Bonneville Salt Flats |
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Wikipedia: Bonneville Salt Flats
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History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Bonneville Salt Flats page on 27 July 2016, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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 is free and visitors can drive on the flats.
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.
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.
| 1950's [Pennzoil Film] Download [Pennzoil Film] from the Internet Archive - 222MB - 9:47 | |
| 1960's [Mobil Bonneville] Download [Mobil Bonneville] from the Internet Archive - 124MB - 5:28 | |
| 31 August 1965 [0493 Land Speed Tests Footage] Filmed for Mobil Download [0493 Land Speed Tests Footage] from the Internet Archive - 1.0GB - 8:27 | |
| 29 Septmeber 1965 [Mobil Oil unidentified footage] Download [Mobil Bonneville] from the Internet Archive - 205MB - 9:04 |
| Date | Media or Collection Name & Details | Files |
|---|---|---|
| 1933 | Film of Endurance Metropolitan Motion Picture Company |  Topic Page - 159MB - 7:04 |
| Date | Article | Author/Source |
|---|---|---|
| 22 July 2011 | URGENT SEMA ACTION NETWORK ALERT: The Bonneville Salt Flats Are Being Destroyed – Help Save the Salt! | SEMA Action Network |
| 30 September 2011 | URGENT REGULATORY ALERT: Federal Government Proposes Mandatory Salt Replenishment Program for Bonneville Salt Flats | SEMA Action Network |
| 22 February 2016 | Drawing a Line in the Salt: British Customs Honors the Bonneville Salt Flats in their Ongoing Legends Series | British Customs |
