Great Salt Lake
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in Utah, a sheet of water stretching along the W. base of the Wahsatch Mountains, about 4,200 feet above the sea, forming a principal drainage center of the Great Basin. The lake has well-marked shore lines on the mountains around, reaching 1,000 feet higher than the present level, show that the lake had formerly a vastly greater extent; this prehistoric sea has been named Lake Bonneville. Great Salt Lake is over 80 miles long and from 20 to 32 broad, but for the most part exceedingly shallow. It contains several islands, the largest, Antelope Island, about 18 miles long. Its tributaries are the Bear, Ogden, Jordan, and Weber, the Jordan bringing the fresh waters of Lake Utah; but Great Salt Lake has no outlet save evaporation, and its clear water consequently holds at all times a considerable quantity of saline matter in solution; in 1850 the proportion was 22.4 per cent., in 1869 it was only 14.8. Between these dates the annual tribute exceeded the evaporation, and the area of the lake increased from 1,700 to 2,360 square miles; more recently, it has again been slowly receding. Several species of insects and a brine-shrimp have been found in its waters, but no fishes; large flocks of water-fowls frequent the shores. The first mention of Great Salt Lake was by the Franciscan friar Escalante in 1776, but it was first explored and described in 1843 by Frémont. A thorough survey was made in 1849-1850 by Capt. Howard Stansbury, U. S. A. See SALT LAKE CITY; UTAH.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's noted in 1921 that the lake had "again been slowly receding" — and that seesaw has since swung to both extremes. After a record high near 4,212 feet in 1986-87 flooded shoreline property and forced Utah to pump water into the west desert, the lake fell to a recorded low of about 4,188 feet in November 2022, exposing roughly half its bed and raising alarm over toxic dust and the collapse of the brine-shrimp fishery Collier's knew only as a curiosity. The other great alteration came in 1959, when a solid railroad causeway across the lake cut it into two arms with sharply different salinities, turning the northern arm pink with salt-loving microbes. Antelope Island, "about 18 miles long," is now a state park reached by a road causeway.
Written for this edition, 2026.