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Top Attractions in Wendover

Bonneville Salt Flats State Park

The Bonneville Salt Flats is a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. The area is a remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville and is the largest of many salt flats located west of the Great Salt Lake. The property is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and is known for land speed records at the "Bonneville Speedway". Access to the flats is open to the public. Geologist Grove Karl Gilbert named the area after Benjamin Bonneville, a U.S. Army officer who explored the Intermountain West in the 1830s. In 1907 Bill Rishel and two local businessmen tested the suitability of the salt for driving on by taking a Pierce-Arrow onto the surface of the flats.A railway line across the Bonneville Salt Flats was completed in 1910, marking the first permanent crossing. The first land speed record was set there in 1914 by Teddy Tetzlaff.Entertainment filmed at the salt flats include portions of Knight Rider, Warlock, Independence Day (1996) and its sequel, SLC Punk, Cremaster 2 from Cremaster Cycle, The Brown Bunny, The World's Fastest Indian, Gerry, The Tree of Life, Top Gear, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Furthermore, the Pontiac Bonneville (former flagship sedan of the Pontiac motor division), the Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, and the Bonneville International media company are all named for the salt flats. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has undertaken numerous studies of the salt crust thickness within the Bonneville Salt Flats and ultimately concluded in a 2006 study that there was virtually no difference in the salt crust thickness from 1988 to 2003. Specifically, the BLM concluded “despite brine withdrawal for mineral production, neither short nor long-term measurable changes in salt crust thickness could be documented.” The BLM further concluded that earlier salt crust measurement studies showing salt crust deterioration were seriously flawed.Despite this, since 1998, the owners of the Wendover potash facility have worked diligently in conjunction with the BLM to undertake the Salt Laydown Project under which solid salt from ponds located south of Interstate 80 is dissolved and pumped onto the Bonneville Salt Flats north of I-80. During the following summer months, heat from the sun vaporizes the water and the precipitated salt becomes part of the race track surface. Since the onset of this project, more than 10.7 million tons of salt have been pumped onto the Bonneville Salt Flats. The Salt Laydown Project is now a required element of the facility’s operating plan. Motorcar racing has taken place at the salt flats since 1914. Racing takes place at part of the Bonneville Salt Flats known as the Bonneville Speedway. There are five major land speed events that take place at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Bonneville "Speed Week" takes place mid-August followed by "World of Speed" in September and the "World Finals" take place early October. These three events welcome cars, trucks, and motorcycles. The "Bub Motorcycle Speed Trials" are for motorcycles only. World records are contested at the Mike Cook ShootOut in September. The Southern California Timing Association and the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association organizes and plans the multi-vehicle events, but all event promoters contribute to prepping and maintaining the salt. "Speed Week" events in August were canceled for the second year in a row in 2015, due to poor conditions of the salt in certain parts of the flats. The salt flats had been swamped by heavy rains earlier in the year, which usually happens, but the rains also triggered mudslides from surrounding mountains and onto a section of the flats used for the land-speed racing courses. In 2004, the Stardust spacecraft released its sample-return capsule for a landing in the Bonneville Salt Flats after its flybys of asteroid 5535 Annefrank in 2002 and comet Wild 2 in 2004.

Danger Cave

Danger Cave is a North American Archaeological site located in the Bonneville Basin of western Utah around the Great Salt Lakes region, that features artifacts of the Desert Culture from c. 9000 BC until c. 500 AD. Through carbon-14 dating, it has been determined that there is very little evidence of human life in the Danger Cave area c. 11,000 BPbut there is much evidence of human life by 9,000 BP . Danger cave was first investigated in the 1930s by Elmer Smith, and excavated in the 1950s under the supervision of Jesse D. Jennings, professor at the University of Utah. Jennings work at the site was considered ground-breaking due to his exacting standards in excavation and data analysis. Though Jennings findings eventually gained widespread acceptance, his publications garnered both criticism and support at first. Relating the archaeological evidence from Danger Cave to an ethnographic model, Jennings framed a view of the little-known Great Basin Desert culture which was unknown at the time. The extremely dry cave had created an ideal storage condition that preserved a variety of artifacts from beetle wings to textiles and human paleofeces. They also found leather scraps, pieces of string, nets of twine, coarse fabric, basket fragments, and bone and wood tools such as knives, weapons, and millstones. In total, excavations have produced over 2,500 chipped-stone artifacts and over 1,000 grinding stones. The excavation also yielded identifiable fragments of 68 plant species that still grow today within ten miles of the cave as well as the bones of many species of animals. The data collected from the cave suggested that the Desert Culture had a sparse population, with small social units numbering no more than 25 to 30 people. The focus on survival prevented the inhabitants from building permanent structures, developing complicated rituals, or amassing extensive personal property. The Desert Culture persisted for thousands of years despite the hardships they faced, and eventually became the basis for other early Utah cultures such as the Fremont. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

Gold Hill

Gold Hill is a small, unincorporated community in far western Tooele County in the U.S. state of Utah near the Nevada state line. The town, located near the Deep Creek Mountains, was the center of a mining district that was active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, producing gold, copper, arsenic,silver, lead and tungsten. Gold Hill was the southern terminus of the Deep Creek Railroad. Although gold was first discovered at Gold Hill in 1858, settlement didn't begin until 1871, when a smelter was built. The town itself was established in 1892. As other nearby mines started to fail, Gold Hill began to grow famous in the mining industry. Its ore was among the richest known at the time. After the rich copper and gold mines were worked out, the area enjoyed a resurgence when World War I created a demand for arsenic. A smaller period of growth occurred during World War II, after which mining was discontinued. Gold Hill is now nearly a ghost town, with only a few remaining residents. Jack Dempsey mined there before beginning his boxing career. A United States post office operated at Gold Hill from 1911 to 1949. The site is currently a ghost town with many structures still intact and available to explore.

Arinosa

Arinosa is a ghost town located in Tooele County, Utah in the United States. Arinosa is 19 miles east of Wendover, Utah and 100 miles west of Salt Lake City, in the middle of the Great Salt Lake Desert. Although it lies along the route of the current Interstate 80, there is no exit providing access to the area. Arinosa began in the 1880s as a maintenance community for the Central Pacific railroad line, and was managed by Western Pacific in the twentieth century. The town also lay along the historic route of U.S. 40, which paralleled the Western Pacific line through western Utah. In the 1950s the settlement was abandoned due to dearth of available water and shifting transportation patterns. No buildings survive the settlement, although Metaphor: The Tree of Utah is only a few miles east of the former site of Arinosa.

Metaphor: The Tree of Utah

Metaphor: The Tree of Utah, sometimes called the Tree of Life, is an 87-foot-tall sculpture that was created by the Swedish artist Karl Momen in the 1980s and dedicated in 1986. It is located in the desolate Great Salt Lake Desert of Utah on the north side of Interstate 80, about 25 miles east of Wendover and midway between the former railroad communities of Arinosa and Barro. The sculpture, which is constructed mainly of concrete, consists of a squarish trunk holding up six spheres that are coated with natural rock and minerals native to Utah. There are also several hollow sphere segments on the ground around the base. The sculpture currently has a fence surrounding the base to protect people from falling tiles. Inscribed on the plaque are the words from Ode to Joy by Friedrich Schiller; also used as the chorus of Beethovens Ninth Symphony. It has been said that Momen was moved to create the 87-foot-tall tree after having a vision of a tree while driving across the desolate Bonneville Salt Flats. Following the dedication of this work of art, Momen donated the sculpture to the State of Utah and returned to Sweden. However, in 2011 he proposed creating a visitors center at the location with construction costs being paid for by donations.

Wendover Air Force Base

Wendover Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base in Utah now known as Wendover Airport. During World War II, it was a training base for B-17 and B-24 bomber crews. It was the training site of the 509th Composite Group, the B-29 unit that carried out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, Wendover was used for training exercises, gunnery range and as a research facility. It was closed by the Air Force in 1969, and the base was given to Wendover City in 1977. Tooele County, Utah, assumed ownership of the airport and base buildings in 1998, and the County continues to operate the airfield as a public airport. A portion of the original bombing range is now the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) which is used extensively by the Air Force with live fire targets on the range.
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