True Secrets of Salt Lake City and The Great Salt Lake Revealed! [Paperback]

Scott Gutelius (Author), Marshall Stone (Author), Daniel Reynen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 20, 2002

Salt Lake City is the home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the beautiful Salt Lake Temple and is next to the second saltiest body of water in the world. But there is so much more to this amazing place.

Did you know that the Salt Lake Temple was once hidden from an invading army? Or where you can find the mysterious "Joseph Smith Sphinx", who built it and why? Did you know that there is a racetrack made of pure salt where most of the world's land speed records have been set? Or why there are massive granite vaults built outside Salt Lake City in Little Cottonwood Canyon?

These are just a few of the secrets carefully researched, photographed, indexed and revealed for your enjoyment.

Not your typical travel guide, "True Secrets of Salt Lake City and The Great Salt Lake Revealed!" give you the fascinating facts and stories behind the host city of the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

It's fabulous! Funny, irreverent and informative, this is how travel books ought to be written. -- Carole Conroy, January 20, 2002

About the Author

Scott Gutelius is one of those Midwestern tourists-turned-Key-West-local. He visited Key West for twelve years before quitting his job working for a large, soulless multinational corporation to live the good life of poverty in paradise. Scott went to college for awhile and ended up with some hoity-toity degrees, which he puts to good use sitting in his apartment surfing the web, writing inane banter predicated on absurdist logic and playing "Pin the nail on the cockroach."

Marshall Stone has enjoyed a checkered career as piano teacher, church organist/choirmaster, Fulbright grantee at the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Antwerp, Belgium and later as a naval officer in Japan during the Korean War. In recent years he has owned and operated a guest house in Key West and is currently in the throes of building a pipe organ for Saint Paul's Church on Duval Street.

Daniel Reynen has been a tinman, salesman, laborer and grunt. In the last year he has immersed himself in the history of Utah to the exclusion of almost everything else. While visiting the Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine he listened patiently as the tour guide explained the various metals they were excavating. As he surveyed the vast open pit he turned to the guide and asked, "did they find what they were looking for?" His innocence has been a welcome refuge for the normally skeptical writers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 71 pages
• Publisher: Eden Entertainment (January 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967281962
• ISBN-13: 978-0967281964
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,461,410 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Never Knew This Stuff, July 19, 2003

By 

"provolenston" (Provo, Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: True Secrets of Salt Lake City and The Great Salt Lake Revealed! (Paperback)

I bought a copy of this book primarily as a challenge. I've lived in Utah all my life and thought there's nothing a guidebook can teach me. Boy was I wrong! I learned something and I had fun reading it.
Something I think that's nice too is they put pictures of a lot of things they talk about. This is a really cool book.

1.0 out of 5 stars Irreverent, November 13, 2009

By 

John Shea (Holland MI) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: True Secrets of Salt Lake City and The Great Salt Lake Revealed! (Paperback)

Not so much a travel item as an irreverent chat about the downside of the city.

5.0 out of 5 stars Salt Lake City is Strange!, July 22, 2007

By 

Allen Woods "American Wanderer" (Salt Lake City, Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: True Secrets of Salt Lake City and The Great Salt Lake Revealed! (Paperback)

I'm originally from Salt Lake and half the things in this book I didn't know about. After reading it, I made plans to visit some of them (like the sculpture in the middle of the dessert and the Joseph Smith Sphynx). I brought my family along and we all had a blast playing "tourist" seeing all these cool things right near home.

If you're planning a trip to Salt Lake City, get this book along with a traditional "where should I stay and eat" travel guide. You'll use that to book the mundane stuff and this to discover what to explore.

Just like the other True Secrets of books they have a great map on their website ([...]) with all the addresses of things found in the book.