Union Station (Ogden, Utah)
Union Station, also known as Ogden Union Station, is a train station in Ogden, Utah, United States, at the west end of Historic 25th Street, just south of Ogden Central station. Formerly the junction of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads, its name reflects the common appellation of train stations whose tracks and facilities are shared by railway companies.
No longer a railway hub, the building remains a cultural hub: it houses the Utah State Railroad Museum, the Spencer S. Eccles Rail Center, the John M. Browning Firearms Museum, Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and the Browning-Kimball Classic Car Museum, and an art gallery for local and regional artists. The Myra Powell Gallery features traveling exhibits and the station's permanent art collection. Union Station Research Library has an extensive collection of historic Ogden photographs and documents available to the public.
The last long-distance passenger train to use Union Station was Amtrak's Pioneer in May 1997. The adjacent Ogden Central station serves the Utah Transit Authority's FrontRunner commuter rail line and Ogden Express bus rapid transit line.
In December 2022, Ogden City entered into a purchase agreement with UP to buy the land under and around the station for $5.5 million. They plan to pursue development of the area around the station into a downtown business and tourist hub, as well as potentially bring rail service back to the station itself.
History
The need for a "Junction City"
On March 8, 1869, the UP laid tracks through Ogden on its way to Promontory Summit, where it would meet the CP and complete the First transcontinental railroad across the United States. Despite the famous Golden spike ceremony that marked the completion of the rail line, both railroad companies knew that Promontory was too remote of a location to house the important junction point between their respective operations, and the decision was made to build the depot farther east down the line towards the larger populated cities of north-central Utah. Three cities near this location - Corinne, Uintah, and Ogden - competed with each other for the opportunity to house the facilities that they knew would serve as a major transit hub for cross-country travelers, who would have to transfer trains between the two different railroads. Corinne emerged as an early front-runner for the junction, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — whose members made up much of Utah's settler population at this time — did not want their territory to be represented by what was then a Hell on Wheels railroad town full of bars and brothels. In 1874 Brigham Young, the President of the Church, encouraged members to donate or sell parcels of land to him, which he then donated to the railroads on the condition that they build their facilities in west Ogden. This strategy worked, and Ogden became the official junction point between the two halves of the transcontinental railroad.While the need for a junction point was clear, the need for a common— or "union"— station shared by both railroads did not emerge until several years later, meaning that each railroad maintained separate station buildings for a time. The first permanent station building in Ogden had been previously completed in November 1869 by the UP. It was a two-story wooden frame building on a mud flat on the banks of the Weber River. After the deal to make Ogden the junction city was struck in 1874, this building was selected for use as a common terminal between the two railroads. In addition to the UP and CP, this station also became the terminal for the Utah Central Railroad that connected with the territorial capital of Salt Lake City to the south, the Utah and Northern Railway which ran into the northern regions of the territory, and the Rio Grande Western railroad which ran farther to the south before connecting across the mountains to Colorado. This quickly established Ogden as the major transit hub for all of the Intermountain West, as travelers coming from the East or West Coasts could now transfer to trains that would take them to most other populated areas throughout the region. Ogden — and Utah in general — would eventually earn the nickname "Crossroads of the West" for this very reason.
The Ogden Union Railway & Depot Company
This original depot location proved not to be very well-suited for a passenger rail hub. Local newspapers complained about, among other things, the need to walk a quarter-mile of wood boardwalk over swampy ground to reach the station. So the UP and CP launched a jointly owned terminal railroad company, the Ogden Union Railway & Depot Co., to oversee the construction and operation of a new Union Station. Completed in 1889, this new structure was designed in the Romanesque Revival style, with a large clock tower in the center. Considerably larger than the original station and constructed of brick, it held 33 hotel rooms, a restaurant, barbershop, and other conveniences for travelers. In 1923, a fire that began in a hotel room destroyed the station's interior and left the walls and clock tower in a fragile state. A telephone operator continued to work in the building while it was aflame to warn as many people as possible to evacuate the building. Due to her efforts, no deaths or injuries occurred, and work continued inside the first floor to some extent, but construction on a new building did not start until a stone from the clock tower fell and struck a railroad clerk. He was severely injured, and died on the way to a nearby hospital. Originally, the OUR&D planned to rebuild the station to its original design, but the accident reversed this decision and a new design was proposed by John and Donald Parkinson, architects of the Caliente Depot in Nevada and the Kelso Depot in California.The construction of the current building was completed in 1924 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style and is built on the foundation of the earlier building. It was dedicated on November 22 of that year, with a series of publicity shots being taken. One of these shots, showing 13 young women pulling the first train to arrive at the station by ribbons, made its way into the La Domenica del Corriere, an Italian newspaper, with the headline "Curious American Custom". The ceiling of the Grand Lobby, taking up the center portion of the building, has a height of and extends to the roof. The trusses were originally painted in bright colors with geometric designs, but have since been painted over with a faux wood grain. Murals of the construction of the transcontinental railroad were painted on the north and south end of the lobby. The second floors of the north and south wing were occupied by Southern Pacific, OUR&D, and UP Telegraph Department offices.
The "Crossroads of the West"
By the 1920's, Ogden's Union Station was serving both the UP and SP, as well as the successor to the RGW, the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, and a number of regional and interurban railroads. At its height, it had 13 passenger tracks with platforms, a commissary that provided food and supplies to long-distance trains, a laundry building that washed linens for most of UP's rail network, a large United States Postal Service annex that served mail trains, and serviced more than 60 passenger trains each day. It was around this time that the name "Crossroads of the West" began appearing in publications as a way to describe Ogden's significance to the national transportation infrastructure. There was also a memorial plaque commissioned by the Ogden City Council that had Ogden in the center with railroad tracks radiating out from it in all directions. It bears the words, "You can't get anywhere without coming to OGDEN," which also served as the city slogan for some time. This memorial is still on display inside the Union Station to this day.The absolute peak of rail traffic in Ogden came during both World War I and World War II. The city and depot became an important stopover point for soldiers and materials being moved across the country for the war effort, and many new businesses popped up on nearby 25th Street to entertain and support the huge influx of travelers.
Decline and Preservation
Rail traffic began to decline sharply after WWII ended in 1945, owing mainly to the newfound popularity of both the airline industry and increasing accessibility of automobiles for the average traveler and commuter. By 1950, the number of daily passenger trains was down to 20. The construction of the Interstate Highway System continued to pull traffic from both freight and passenger trains into the 1960s.By the late 1960s passenger train traffic to Ogden had been reduced to just two trains in each direction daily. The USPS had ended its railway post office service, leading to the discontinuation of mail trains by 1967. The OUR&D tore out passenger tracks 6-13, leaving just 5 tracks and three platforms at the once-massive station complex. UP and SP decided to begin curtailing the operations of the OUR&D and re-absorbed much, but not all, of its infrastructure and employees back into their own operations. The commissary was torn down in 1969, marking the end of Ogden as a servicing point for long-distance passenger trains. The station building was now empty for most of the day except for what was described as a handful of OUR&D employees handling daily operations. The final agreement between the OUR&D and a privately owned passenger train service for use of the station was signed in 1971.
On May 1, 1971, most passenger train operations in the United States were taken over by the government-funded National Railroad Passenger Corporation, leaving Ogden with one passenger train in each direction daily. After the Amtrak takeover, it became clear that UP and SP no longer had much interest in the station and could look to sell or demolish it, as they were doing with other defunct stations that they no longer served. Ogden City was keen to save the building, as it had long been the center of economic activity in the community. Ogden had been highly reliant on the railroad industry for almost all of its existence, and the sharp declines in traffic were having major economic impacts on local businesses and residents. Plans to turn the station into a museum were first brought forward during the centennial celebration of the driving of the golden spike in 1969. On December 7, 1971, the Ogden City Council sent a formal letter to the UP asking that the station building be donated to them for conversion to a museum and convention center. Over the next few years, the city began holding events such as art exhibitions inside the building to demonstrate this new planned use. Ownership of the station building was turned over to Ogden City in 1977, as well as a 50-year lease on the land under and around the building itself. Renovations were begun to house the planned museums. Amtrak continued to maintain a ticket agency inside the building and use the station as a stop for their Pioneer trains as well. There was a brief period of time where Amtrak also tried running its California Zephyr and Desert Wind trains through Ogden as well, but they didn't see enough traffic and dropped Ogden from their timetables in 1983
At the dedication ceremony in 1978, UP ran their famous UP 844 at the head of a special passenger train from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to the new museum. They also donated a steam derrick and a steam rotary snow plow, which were the last pieces of steam-powered equipment in use on the company's system. In 1988, the State of Utah designated Union Station as the Utah State Railroad Museum to handle the railroad artifacts. This spurred a series of donations by the UP through the years, leading to an extensive collection of locomotives and rolling stock being displayed on the station grounds.