Ogden City is located at the confluence of the Ogden and the
Weber rivers in Weber County in northern Utah. In 1989 the city had
a population of 69,000 residents. Weber County, which centers on
Ogden as the county seat, had a population of 160,100.
Ogden claims to be the oldest settlement in Utah because of the
founding in 1845 of a small picket enclosure, Fort Buenaventura, on
the Weber River by Miles Goodyear, a mountain man working in the
northern Utah area. Goodyear met the Mormons coming west in 1847
and offered his fort and claim, which the Mormons bought in
November 1847. His claim included the fort and the area
approximating the present Weber County boundaries.
In the fall of 1847 and the spring of 1848 James Brown and his
family and the Lorin Farr family were sent by Brigham Young to
begin settlement of the area, which became known as Brown's Fort
until 1851 when the name Ogden was given to the city. The name
derives from the Hudson's Bay Company trapper, Peter Skene Ogden,
who was trapping in the valleys and mountains east of Ogden in
1825.
In the period from 1847 to 1870, the community survived as a
rural agricultural area with small settlements forming along the
Ogden and Weber rivers. In early times, settlement was limited by
the extent that the water could be brought from the rivers and
streams to the land. Later, the Pineview Dam and canal systems, and
the Weber Basin Project in more recent times, expanded the water
resources and the community consequently expanded.
With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869,
the development of the Ogden community changed considerably.
Politically, the Mormon community leadership was challenged by the
increasing non-Mormon population that came into the area with the
railroad. The non-Mormon leaders tried to wrestle the political and
economic control of Utah from the Mormons and center their control
at Corinne, a main stop on the transcontinental line north of
Ogden.
Brigham Young and the Mormon leadership would allow none of this
and took steps to bypass Corinne with a railroad line to the north
as well as an agreement with the Union Pacific and Central Pacific
railroad companies that Ogden would be the main terminal of the
transcontinental line. By 1874 the challenge of Corinne was over;
Corinne continued to decline as businesses moved to Ogden, and
Ogden became recognized as a major railroad and commercial center.
In Ogden, Mormons and Gentiles (non-Mormons) mixed together in
business and politics. In 1889 Fred J. Kiesel, a Gentile, was
elected mayor of Ogden, the first breakthrough in Utah of the
Mormon-dominated politics.
From the 1870s to World War II, Ogden was a major railroad town,
with nine rail systems eventually having terminals there. Business
and commercial houses flourished as Ogden with both east-west and
north-south rail lines became a shipping and commerce center
threatening to overshadow even Salt Lake City in that regard.
Commerce houses such as those run by Fred J. Kiesel and the Kuhn
Brothers, the manufacturing activities of John Scowcroft
enterprises, the Amalgamated Sugar Company and other business
ventures of David Eccles, the Utah Construction Corporation of the
Wattis brothers, Thomas Dee, and David Eccles, and the shipment by
rail to various markets outside Utah of the garden produce and
fruits from local orchards were significant business activities of
this period.
An attempt to further enhance this economic "boom" was promoted
by William "Coin" Harvey, a resident of Ogden who sponsored a
"Carnival" to draw developers of real estate and commerce to Ogden
in 1890. Harvey's efforts failed for the most part, and he went on
to become a candidate for the presidency of the United States.
Ogden's commercial and railroad activities grew through World War I
until the slowdown in the 1920s and the Great Depression of the
1930s created bad economic times.
The threat of war and the coming of World War II brought a
renewed significance to Ogden as a transportation hub and center of
government agencies and war industries. An aggressive Ogden Chamber
of Commerce convinced the government to build Hill Air Base in the
Ogden area in 1938. During the war years, Ogden was considered a
safe interior area with an excellent system of rail connections to
move needed war materials to the war zones. As a result, the Naval
Supply Depot was built in Clearfield and the Utah General Depot in
Ogden; the United States Forest Service Regional Office also was
located in Ogden. German and Italian prisoners of war were interned
in camps in the Ogden area. In its heyday during World War II as
many as 119 passenger trains passed through Ogden every
twenty-four-hour period.
After the war, the railroad business declined because of
competition from automotive and air transportation; in the 1950s
rail passenger service was almost entirely eliminated, except for
Amtrack, which beginning in 1971 passed through Ogden on a
tri-weekly schedule. Some government agencies and businesses
related to the defense industry continued to gravitate to Ogden
after the war--including the Internal Revenue Regional Center, the
Marquardt Corporation, Boeing Corporation, Volvo-White Truck
Corporation, Morton-Thiokol, and several other smaller operations.
Ogden business leaders, realizing that Ogden was closely linked to
government industries and thus suffered economic ups and downs
because of changes in political ideas, devoted considerable effort
to bring more private industry to the Ogden area. Through the
efforts of the chamber of commerce and various business
organizations, in recent years Ogden has attracted a variety of
industries and commerce to its industrial park and mall areas.
Today Ogden enjoys a rather stable economic structure, which is
no longer totally reliant on government projects and money. The
community has a mixed population of Mormons and non-Mormons, and a
variety of ethnic backgrounds, members of which are not as
confrontational as they have been in the past but are more
understanding and tolerant of the variety of people in the
community. This mixture of ethnic and religious backgrounds has
created a progressive attitude in community and educational
affairs, and Ogden has a number of high-quality public and private
schools. Weber State University provides quality education in many
areas of learning at the university level.
History of Ogden,
Utah