Saltair resort

Close proximity to Interstate Highway 80, plus new population expansion into the Tooele Valley and the western Salt Lake Valley, prompted the construction of a new Saltair in 1981. The new pavilion was constructed out of a salvaged Air Force aircraft hangar. Once again the lake was a problem, this time flooding the new resort only months after it opened. The waters again receded after several years, and again new investors restored and repaired and planned, only to discover that the waters continued to move away from the site, again leaving it high and dry.

Concerts and other events have been held at the newest facility, but by the end of the 1990s, Saltair was little more than a memory, too small to compete with larger venues which are closer to the public. While there is occasionally activity now and then, through most of the early twenty-first century, the third Saltair was all but abandoned. In 2005 several investors from the music industry pooled together to purchase the building and are now holding regular concerts there. Bands like Dave Matthews Band, The Black Crowes, and other notable hip-hop music and rock music acts have all performed there recently.

Other relics of the age of the Great Salt Lake resorts are nearby, and can be seen from the highway. The most noticeable of these is the skeleton of an old rail car, which sits beside the ruins of an old powerhouse which once fed lights and roller coasters. Rows of pilings snake outward toward the lake, all that remains of the railway trestle and pier which once led to the earlier Saltair resort. The surviving buildings of Lake Park, one of Saltair's neighbors, were moved to a new site thirty miles away, where the Lagoon Amusement Park has grown around them.

Occasionally used as a backdrop for movies or television shows, Saltair awaits a new life where it stays as music venue currently and is one more of Salt Lake City's great historical tales.