{"id":20525,"date":"2026-07-12T14:34:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lagoonhistory.com\/project\/?p=20525"},"modified":"2026-07-12T14:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:50:08","slug":"25-years-of-the-lagoon-history-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lagoonhistory.com\/project\/25-years-of-the-lagoon-history-project\/","title":{"rendered":"25 Years Of The Lagoon History Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lagoon History’s History<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

At the turn of this century, it wasn\u2019t easy for someone to find out much about Lagoon’s history or even basic facts about the rides. Like many people, I was curious about how the park came to be and how old some of the rides and buildings really were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That information remained scattered across brief mentions in books, memories and limited records of people close to the park and buried in decades of newspapers. There were no Lagoon history books, no social media posts, not even RCDB or Wikipedia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a couple of helpful websites in those early days of the internet. Addicted2Lagoon.com had a timeline of events from Lagoon\u2019s press kit, a park map and occasional updates about new rides. The Jet Star 2 Archive had a decent amount of stuff about old attractions, as well as a message board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lagoon\u2019s official website at the time was essentially an online version of their brochure, so, unfortunately, there wasn\u2019t much to be found there. I did write them a few letters asking for information but what I received dealt more with planning a trip to Lagoon than its past. There were broader websites like RollerCoaster.com that had a few stats about Lagoon\u2019s coasters, but other than that, learning about Lagoon\u2019s history meant scouring dusty, old books or newspapers stored on microfilm at a library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 1995, I had begun collecting every shred of information about the park I could find. At first, I just had some of the more well-known facts and bits of history stored on a word processor document I occasionally printed out and shared with a handful of people. A few years later I played around with making my own Lagoon website on a very basic, free website-building service called Simple Pages, but I doubt anyone ever saw it. I don’t think it was ever detected by any of the many, early search engines like Alta Vista, Lycos, Netscape, Yahoo, etc. There wasn’t even an option to upload your own images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I found MSN Groups. This was a free service that allowed users to create an online community with a basic message board feature. I could upload the few photos I had and easily create as many individual pages as I wanted for various rides and attractions. So on 11 July 2001, I started what I called the Farmington Star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The name was based on the idea that, out of all of the many resorts that operated around the Great Salt Lake in the late 1800s, it was the one in Farmington that survived. Plus it kind of sounded like the name a local newspaper might have had at the time when Lagoon originated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of MSN, my “website” was much more visible. Slowly, people began finding the site and I started to receive more and more messages with helpful info, memories and photos. I continued digging through whatever physical media I could find as well. Sometimes I\u2019d find a book that only had a sentence or two about Lagoon. Other times I\u2019d be lucky enough to find a couple of paragraphs of new information. But little by little, it all helped me piece together the puzzle of the park’s long and complex story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was always playing with the design of the website. I remember spending way too much time creating pixel art of each Lagoon ride and other graphics in Microsoft Paint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2005 site header.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Around 2005, I began branching out from MSN Groups when I created the separate FS Forums. Another website, Lagoon Is Fun, which started on Yahoo Groups in 2004 or so, was also growing and had proven itself to be a better way for fans of the park to connect. So when I finally created a stand-alone website for The Farmington Star in 2007, I closed the FS Forums. I was using CityMax at the time, but later began using Adobe DreamWeaver to design the website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the many FS Forums site headers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lagoon Today! started as a side blog in 2007 \u2013 partly because everybody was using Blogger\/Blogspot and I wanted to try it out \u2013 but also because it gave me a way to keep track of Lagoon\u2019s History as it was happening. I wrote a few articles for it and some trivia quizzes and then I let it go dormant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, I began using WordPress for everything because it seamlessly integrated blog articles and webpages, along with many more design capabilities. This is about the time when I changed the name from the Farmington Star to the Lagoon History Project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of just uploading the same information I had before, I took the time to completely revise all of the content and using better quality images. I also began citing my sources to help solidify what I was putting out there and making it as accurate as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lagoon History Project started appearing on social media with Facebook in 2010 in addition to Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Vimeo and a few others over the years. I even brought back Lagoon Today as a social media entity to focus on history as it was being made in the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve received thousand of interesting emails and comments over the years. About fifteen years ago, I was contacted by a publisher wanting me to put together a history book about the park. But Lagoon was already working on their own book at the time and the idea was abandoned. I was, however, able to help with Lagoon’s official publication which was completed in 2015. It was great to finally see a whole book just about Lagoon after all that searching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, a book has never felt like the right format for this topic. There\u2019s just way too much out there about Lagoon and its 140-year history for a single book to contain. I\u2019m constantly finding more pieces of history or correcting previous information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this website, I\u2019ve been able to add and update information as it comes and make it widely available. That accessibility helps more people to remember different details that can be added to the website. Having multiple sources has helped the information here to become more and more detailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, I start to wonder if it’s more information than most people really want to know (especially this article!), but piecing together this puzzle has been infinitely interesting to me. I do take a break from it at times, but then something new comes up and my curiosity is sparked all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a project with no possibility of truly being completed and there\u2019s still a lot I have waiting to be added. Some of the features I currently have in the works will cover Ranch Kimball, the increasingly forgotten figure in Lagoon’s history that helped bridge the gap between the two families that have owned the park, more details about entertainment and non-ride attractions, and – trains!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it’s a lot of work to research, fact check and produce everything for the Lagoon History Project, I have tons of other people to thank for making the resource what it is today. Your memories, photos, messages and other contributions are invaluable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just keep trying to make a website like I\u2019d want to use myself. That’s why I’ve avoided ads and paywalls at all costs. Too many websites today make it seem like they aren’t meant to be seen or enjoyed with all of their pop up ads, unchecked AI content and so on. That has meant that I don\u2019t make any profit off of the site. All of the donations I receive go towards hosting fees and keeping this resource open to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, please don’t hesitate to share your old photos. Many of the photos that are kindly shared here have led to unlocking important and unknown pieces of history, or have helped pin down previously unconfirmed dates. What you may see as an embarrassing photo from your younger days may have a key to some forgotten element hiding in the background that you might not have noticed or recognized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thank you goes to everyone who shares this site with their friends and family or references it in social media comments and such. And thanks to those professional journalists, writers and creators who have cited this work over the years and sought the appropriate permission to use photos that have been shared here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s been a very satisfying 25 years and I plan to keep this project going, and hopefully improving, for as long as I can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

GALLERY<\/h5>\n\n\n