How Ideal Beach Was Created On Bear Lake, by VSNE

HOW IDEAL BEACH WAS CREATED ON BEAR LAKE

My grandfather, James Wilson Neil, started building Ideal Beach in 1913 – just before World War I erupted in Europe. (America entered the war in 1917.) 

Jim Neil was born in a little mining village in Scotland named Calderbank (this is where we stopped the couple coming out of the bar and the woman went home and got me the map).

His parents had joined the Mormon Church in Scotland in the 1860s and they came to America in 1885 both to immigrate closer to Zion but also to find work in the coal mines near Evanston, Wyoming. 

In 1892, seven years after the family settled near Evanston, the Neil parents traveled to Logan, Utah, to have their marriage sealed in the Logan, Temple – the second temple completed (1884) after the Saints moved west.

While they lived near Evanston, and later in Kemmerer, Wyoming, the Neil family met many Utah Church members because they belonged to the Utah Woodruff Stake that stretched all the way from Garden City on Bear Lake, past Randolph and Woodruff, Utah, to Evanston and Kemmerer, Wyoming. They attended stake conferences with their fellow Church members and heard such speakers as Parley P. Pratt, J. Golden Kimball, and other notable Saints. 

The Neils also became acquainted with the Hodges family who owned a sheep ranch and milling company by Bear Lake. They got to know this family particularly well because the Hodges men would make a two day journey by wagon to sell their sheep, lambs, flour and any excess produce  to the coal mining communities in Wyoming. Then they would carry a load of coal back to Bear Lake. It was a profitable business for all concerned.

In 1900 Jim Neil’s parents bought a small parcel of land from the Hodges family where they could have a little home in their retirement. They moved to Garden City about 1908.

In 1910 son Jim had a thriving hardware and mercantile store in Kemmerer, but by 1912 he was persuaded to relocate near his parents and Bear Lake.

In 1913 Jim Neil bought 37 acres of what had been their spring “lambing out” property from Joshua and Niamiah Hodges for $1,900 – a large sum at the time. To buy the property and help develop the resort, he sold interests to his former partners in the hardware store and to other Kemmerer businessmen.

He named the new resort “Ideal Beach.” 

Jim had 41 small log cabins built in a row along the beach. Indoor plumbing was not considered necessary in vacation properties (or many homes, for that matter), so several outhouses were built and frequent standpipes were installed where people could obtain water in buckets for drinking. There were no kitchens in the cabins – just a bed or two and some chairs. This was not considered a deprivation. People went to the Bear Lake for a lakeside “camping” experience; and cabins were a real luxury. 

In addition to the 41 cabins, there was a bath house, a kitchen and dining hall, and a large entertainment building with a hardwood dance floor that was built with springs underneath so the dancers’ feet would not tire. (This room was later converted by a timeshare company called Sweetwater into a roller rink.)

Jim also had a dock and pier built, brought in sail boats and motor boats to rent, and ordered many truckloads of sand hauled in and spread between the cabins and the water as the original “beach” was just rocks and dirt and mud.

Ideal Beach was a popular summer resort for many years. Jim Neil advertised in the Salt Lake, Ogden, and smaller papers. It was only a one day drive for people living in Salt Lake or Kemmerer or Boise. 

Between 1915 and 1950, most people didn’t travel hundreds of miles from home just to vacation. Thus Bear Lake was a good destination for folks in the nearby states. Visitors were charmed by the water’s beautiful color and by shade trees for the hottest days. High school graduates came to celebrate the end of their schooling. People drove for miles to attend the dances – the best in the area as a good orchestra was always hired for the weekends. Jim’s wife looked after the guests and his sister-in-law ran the kitchen (almost single-handedly) where people could order full cooked meals or picnics to eat elsewhere. 

As they grew older, the Neil children were put to work cleaning the cabins, helping with the boats, working in and around the kitchen. In the winter the lake would freeze over pretty far out. Then they or someone else would need to cut big blocks of ice and put them in piles layered with straw in a large underground pit called an “Ice House.” A lot of ice had to be cut for the resort to be able to keep its perishable food fresh and to serve iced drinks throughout the summer. The older boys had the job of fetching blocks of ice from the ice house as it was needed.

(Once Uncle Lyle was showing the ice house to a guest and stressed the fact that he had to leave one block of ice there over winter. When asked why, he said “Because we need ‘seed ice’ so we can grow more ice for next year. His listener believed him. That was Uncle Lyle.)

Ideal Beach was popular for many years. However, a drought occurred about the same time that farmers wanted to divert more water from the Bear River for their crops and the power company built a diversion dam to run their turbines. These combined stresses on the lake caused the water level to drop much lower; the shoreline to recede many yards out; mud, sticks, and rocks became the beach, and the resort lost popularity. Jim Neil had passed the management over to a native of Garden City some time earlier, but he finally had to abandon his “Ideal” resort; and it passed through a variety of hands to be what you see today. (Is it called Sweetwater now?)