1930’s ‘Lake Carnivals’ Saw Cars Pushed Off A Wyoming Cliff

Guernsey State Park has one of Wyoming's most beautiful canyons and reservoirs in the state, with plenty of amazing campsites and even yurts for rent.

When visiting, make sure you read the signs.

On my last trip there I climbed to a high point that overlooks the water-filled canyon below, from a high cliff.

Most people skip those historic signs posted in parks. I like to read them.

WAIT- Who was pushing cars off cliffs here?

Did I read that right?

Even travel websites that have written about this wonderful place do not mention this historic marker.

Apparently, back in the mid-1930s, people were pushing old cars off of this high cliff.

That must have been an awesome sight.

I wonder if any of those old cars are still down below in the water.

Let's have a closer look at what the sign says about these car-cliff events.

Back when this area first became a reservoir there was a yearly celebration that included speed boat rides and a bathing beauty contest.

At some point in the festivities, people would watch and cheer as a car was "driven" into the water, far below.

When they say a car was driven off, I assume that means nobody was in the car. There would have been no way to survive such a fall.

The car-pushing event only lasted a few years before park managers put a stop to it.

Scroll to 1:10 in the video below to hear about this car-pushing event.

The next proposed stunt was to be performed by a man who had strung a cable across the lake, from high above Brimmer Point. He was going to shimmy out on the rope and then drop over 100 feet to the water below.

But it was a hoax.

A dummy was sent down the cable.

The man hid under a blanket in the boat where he would pop up and bow as if he had done the deed.

The stunt actually fooled the audience.

Below is an old poster of these Wyoming water carnivals of the 1930's.

These events drew up to 20,000 people each year.

That's a lot of people when you think of how hard it was to get to Guernsey back then, without today's modern highway system, and how many people lived in the area.

They had boat races along with swimming and diving contests.

$500 for the winner of the boat races was a lot of money back in the 1930s.

The next video is a quick tour of Guernsey State Park as it is today.

There's a lot to do in the park and plenty to see around it.

See the wagon ruts from the old wagon trains that moved west.

Register Cliff is close by with the signatures of those old west travellers.

To the east, and very close by, is old Fort Laramie.