Storm churns up mysterious shipwreck in Utah’s Great Salt Lake. How did it get there?

A storm uncovered something mysterious in Utah’s Great Salt Lake, and people are clamoring to know the history.

A large ship was uncovered after a storm swept through Great Salt Lake in Utah, the Great Salt Lake State Park and Marina shared Monday. The ship is an old steel ship that could be more than 100 years old, the park said.

“Some of these boats experienced tragic endings only to be buried in the sand by storms,” the park said on Facebook. “But storms can also uncover them as the most recent one did by the Great Salt Lake Marina.”

The park said it is certain the pieces of beams used to belong to a ship — and the shipwreck can be explored. Many fascinated Facebook users were excited to know the history behind the ship, but it remains a mystery for now.

“Great Salt Lake Storms can be ominous but also fascinating,” the park said. “There has been boating on the Great Salt Lake since the mid-1880’s. Some of these boats experienced tragic endings only to be buried in the sand by storms.”

The Deseret News, a newspaper based in Salt Lake City, published a report in April of this year detailing some of the “early shipwrecks on the briny and unpredictable Great Salt Lake.”

Dave Shearer, park manager at Great Salt Lake State Park, told The Salt Lake Tribune that the boat could have been used by the Southern Pacific Railroad to build or maintain a causeway that goes across the lake.

Shipwrecks can help archaeologists understand the past and piece together important historical events, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“Shipwrecks are a random sample of voyages, a record of past trade and communication,” NOAA said. “Unlike elaborately contrived sites such as graves and temples, shipwrecks are accidental and therefore show the past as it really was. One way to think about shipwrecks is that they are like car accidents at sea, but with no tow trucks to remove the wreckage.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 4:29 PM with the headline "Storm churns up mysterious shipwreck in Utah’s Great Salt Lake. How did it get there?."