It’s cold outside — in fact it’s down right frigid.

In desperately frozen times like this I tend to daydream about tropical vacations where I could be relaxing on a beach stretched out in warm sand. And Tooele County actually became a hot spot in the summer for a fun day at the beach in the late 1800s.

Garfield Beach, named after assassinated U.S. president James A. Garfield and located about a mile and half east of Lake Point, was a big attraction for Salt Lake residents as well as the Tooele County locals.

The beach was well equipped to serve tourists. From 1881 to 1893 it was bustling with a railroad station, lunch area, restaurant, bath house, and a pier leading to a dance pavilion with the pioneer steamboat “City of Corinne” used for transporting goods across the lake at the end of the pier. There was even a three-story hotel that was a prominent stopping point for Overland Stagecoaches.

Those wishing to spend a day at Garfield Beach could jump on “The Bathing Train” that would make one trip out to the beach in the morning and come back to the city in the evening.

It was a time of great socialization.

In 1889 there was a local regatta held at Garfield Beach sponsored by the two social clubs based at the beach, the Salt Lake and Garfield clubs. The regatta was a day filled with boat races, dancing, and swimming starting early in the morning and ending late that night.

Garfield Beach even attracted important visitors from outside of the state as well.

Also in 1889, a group of visiting congressional delegates were shuttled out to the beach to have a chance to try their best to sink in the Great Salt Lake. All of the visitors were supplied with bathing suits and soon found themselves in the water.

A journaled account of the day gives a somewhat comical description of the outsiders’ impressions of the lake: “Congressman Burrows soon found himself flat on his back, the ripples playing with his toes. The idea that he was not too fat to float seemed to please him immensely and he floated and floated and floated. He will listen to nothing now unless it involves Salt Lake. He wanted the party to promised to visit the lake again at five a.m. the next morning, and when told he would have to wait until after church, he submitted with very poor grace.”

Garfield Beach died out when Saltair was constructed in the early 1890s east of Garfield and the lake started a trend of receding.

Natalie Tripp: ntripp@tooeletranscript.com