Between shows last month my friend and Matt and I were talking as we were known to do did between shows. I'm not exactly sure how the subject came up (I think we were talking about Pioneer Village and how things used to be...). I told him I had a relative that used to work at Lagoon and I even had a picture of him.
I went home, took a picture of the picture ,and showed it to Matt the next time I worked.
It's a pretty amazing thing, actually.
In the picture George Richard Knight sits beside the famous 999 steam engine, an engine that is still at Lagoon and at one point was in use when Pioneer Village first opened in the 1970s. Apparently, the little engine is on display in the village at their train museum. I didn't get a chance to check it out this season...maybe next time.
My mother's grandfather was born in Salt Lake City in 1868, only a few years after the end of the US Civil War. He passed away in 1917. I was told the picture of him and the train was taken when he and his family lived in Ogden and worked as a railroad engineer. They moved to the Teton Valley in Idaho in 1906 so the picture is over one-hundred years old. I'm not exactly sure when it was taken.
I began working at Lagoon in 1982. I've worked there, off-and-on, since then. I worked in many departments on the park, but I never worked rides and therefore, have not had the opportunity to pilot the steam engines.
Then again, I'm pretty sure my great-grandfather never dressed up as a cowboy and fell off towers as part of a stuntman troupe (among other jobs I've had there...). I'm grateful to share this legacy with a man who died almost fifty years before I was born.
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