihey came lo Ihe II it t . blond bed of Cake Honnevllle. Cut Croat Sail lake lay In Ihe center nnd barred the way. So they built the 1 track around the lake to the north. A ; third of a century later there was ' much more business. Knginea were live times ns large. Freight cars would carry five times ns much weight, j lift ween Ogden and Cucin was n tine, level roadbed made by Cake C.onne-vllie. C.onne-vllie. Only Great Salt lake, 30 feet tieep. lay in the way. And so every day trulns were lifted In curves 1.500 feet higher and carried 31 miles farther far-ther than would be necessary If a road 1 were built straight across the lake. So the Southern Pacific railroad . men looked ut the old grade over the mountain and then at the level way ! across Great Salt lake and they said: , "1't u.s build a cut-off, a straight. ! I level line, over land, through water ' ! fiein Lucln to Ogden," ! They did no. And thus came Into btli.g the lounwst bridge In the world. , The aim of the chief engineer was j to build a mile and a quarter of ires- I He a week over it thousand feet for each working day. In June, l'.MJ, Iralnloads of steel rails reached the j lake. In July cauie the tirst iles. Many of the latter were so long that ' ! three cars bad to be chained togi !her ' as one to curry them. Three thousand j men were at work. In the cold of win- ter and the heat of summer there was 1 no stopping. Steadily the great pathway path-way grew. Cach day the pile dr'vers t made hundreds of yards. Each Jay j the pit men loaded hundreds of rars I of gravel sometimes 4(KI cars. ! J It was an army ut work In a salt ; desert. Sixteen hundred and eighty I Ions of fresh water were used inch day. All of II was brought ninny ', miles by train some of It SO miles, , some CIO miles. j More piles came. All told, oii.'Jod treoa were cut down to make the j grisit trestle. A forest of two sipiare I nilh-M was transplanted Inlo Great Salt lake. Placed end to end these piles would make a ureal tree that, fallen, would reach from Chicago to llull'ahK Ou several occasions the piles were driven so fast that the (resile grew a( Ihe rale of 1,1 10 feel per day. Kv cry lo fis'l live piles are driven In a row crosswise to the track. They are fastened logeiher on their sides wllli heavy Huiheis four nnd eight Inches thick. Across their (ops and joining Ibein together Is a heavy beam IS fool long and a foot square. Connecting Con-necting this beam with (he next set of piles l." feci away are 11 heavy timbers (stringers) laid lengthwise Willi Ihe Hack. Above these stringers string-ers Is a plank Moor three inches thick". Above that Is a coat of asphalt, I hell a fool or more of rock ballast, In which Ihe (rack and rails are laid. The Moor of Ihe trestle U III feet wide, and Ihe lumber above Ihe piling pil-ing would make a boardwalk four foot wide and an Inch thick from Huston to Cutl'iilo. |