Lagoon's Roller Coaster: A Century of Screaming
Near Salt Lake City, Utah
The wooden roller coaster at Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington has been running since nineteen twenty-one, making it one of the oldest operating roller coasters in the western United States. Lagoon traces its roots to eighteen eighty-six, when a resort called Lake Park opened along the shores of the Great Salt Lake. The shoreline receded, and the park relocated inland to Farmington in eighteen ninety-six.
The coaster, simply called Roller Coaster, was designed by roller coaster pioneer John A. Miller and has been refurbished over the decades while maintaining its original wooden structure and out-and-back layout. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, one of the few amusement rides in the country to receive that designation.
Lagoon remains privately owned by the same Utah family that has operated it for generations, an independent regional park that has somehow survived the era of theme park consolidation.
