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Railroad Depots in Ogden: Microcosms of a Community
Utah Historical Quarterly
Vol. 53, 1985, No. 1
Railroad Depots in Ogden: Microcosms of a Community
BY RICHARD C. ROBERTS
MORE THAN ANY OTHER SINGLE BUILDING the Ogden Union Station reflects the city's historical development from an ordinary pioneer town in the West to a major link in the transcontinental railroad and the commercial growth associated with that transformation. The impact of railroading on Ogden has been enormous. Union Station is both a monument to that impact and an architectural gem. But the present Italian Renaissance structure had two less impressive predecessors. Each of the three depots said something significant about the surrounding city, and each — especially the latter two — can serve as a peg on which to hang a part of Ogden's history.
The new transcontinental railroad brought to Ogden the surge of prosperity that the local boosters had predicted. By 1883 an Ogden directory listed five major milling activities owned by the John Taylor, Lorin Farr, David Perry, Joseph Clark and Company, and Stevens and Stone enterprises. It also listed Farr's Woolen Mills, the Ogden Broom Factory, the Vinegar Works, Utah Powder Company, the Ogden Iron Works, and three breweries. Several fraternal and religious societies were functioning, and a variety of small shops to serve the railroad customers had been established. The 1880s also saw the establishment of a municipal water company, the installation of telephone service, and the founding of several banks.
The railroads had built some of their shops and freight buildings in Ogden early. In October 1870, for example, the Union Pacific began operating the first roundhouse, which had four stalls. It was located on the west side of Wall Avenue a little north of Twenty-fourth Street. In 1882 the Central Pacific reported it had "an engine-house of seven stalls and a car-repair shop at Ogden. This shop was for ordinary repairs only." The CP also built a heavy wing dam, 100 feet in length, 2 feet wide and 5 feet high, back of the engine house to protect it from Weber River floods. In 1888 the Southern Pacific shops were moved to Ogden. The Ogden Chamber of Commerce encouraged this move by contributing 300,000 bricks to erect the SP buildings on Twenty-third Street, west of Wall Avenue.
The volume of freight business grew tremendously in the early years. The Central Pacific, for example, had a Utah trade of 80,000 tons in 1871; by 1884 they reported an average of 125,000 tons yearly, two-thirds of which were imports. Freighting had become an important industry out of the Ogden depot.
Passenger service was also on the increase. Transcontinental trains arrived and departed regulary from the Ogden depot. The 1878 directory and various timetables of the companies showed arrivals and departures three times a day on the transcontinental line, several daily arrivals and departures on the Utah Central to Salt Lake City, and one daily departure and arrival on the Utah Northern to the north.
As Ogden shared in the prosperity of the various railroad lines, the depot became the center of activity in the city. In that respect, Ogden was like other railroad towns along the tracks. One observer reported that "usually the whole town turned out to attend the train at every station, remaining at the depot until it left. Its stay was the event of they day." As Carl W. Condit concluded, "the station became a microcity mirroring the urban life around it."
Ogden's first depot was a two-story building of wooden clapboard painted "violent red" that provided a ticket office, waiting room, baggage area, and freight facilities. Early descriptions of the depot were not very complimentary. John Codman, a traveler through Ogden in 1874, wrote that "the railroad traveller gets a very wrong impression of Ogden. He sees nothing but the Gentile part of the town, the stations of the U. P. and C. P. Railroads, their offices and engine houses, and a dozen or two shanties occupied as restaurants, grog shops and gambling-houses." Codman went on to say that if one got away from the depot area he would find that "Ogden is a pretty and quiet town, somewhat larger than Brigham City."
For many years the citizens of the community agitated for a more imposing structure. In May and June 1874 the Ogden Junction called upon the railroad officials to fix the place of the junction so that the railroad could "erect some permanent buildings, establish their workshops, and go to work like substantial corporations, instead of dickering around in shanties and balloon tinderboxes, like some two-and-a-half dollar concerns, likely to move or bust at any time." A few days after the railroad companies agreed to make Ogden the transcontinental junction, the newspaper editorialized: "We hope to see the railroad authorities go to work at once to erect some suitable buildings for their important business, and that they will cooperate harmoniously to make the depot grounds convenient and mutually useful."
With a growing population, an expanding industry and trade, an increasing volume of business on the various converging rail lines, and an improvement of its cultural tastes, Ogden had outgrown the old wood station by the mid-1880s. Finally, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., the president of the Union Pacific Corporation, consented to the building of a new depot. Work began in September 1886, and by December 31 the sandstone foundation was finished. Legal and political difficulties then intervened, delaying further work for over a year.
The legal problems related to agreements about the terminus grounds. In January 1888, after numerous conferences between the leaders of the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific (the Denver and Rio Grande was invited to attend but did not send a representative), "the incorporation of a facility, the Ogden Union Railway and Depot [OUR and D ] Company, was arranged to build and operate the station and appurtenant trackage." To it the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific transferred the original Brigham Young grant of 131 acres for use as "the permanent junction of the two roads." The grant of this land was on a fifty-year lease basis.
At this point, Adams commissioned his friend Henry Van Brunt to be the architect of the new depot. Van Brunt's company was one of the foremost architectural firms in the United States and, with its office at Kansas City, was a major firm in the western United States. It designed several stations for the Union Pacific — the Omaha station; the Ogden station; and the Portland, Oregon, station. Van Brunt himself was considered to be one of the most articulate and respected architects of late nineteenthcentury America.
Meanwhile, Congress had become concerned about the way the railroad companies were failing to pay back the government debt and started toput greater demands upon them for repayment. Only after the concerns of Congress were abated in the spring of 1888 did construction of the new Ogden depot begin again.
The Ogden newspapers followed the construction of the depotand gave frequent accounts of its progress. On September 26, 1888, the Semi-Weekly Standard reported that the "grades around the new depot" were being finished and much dirt had been hauled in to fill the swampy areas. The yards were filled with the materials for the building — carloads of lumber, stacks of bricks and red sandstone, and piles of sand had assumed large proportions. The newspaper concluded that
On November 5, 1888, the cornerstone of the depot was laid. Ogden Mayor David Eccles proclaimed that all the bars in the city were to close between the hours of 12 noon and 6 P.M. that day. Professional men, merchants, tradespeople, and artisans were invited to close their businesses and "engage in the ceremonies of laying the cornerstone of the new Union passenger depot." Mayor Eccles called it "an auspicious day for the Junction City." It would "signalize an event for which the worthy people of this city have waited long patiently; and it will mark the time from which Ogden will be recognized abroad, as well as at home, as the great railway center of the Inter-Mountain region."
The cornerstone ceremonies were strongly supported. Some 5,000 to 6,000 people attended. A parade with bands, dignitaries of the city, and members of the Masonic Order was planned; but when a light snowstorm turned the streets muddy the plans for marching were given up, and the bands and people made their way to the station as best they could.
The main participants were the Ogden Band in bottle-green uniforms with black braid; John A. Dix, Post No. 3 of the GAR, in civilian clothes; and the Fire Department companies — the Hose Company in a bright red uniform and the Hook and Ladder Company in a light blue uniform. Next came the Select Knights of the AOUW in black uniforms with red plumed helmets and the Knights of Pythias in similar uniforms, followed by the Fort Douglas Sixteenth Infantry Band dressed in blue uniforms and white plumed helmets. The Masonic groups followed. They were headed by the Utah Commandery No. 1 of Salt Lake City and El Monte Commandery No. 2 of Ogden in black uniforms with helmets covered with large white plumes. They acted as escorts to others members of the Masons of the Grand Lodge of the Utah area.
At the station the dignitaries and Masonic leaders mounted the platform, and the ceremonies began. Grand Chaplain James Lowe offered a prayer and the Salt Lake Band played. Grand Master Samuel Paul laid the cornerstone, the Ogden Band played, and the Sixteenth Infantry Band played. Attorney Parley L. Williams delivered the keynote address, pontificating that the laying of the cornerstone "assures an early erection of a structure without which the transcontinental railway is incomplete." Dr. A. S. Condon then read a poem composed specially for the event.
The speeches and poem earned hearty applause, and after a benediction the crowd, bands, and dignitaries dispersed in various directions. The Ogden Standard concluded that the events of the cornerstone ceremonies "will long swell in the memory of those who viewed it, and will ever arise in years to come as one of the most pleasant of fond remembrances of the past."
So ended the cornerstone ceremonies, and the building of the depot continued. In January 1889 the Ogden Standard reported that
The work of the stonecutters, bricklayers, and carpenters had been noted, and it was projected that their work would be finished by July 1 of that year.
Construction proceeded according to schedule, and July 31, 1889, was set as the date for the opening of the building. The city of Ogden planned a gala event. The Chamber of Commerce sold tickets at $5.00 apiece for a banquet and dance to celebrate the affair. The events started at 8:00 P.M. with every light on Twenty-fifth Street turned on to draw attention to the depot. All the electric lights in the depot were turned on as well to highlight the building, and the visitors were invited to wander to all parts of the building.
The completion of the Union Depot in Ogden represented a significant improvement for passenger operations in Ogden. The railroad engineer of the Office of the Commissioner of Railroads of the U.S. Department of Interior reported that at Ogden
He also mentioned that "this work was done by the Ogden Union Railway and Depot Company, capital stock being $3,000,000, which was equally divided between the Central and Union Pacific Railway Companies."
The station and the depot complex became a reflection of the city's historical, cultural, and economic growth and development for the thirty-four years that it stood. The people were proud of this structure; it symbolized good and prosperous times.
In the years 1889 to 1924 Ogden made tremendous surges ahead economically and culturally. By the turn of the century one booster claimed that "a stranger coming to Ogden will find there the largest railway center in the West, and the point toward which all central transcontinental lines are pointing." He also asserted that Ogden had "the best and most beautiful union depot west of Denver" along with the best climate and most healthy conditions in the West, good sanitary conditions, twelve beautiful churches, three beautifully improved parks, eleven good hotels, five of the most substantial banks in the country, a "wide awake daily newspaper," an opera house, a beautiful free public library, a complete telephone system, and a healthy and substantial building and business growth. He noted the several dozen manufacturing, canning, and milling enterprises as well as the many businesses, churches, and cultural institutions. Additionally, he pointed to the scenic beauty of Ogden Canyon with the "life-giving ozone of the Rockies" and the medicinal and thermal springs rising near the Wasatch Mountains that provided many "remedial virtues" and "effected many phenomenal cures" for those who partook of them.
Ogden — as the terminal of the Wyoming Division of the Union Pacific and the Salt Lake Division of the Southern Pacific and the junction point for the Oregon Shortline, the Denver and Rio Grande, the Salt Lake and Ogden, and the Ogden and Northwestern Railroads — was an important railway point in the West. With these railroads the Ogden traffic was immense. During 1919, for example, 33,040 engines, 74,750 passenger cars, 33,987 baggage cars, and 31,034 mail cars passed through. This was the greatest volume of business up to that time.
The Southern Pacific sponsored the greatest amount of business in Ogden. Its shops employed 500 men. The Union Pacific and the Denver and Rio Grande also had their western division shops in Ogden, and they kept approximately 125 men constantly employed.
The rapid growth of Ogden as a railroad and jobbing center necessitated the construction of a new freight building that was described as "unequalled by any railroad freight depot in the United States." The two-story building, 62M> feet wide and 700 feet long, with a new seven-track system, had a capacity of handling 100 cars and over 750,000 pounds of freight daily.
Ogden also added other railroad systems to its business. The electrified Bamberger Railroad improved its line between Ogden and Salt Lake, and the Ogden Rapid Transit Company increased its trackage with the Wall Avenue and Ogden Canyon extensions in 1909 and the Twenty-fifth Street line from Harrison Avenue to Taylor Avenue and from Orchard to Monroe Avenue. Ogden City also completed the Plain City and Hot Springs and the Brigham City lines.
In 1915 the Chamber of Commerce advertised Ogden as "Preeminent in the intermountain country as chief railway center, distributing center, canning center, packing house center, food manufacturing center, agricultural center, and second as jobbing center and financial center." The city's population was estimated at 35,000 at that time, with a growth of 1,000 people per year during the last twenty years. Ogden claimed three automobile and motor truck body plants, nine bakeries, three bottling works, three brick and tile companies, eighteen canneries, six coal mining companies, four construction companies, three meat-packing plants, and several dozen factories, including twelve sugar factories.
Dominating the employment and payroll industries in Ogden was the railroad. In 1915 fifty-one regular passenger trains passed through the Ogden depot every twenty-four hours. The 2,503 workers employed by the steam railroads commanded an annual payroll of $3,872,568, while the 797 people employed by the Ogden Union Railroad and Depot Company claimed another $817,000 annually. An additional 606 people employed by the surburban electric lines generated $678,300 in wages and salaries. The other primary employers were the sugar companies with 1,500 employees and an annual payroll of $980,000 and the 111 mercantile houses that employed 1,080 workers with a payroll of $1,084,775.
Another important development at the depot during this period was the contribution of cattle and grain shipping facilities to economic growth. The trackage, pens, decks, and feed lots of the Ogden Union Stock Yards Company made it possible for the Federal Reserve Bank to report in 1922 that Ogden was "handling more cattle, hogs, and sheep than any other city in the Twelfth Federal Reserve District," essentially all of the western United States. The Ogden Packing and Provisions Company, Cudahy Packing Company, and several independent companies sent buyers to Ogden for their livestock.
Ogden had also become a grain center, with the Federal Reserve Bank reporting it as second only to Portland, Oregon, in grain commerce in the Twelfth Federal Reserve District. Several flour mills and grain elevators had been established in Ogden, including the Sperry Flour Company, the Globe Grain and Milling Company, the Albers Brothers Milling Company, the Hilton Flour Mills, and several other smaller concerns.
So the railroad continued to have a tremendous commercial impact on the people and community. The mainstream of American culture flowed through the Ogden Station. The great and the humble came and went. Much like Frederick Jackson Turner's description of "the procession of civilization" going through Cumberland Gap during a previous era, a person could see at the Ogden Depot the culture and development of America pass by.
Not all of these scenes or experiences at the Union Station were happy or pleasant. Arrivals of friends or family were usually joyous, but departures were often sad. In the period from 1889 to 1923 the United States suffered severe economic depressions, labor unrest, and two major wars. These national experiences were reflected in the scenes and happenings at the Union Depot.
In 1894 a severe economic depression settled across the United States. Millions of workers found themselves without jobs and began casting about for solutions to their unemployment. Jacob Coxey of Ohio suggested that the unemployed laborers form into "Industrial Armies" and march to Washington to persuade the government to help them out of their plight. As a result, several "Coxey Armies" organized at various points in the United States and began their trek to Washington. One of these groups known as "Kelley's Army" (named after its leader Charles Kelley of California) appeared in Utah on April 9, 1894. Some 1,200 desperate men had been brought to Utah in cattle cars and freight cars of the Southern Pacific Railroad in hopes they could transfer to the Union Pacific line and continue their trip eastward to Washington, D.C. They were disappointed, however, when the Union Pacific refused to cooperate. The railroad company was fearful that it would be penalized by certain state laws that would charge transportation companies with bringing indigent or unemployed people into the state. As a result, the 1,200 men were left at the Ogden Depot, and local officials were forced to react.
The territorial governor of Utah, Caleb W. West, ordered the Utah National Guard into service in Ogden, and the Ogden and Salt Lake police forces were sent there to keep order and prevent the California workers from dispersing and causing trouble. Reports that there were "criminal types" among them made city and state officials fearful that outbreaks of lawlessness would take place. The National Guard and the police forces kept the men confined to the Ogden rail yards. The group remained under guard until April 11, 1894, when released by court order. It then marched up Washington Boulevard to Uintah railroad sidings and eventually boarded UP freight cars and made its way to Cheyenne and on eastward.
Through the month of May 1894 trouble continued, however, as other Industrial Army groups moved through Utah. Some of these groups forcibly took over trains to gain transportation to the East. Several Union Pacific and Denver and Rio Grande Western trains were seized. Two trains were taken at Bingham Junction and one at Thistle Junction. The Industrials in Ogden took one train just outside the Ogden yards, and at least three trains were taken in Weber Canyon.
In July 1894 the scene at the Ogden Depot became even more intense. Earlier that year the American Railway Union under President Eugene V. Debs had called for a nationwide strike by the union in sympathy with workers who were striking against the Pullman Company in Illinois. Debs called for all American Railway Union members to refuse to move any trains that had Pullman cars. This strike stirred up violence throughout most of the United States, but especially in Chicago.
Local unions voted to support the strike, and on July 1, 1894, strikers stopped trains in the Ogden yards. The tracks were soon blocked with standing cars and coaches, and the station and platforms became crowded with "about 300 stranded passengers 250 of which are desirous of proceeding west and the remainder are eastward bound." Some attempts were made to move the trains by loyal company men and "scab" laborers who wanted to work. This led to threats of violence on the part of the strikers and brought U.S. marshals and local police to guard and patrol at the Ogden Depot.
On July 4 a crowd of people filled the depot, and most of them wore a piece of white ribbon to show their sympathy with the strikers. Under this press of people railroad firemen refused to move any trains. However, on July 7 a fireman who had continued to work, John E. Hamilton, brought a train into the yards, got off the train, and started down the Y of the tracks. He was followed by a small body of strikers who soon overtook him. Asked if he fired the engine from Evanston, Hamilton first denied it and then admitted it. "A few words were passed and blows were struck." After the first blow, "the unfortunate fireman caught it from all sides. He was knocked down several times and badly bruised. The police officers interfered and took him to jail in order to protect him."
The tense situation took a frightening turn when shortly after 3:00 A.M. on July 8 a series of fires were reported to the city fire department. Some twelve fires had been set in the center of the business district, including the Boyle Block, the Cortez Block, and the Stevens Buildings on Washington Boulevard. Losses to fire included $90,000 to the Sidney Stevens Building and business, $10,000 to Newman's Tin Shop, $2,000 damage to the opera house, and $15,000 to Boyle's Furniture. In all, damage was estimated at $135,000.
The fires had been started by oily rags set ablaze and placed in various buildings in the area. It was an obvious conspiracy, and in the minds of most people the strikers had caused the conflagrations. No evidence of the strikers' guilt was ever established, but the fire threat brought regular troops of the U.S. Army to the Ogden Depot to protect property and lives. The Sixteenth Infantry from Fort Douglas was joined by detachments from the Seventeenth Infantry and Eighth Infantry regiments.
Fifteen strikers were arrested by the marshal, including the local union leaders — President Robert Stirrat, Robert Brennan, and others — and accused of having violated court injunctions that prohibited the strikers from interfering with the movement of passenger trains responsible for the delivery of the U.S. mails. Soon thereafter local court injunctions to end the strike brought peace to the Ogden Depot. On July 13, 1894, the trains began to move again.
The 1889 Union Depot stood through other serious cris ^ — the Spanish-American War and World War I. Both conflicts brought thousands of soldiers on their way to battle through this station. Many Utahns last touched a foot on Utah soil in Ogden. Some would never return.
On May 21,1898, Batteries A and B, Utah Artillery, made up of approximately 260 Utah men, arrived in Ogden on the Denver and Rio Grande Western. The train consisted of sixteen cars — four flatcars loaded with guns and caissons, a freight car packed tightly with tents and camp equipage, a stock car containing horses, a baggage car, and eight passenger coaches loaded with soldiers. Last came the Pullman car Okanagon for the officers. At Ogden the train switched engines to the Southern Pacific. The men were met by "a great crowd at the station, but there was little in the way of demonstrations, only one solitary engine whistling a shrill greeting." The public attitude was subdued and sober as the soldiers made their way to the war front. After a short stop "during which some of the boys snatched a lunch at the depot, the train pulled out for the West, but not without leaving a couple of soldiers behind who had tarried too long in the station. They were later sent ahead on another train to join their units." Then, on May 24 Utah Cavalry Troop C left for San Francisco, arriving in Ogden at 7:30 P.M. where "an enthusiastic reception was given to the boys in blue at the depot."
In August 1899 the citizens of Ogden welcomed the returning soldiers. The Ogden Standard wrote, "They are home. And it was Ogden which received them first on their native soil, even as it was Ogden which bade them 'God speed' when they left the state." An estimated 10,000 people congregated at the depot. The trains arrived to "the whistling of the engines, fully twenty of them in the yard, accompanied by the boom of cannons." It was "almost impossible for the tracks to be cleared so that the train could pull well up to the depot, and the last hundred yards were run at a snail's pace." The Standard described the climax in these terms:
Thus were the Spanish-American War veterans welcomed home at the Ogden Station.
War came to America again in 1917. In this "war to end all wars" Utahns participated directly. Utah units included the 145th Field Artillery Regiment in the 40th Infantry Division and the 362d Infantry Regiment of the 181st Infantry Brigade, 91st Division.
The 145th Artillery Regiment returned home to Utah at the Ogden Depot in January 1919. State officials expressed concern about the soldiers mixing with the crowd. With the threat of an influenza epidemic spreading in the community, orders were given that the troops would march from the railroad depot up Twentyfifth Street to Washington Boulevard over to Twenty-eighth Street, back to Twenty-first Street, and finally down Twenty-fifth Street to return to the depot. The orders stated that no crowds were to gather at the station and that "there would be no speaking nor will the soldiers be allowed to break ranks." The jubilation of the crowd in Ogden somewhat altered the orders. At the depot families and friends were allowed to greet their returning soldiers, and the touching homecoming scenes were left uninterrupted by officials. The parade formed with Gov. Simon Bamberger and state officials leading the 1,117-man regiment in the biggest military parade in the history of the city of Ogden. After the soldiers paraded along the designated route, they returned to the train and proceeded to Logan where they were mustered out of federal service.
On February 13, 1923, the Ogden Depot was destroyed by fire. Six months later, from that burned-out shell, the people of Ogden paid tribute to the deceased president of the United States, Warren G. Harding. The scandals of the Harding administration had not yet been fully exposed, and the public still had great respect for him. The president had died in San Francisco on August 3, 1923. His funeral train arrived in Ogden at 8:59 P.M. August 4 on the Southern Pacific lines. As described by one observer, "When the train reached Ogden, the platform between the train and station walls was jammed with a mass of people. Every inch of space was taken. But not a word was spoken — not a person moved during the twenty minutes the train was there before proceeding on to Washington." The farewell to President Harding was the final major event at the Ogden Depot. Charred and vacant, its demise ended an important era of Ogden's historical and cultural development.
The total loss from the fire was fixed at $ 100,000 to the building and equipment. The cause of the fire was never determined, but evidence seemed to point to an iron used to press the pants of an employee in a room on the third floor.
The citizens of Ogden did not mourn the loss of the old station. On the day after the fire the Ogden Standard-Examiner reported that "a wave of relief swept the city." The citizens felt that "having served beyond the days of its real usefulness, the squatty, poorly lighted, ill-vented, unattractive old depot" would now have to be replaced. An editorial in the Standard-Examiner further elaborated that the building was "old, dilapidated, ill-ventilated, unsightly, overcrowded and unsanitary." Much of this was said to convince the railroad companies to build a new station in Ogden instead of repairing the old structure as one company president had suggested. Bernard De Voto also expressed sentiments typical of an Ogden native. Writing of Ogden in the 1920s, he said, "the Overland Limited stays at Ogden for fifteen minutes. The tourist, a little dizzy from altitude but grateful for trees after miles of desert, rushes out to change his watch and see a Mormon. He passes through a station that is a deliberate triumph of hideousness and emerges at the foot of twenty-fifth street." Certainly in the minds of Ogden people the station had served out its usefulness.
Naturally, Ogden citizens reacted quickly when the railroad officials announced that they intended to "repair the burned structure" and that there would not be a new Union Station. Mayor Frank Francis and Chamber of Commerce President James Brennan made appeals to President William Sproule of the Southern Pacific, President Carl Gray of the Union Pacific, and President H. V. Piatt of the Ogden Union Railway and Depot Company to reconsider that decision. The Ogden Chamber of Commerce, in a telegram to these officials, stated that the commercial interests of the city and territory expressed "their regret for the misfortune suffered by the Ogden Union Railway and Depot Company in the destruction by fire of the passenger station at Ogden," but they urged that the "burned structure be replaced by a new passenger station, which will fully supply the immediate and future needs for years to come of the immense volume of traffic passing through this gateway."
A tragic incident at the gutted station hastened the decision. On February 26, 1923, Frank G. Yentzer, cashier of the ticket office, was killed by a stone cone that fell from the burned-out clock tower and crashed into his temporary office. The stone, which was about three feet long and weighed approximately 250 pounds, fell some fifty feet, striking Yentzer directly on the head. He died en route to the hospital.
Following the tragedy more newspaper editorials and more service club resolutions called for a new station to be built. Soon thereafter the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific presidents decided in favor of a new building. By April 1924 the remains of the old station had been cleared away and construction of a new station begun.
The plans for the new station were drawn by John and Donald Parkinson from a Los Angeles architectural firm. Well-known architects in the West, they would have designed by 1940 over 200 major buildings in the western United States. Some of their California works included the Uos Angeles City Hall, the Union Passenger Terminal, and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In Nevada they designed the Caliente Railroad Station; and in Utah they designed the Hotel Utah, the Kearns Building, the Newhouse Building, and of course the Ogden Union Station.
Costing $400,000, the new Union Station was constructed on the site of the old station and still stands today. Its architectural design is Italian Renaissance of the style which flourished in the fifteenth century in Europe. The building is 374 feet long and an average of 88 feet wide, with a waiting room 60 feet by 112 feet and a ceiling height of 56 feet, The ceiling and roof are supported by six huge wooden trusses of Oregon or Douglas fir. The trusses, originally "highly ornamented in brilliant colors" and "attractive designs," have since been painted a solid color. A roof of Cordova Spanish tile tops the structure of pink buff brick produced in Ogden and faced with Boise sandstone. The two main entrances on the east of the building are framed by carved Boise sandstone featuring fruits, mostly clusters of grapes. Over each entrance door is a carved buffalo.
Although Ogden again had the occasion to open a Union Station, the ceremonies of 1924 were not as elaborate as those of 1889. On November 22, 1924, railroad officials, Ogden Chamber of Commerce representatives, civic dignitaries, and Ogden citizens assembled to dedicate the new station. At 11 o'clock in the morning the ceremony started with musical numbers from the Elks and the Ogden High School bands. Other music was provided by a male quartette. The program, under the direction of the president of the Ogden Chamber of Commerce, Fred M. Nye, included speeches by P. F. Kerkendahl, mayor of Ogden; A. B. Bigelow, Ogden Chamber of Commerce; C. L. McFaul, assistant passenger traffic manager of the Southern Pacific; William Jeffers, general manager of the Union Pacific system; and Lafayette Hanchett, a representative of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and a director of the United States Chamber of Commerce. Each described the achievement in appropriately inflated terms with a pardonable allowance for civic boosterism. McFaul, for example, asserted that "it is fitting and proper that the importance of this railway center of the intermountain territory be recognized by such a building, for from this point there radiates to the east, north, south and west the rails of those two roads that have done more than any other agency to develop the territory west of the Mississippi." And Hanchett, not to be outdone, insisted that the new station was the "first pearl in a string of stations that will eventually reach from Omaha to San Francisco."
The new Union Station was a fitting structure, and it represented the high point in passenger railroading in Ogden. It would exist during the period of the greatest volume of passenger travel and on into the contemporary era of decline and near elimination of railroad passenger service.
The 1920s were booming economic years for Ogden and its railroading business. In 1929 an Ogden Chamber of Commerce brochure still proclaimed Ogden as the "gateway to the intermountain west," and that "richly endowed by nature this thriving, modern community has steadily moved ahead to her place in the lead as industrial and railroad center of Utah." Ogden was the second largest city in Utah with approximately 45,000 residents. It also claimed 89 industrial establishments with a $40,000,000 volume of business annually. Basic industries included two meat packing plants, thirteen canning factories in the county, and a Union Stock Yard that handled 2,147,438 arrivals in 1929. Ogden had five clothing manufacturing establishments, four bottling plants, three foundries, four baking plants, and eleven printing shops.
Ogden's importance as a rail center was most significant. It remained the center for four steam railroad lines and three electric railroads and the terminus for the Southern Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Denver and Rio Grande Western railroads. Some 3,360 Ogden employees with annual salaries of $5,610,257 worked on the railroads. These workers serviced 119 steam trains and 58 electric trains and buses through the Ogden yards. Nearly 1,500,000 rail cars were handled through these yards with over 609 different tracks making up 85 miles. Extensive shops and roundhouses employed hundreds of men. An icing plant producing 400 tons of ice daily made it possible to ice 272 cars per hour. In 1929, 82,302 cars carrying perishable products were iced at this facility.
During the depths of the Great Depression, in 1932, the Chamber of Commerce still called Ogden the "gateway to the West" and boasted that "You can't get anywhere without coming to Ogden" or "You can get anywhere by coming thru Ogden." Ogden was the railroad center to cities of the East, to San Francisco and Los Angeles in the West, and to Butte, Montana, and Portland, Oregon, in the Northwest. It also had local lines to Preston, Idaho, and Salt Lake City.
Prior to 1932 Ogden could still claim a growing industry. It declared itself the grain and milling center of the West with 15,000 cars of grain shipped in yearly. It was the largest livestock market west of Denver with an annual volume of 250 carloads of cattle, 200 carloads of sheep, and 100 carloads of hogs. Its canning industry had increased to 29 canning plants, and a growing sugar and candy industry lent variety and additional strength to the city's economic base.
In 1932 the Chamber of Commerce began to emphasize a business that had not been promoted before: tourism. A brochure described the impressive scenery of the area and extolled the hotel facilities available for the tourist, including the Hermitage, the Hotel Bigelow, and the New Healy, Marion, New Community, Broom, National, and St. Paul hotels.
Nevertheless, the prosperous times of the 1920s ended in Ogden as in other parts of the United States with the advent of the Great Depression. Many companies and industries faltered, and a number closed their doors for good. The railroad industry suffered along with the others as the freighting business and passenger business declined significantly.
Thor Blair, newsstand agent at the Ogden Depot, remembered that during the 1930s the trains were "sporadically" ridden by "gaunt men led by a faint hope of finding some employment." During those years a friend told him, "I've been riding this railroad for many, many years and that's the first time in my life that I have had a private car on a regular ticket."
The 1930s were hard times, but the 1940s brought a resurgence of business to the railroads as they became a part of the nation's military system during World War II. In 1944 the total railroad volume in the United States increased to 738 billion ton-miles of freight. Passenger travel saw similar increases with 95 billion passenger-miles in 1944. The American railways carried 43 million members of the armed forces in 144,000 special troop trains during the war years.
The Ogden Depot, being on the main east-west line, accommodated a tremendous amount of freight and passenger service as both civilian and troop trains moved along the rails. LeRoy Johnson, a Red Cap at the Union Station for over forty years, recalled those busy days: "At one time, during World War II, sixty-two passenger trains left the depot every day — streamliners from all over the nation carrying presidents, kings, ambassadors, movie stars, doctors, lawyers, authors, poets — and just people — thousands of them, everyday, from all walks of life." During that time eighteen Red Caps "worked around the clock to help all these people on and off the trains. Tom Zito, who worked in the Ogden Union Pacific shops beginning in 1941, remembered the war years at the station:
Angus Hansen, who worked as a carman and welder for the Union Pacific in Ogden, also recalled the war years:
As many as 120 trains a day moved through the depot. There were seventeen tracks for passenger service. An underground passageway led from the station to the passenger platforms so the passengers could get to any of the seventeen tracks without walking across the others.
The 1940s were the busiest times for the Ogden Union Station. They were also good economic times for the workers. The war years were not the happiest of times, however, because war brings with it much tragedy, as those at the station witnessed when troop trains and hospital trains arrived. Another kind of tragedy occurred when the Southern Pacific Railroad suffered a major train wreck. The depot served as the center for receiving the dead and injured.
In the early morning of December 31, 1944, a fast moving express and mail train crashed into the rear of a passenger train, the Pacific Limited from Ogden, at Bagley, seventeen miles west of Ogden on the Lucin Cutoff track. The crash killed forty-eight people and injured seventy-nine. Local sheriffs officers, National Guard troops, and medical personnel came to the Union Station to meet the rescue trains that arrived with the first casualties at 10:45 A.M. Ambulances lined the track to receive the dead and injured from the worst accident in which the Ogden Depot played a part.
The railroad continued to enjoy some prosperity after the war and into the 1950s. Visitors to Ogden could still say that Union Station was a busy place. Clarence Werner, who came to Ogden in 1959 to work for the Union Pacific, remembered many passenger trains arriving in Ogden each day:
He remembered, too, that the trains were always full.
The railroads, however, were in a sharp decline. Between 1949 and 1967 railroad travel would be cut in half. According to the Interstate Commerce Commission, the net operating loss from passenger traffic grew from $139 million in 1946 to $704 million in 1953. During the 1950s the losses averaged about $645 million per year. In 1947 passenger trains were operating on 160,000 miles of road or on about 71 percent of the national rail network. By 1957 passenger service was available on just over half of the railroads in the country. The number of passenger-carrying cars in service dropped from 27,903 in 1949 to 10,687 in 1966. Passenger-miles, which were 484 million in 1945, declined to 189 million in 1963 with a passenger deficit of $399 million that year.
The decline of the railroad business in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s had a tremendous impact on the Ogden Depot. Once busy and bustling with passengers, it gradually came to be nearly deserted. One person described it as a "mausoleum." Another said, "Now that there are no passenger trains, it's almost deserted, with the exception of maybe one-half hour when the Amtrak comes in. There is no restaurant now, no beauty shop, no red cap. It's kind of a sad looking place in the evening when the train comes in, because there are only one or two people there." Another described it as "just a huge building with one big room; they have even taken the benches out of it now. . . . and there's no one in it except a man to sell you tickets for the Amtrak train. . . . It's a ghost city down there now."
With the decline in passenger service, the number of railroad employees dropped off considerably. Some departments were transferred and others were closed down. The railroads were forced to rid themselves of many facilities that no longer had any usefulness and were only a maintenance or tax burden. Under those circumstances, in 1968, the Ogden Union Railway and Depot Company was diminished, and most of the properties and operation at Ogden were assumed by the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific companies.
Yet, many prominent Ogden City leaders and organizations realized that the demise of the Ogden Union Station would be a great loss to the community, and they began to rally public support in favor of preserving that great old structure. Their efforts were successful, and on October 21, 1978, with proper ceremony the Union Station was dedicated by Ogden City and railroad officials to serve as a multi-purpose community center. Today it remains as a railroad station for the running of Amtrak services and railroad company offices, as a community center with convention facilities and the Browning theatre, as a museum with a historic railroad display and the Browning firearms, and as a commercial facility with the establishment of space for various businesses and restaurants. In this new and important role it will continue to reflect the history and values of the Ogden community — a prospect its builders and developers hoped for during the many years of its past.
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