For more than a decade, Brandon Barrick was a skeptic. He’d heard tales from the late night stage crew. The glimpses of a soldier standing at the banister. A woman in white pacing across the second-floor windows. But until Barrick experienced paranormal activity firsthand, he wasn’t convinced The Great Saltair was haunted.
The Great Saltair, built in 1893 on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, was a mainstay for early Utah settlers until it burned down for a second time in 1970. The site was rebuilt in 1981 and is now a venue for concerts and other entertainment events.
Once considered “The Coney Island of the West,” modern ghost-sighting lore has made The Great Saltair a hub for paranormal investigations.
When Saltair’s permanent stage crew used to work back-to-back shows, they’d stay overnight at the venue. “They had some pretty crazy stories about, you know, seeing things at night, hearing things,” Barrick, a Great Saltair employee of 15 years who is currently the events coordinator, told the Deseret News.