The Osmond Family
The Osmond family hailed from Ogden, although a family-operated recording studio
in Orem contributed to the out-of-state confusion about their place of origin.
The family home at 228 North Washington Boulevard provided an early stage for
the talented children who became a national sensation on the Andy Williams Show
in the 1960's. The Osmonds left Ogden in 1963 to launch an entertainment career
that eventually led to the "Donny and Marie Show" on television in the
1970's.
Over the years, the family would return to Ogden for the Christmas Holidays from
a home the bought in California to be closer to the entertainment industry. On
return trips, members of the family described Ogden as their favorite city.
Melvin Dummar
For a time, Ogden was home for Melvin Dummar, the Willard gas station attendant
who claimed Howard Hughes left him $150 million in what became known as the
"Mormon will".
Dummar, 41, was living in Gabbs in 1968 when he stopped in the central Nevada
desert and allegedly picked up the hitching Hughes. He insisted that Hughes
rewarded him by leaving him $150 million in a three page will scrawled with a
cheap ballpoint pen on a yellow legal tablet.
The so-called Mormon will turned up in 1976 on a desk at the church's Salt Lake
City headquarters. At the time, Dummar owned the Willard gas station. He moved
to Ogden later that year.
In 1978, a Las Vegas jury ended his attempt to gain the fortune when it ruled
the will was a fake.
Dummar went on to play the part of a short order cook in the 1980 movie,
"Melvin and Howard," that was based on his purported meeting with the
reclusive billionaire. He now lives in Gabbs, Nevada, where he has settled into
the less glamorous role of flipping hamburgers in a cafe he opened in the summer
of 1985.
Marriner Eccles
Mariner Eccles, the controversial and outspoken Federal Reserve Board chairman
during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, was born in Logan but later
moved to Ogden - the birthplace of the First Security Corporation of which he
was a founding corporate member.
Eccles, an Ogden resident from 1921 to 1934, is best remembered as the architect
of New Deal monetary policies during the Depression.
A Mormon of Scottish ancestry who never attended college, Eccles went to
Washington D.C., in 1934, leaving behind a Utah financial empire which included
operations in banking, construction, railroads, sugar, milk, hotels and lumber.
During his years in Washington, he ran into bitter conflicts with Congress, the
Treasury Department, private banking interests, his fellow board members and
finally President Harry S. Truman.
But his belief that big government spending would revive the depressed economy
made him a trusted advisor and ally of Roosevelt.
Miles Goodyear
By the 1840's, the fur trade was dwindling. Wandering trappers who wanted to
stay in the West sought other ways to make their fortunes.
Miles Goodyear, who turned his attention to making a living supplying westward
emigrants, was one of them.
In 1845 he established Fort Buenaventura along the Weber River in what is now
Ogden. Goodyear's post would become the nucleus for the oldest permanent
settlement in Utah.
The cabin he built at Fort Buenaventura was considered the oldest surviving
pioneer dwelling in Utah. Although burned by arsonists in 1985, the cabin was
rebuilt the next summer and is again open to tourists. Period tools and methods
were used to make the cabin as authentic as possible.
T.H. "Terrel" Bell
T.H. "Terrel" Bell, Secretary of Education under President Reagan,
hails from Southern Idaho (Lava Hot Springs), but gained much of his
professional experience as superintendent of the Weber School District.
He went on to head the Utah State Office of Education, and served as
Commissioner of Education in the Nixon and Ford administrations before being
named to the Reagan Cabinet.
Bernard DeVoto
Bernard DeVoto, the conservationist and historian who won a Pulitzer Prize for
his book "Across the Wide Missouri", is probably best known outside
his hometown of Ogden.
The reason, according to Utah State University historian, Charles Peterson, is
the steady flow of venomous attacks on Utah culture and Mormonism that spewed
from his pen. DeVoto definitely had the ability to infuriate. As DeVoto's
biographer, fellow Utahn Wallace Stegner wrote: "Indignation was his style.
There was no more moderation in him than in gunpowder."
Peterson, who has written papers on DeVoto and other Utah writers, said he
garnered much of his national fame through a steady flow of acerbic, nasty
articles.
Probably the most infamous was his "Centennialism of Mormonism",
published in 1930 by the equally vitriolic H.L. Menken, editor of "The
American Mercury," a magazine that made carping a literary art form.
In the article, DeVoto criticized Mormon ideology and dogma. "But history
will shine on him," said Peterson. "He will rub many readers the wrong
way at first. But his work on Mark Train as one of the county's first
conservationists will eventually rub them right. He baited everybody equally and
didn't stop until the day he died."
DeVoto, who served for a time as editor of Harper's Magazine, died in 1955.
William DeVries
Ogden native William DeVries made medical history December 2, 11982 when he
implanted a plastic-aluminum heart in the chest of Seattle dentist Barney Clark
at the University of Utah Medical Center.
DeVries gained instant medical fame. But former classmates at Ben Lomond High
School remember another DeVries. For them, he will always be the soft-spoken
prankster who played a major role in trying to set a record for stacking
classmates in a toilet stall. In another prank during his formative years in
Ogden, "Bones" was pushed into a Ben Lomond biology lab while the
instructor was dissection rodents.
The surgeon was nicknamed "Bones" by classmates for his tall lean
frame. He graduated in 1962.
DeVries was born in Brooklyn N.Y. where his mother was while her husband served
as a physician aboard a destroyer in World War II. His father was killed in
action in the South Pacific when DeVries was six months old.
After moving to Salt Lake City where she majored in education at the University
of Utah, his mother later married Don Nutall and moved to Ogden.
His fascination with rodents continued in later years. While a surgery intern at
Duke university, he put uncaged white rats on an elevator and sent them up to
another floor.
J. Willard Marriott
Empire builder, J.Willard Marriott rose from humble roots as the poor son of a
Weber County sheep rancher to become the owner of the largest hotel and
restaurant chain in the country.
Born September 17, 1900, in an unincorporated area of Weber County west of
Ogden, Marriott began his $1.2 billion empire in 1927 with a nine-seat root beer
stand in Washington D.C.
He attended Weber State College for two years and served as student body
president before enrolling at the University of Utah.
In 1982, Marriott established a $1 million endowment for faculty development in
the School of Allied Health Services at Weber State University.
He died in 1984 at the age of 84.
John Moses Browning
John Moses Browning founded a manufacturing company with headquarters in Ogden.
Three generations later the little firm would blossom into an international
corporation. Browning Arms Company included a few quality shotguns and gun
cases. Today, the company has diversified into numerous sporting goods products.
Some 200 workers, including gun designer, advertising copy writers and
administrators are employed at company headquarters in Mountain Green. The
company manufactures compound bows and a specialized pistol in Utah, but most of
the firearms are made in Belgium.
Jonathan Browning started the family trade in 1831 at a mountain cabin in
Kentucky where he designed and hand-forged a repeating rifle. After moving the
family to Ogden in 1851, he perfected a lever-action gun that was the basis for
the Winchester rifle known to every Western movie fan.
Browning turned the business over to his son, John Moses, who made his first gun
at age 11 and went on to revolutionize the industry and gain an international
reputation as a firearms genius. The corporation is now privately owned by
Fabruque National in Belgium.
Cuthbert L. Olsen
Cuthbert L. Olsen, a reporter at the Ogden Standard Examiner in the 1920's and
1930's went on to become governor of California in 1940.
Gedde Watanabe
When Gedde Watanabe graduated from Ogden High School in 1973, he moved to
California to establish a theater career.
He wasn't certain if he would act or write, but he knew the stage would be his
life. Thirteen years later, Watanabe can safely say he realized his dreams. In
addition to an impressive list of Broadway and off-Broadway production to his
credit, he has been featured in three motion pictures: "Sixteen
Candles", "Volunteers" and "Gung Ho".
Robert Walker
Another Ogden youth gambled on making it big in Hollywood and was successful.
Robert Walker debuted as a supporting actor in 1943 with Robert Taylor in the
movie "Bataan", the story of the famous World War II battle for
control of the Philippines.
He had the lead role in "The Horatio Alger Story," and co-starred in
Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train."
The Grand Union Station
A visit to Ogden's Union Station at the height of train transportation in the
1920's was "like taking a trip around the globe without leaving town,"
wrote a newspaper reporter of the era.
In the station's heyday, about 150 passenger trains passed through the largest
freight yard between Omaha, Nebraska, and Los Angeles. Locally, it was known as
"the grandest depot in the West."
Amtrak still stops at Union Station, but the historic building completed in 1924
at a cost of $400,000 and built on the foundation of its predecessor (the old
building was destroyed in a fire), now has a much wider range of uses.
One of Ogden's best known tourist attractions, Union Station serves as a
convention center, houses the Browning-Kimball Antique Car collection, the
Browning Arms Museum and a museum of railroad history.
Hal Ashby
Movie director Hal Ashby must be accustomed to the standard questions
"outsiders" always ask native Utahns.
"I was born and raised in Ogden, Utah. I'm not a Mormon, never have
been," he said in biographical information accompanying a press kit for
"Let's Spend the Night Together," a documentary of the 1981 Rolling
Stones Tour.
Ashby was born in Ogden in 1936 and attended Utah State University. Since 1970,
he has directed an eclectic group of films, including the cult favorite
"Harold and Maude" in 1971; "The Last Detail," starring Jack
Nicholson in 1973; the comedy "Shampoo" in 1974; "Coming
Home," in 1978 and "Being There," the 1979 comedy based on Jerry
Kosinski's novel.
Ogden's Bank Big
First Security Corporation, the oldest multi-state bank holding company in the
United States, was formed in Ogden in 1928. First Security's 261 banks have
assets of about $5 billion. They serve nearly three million residents throughout
a six-state market area.
Ogden's 25th Street
"It was the hub of social activity in Ogden, but respectable and notorious.
But the most important thing was it was a place where families experienced
growing up together."
That was the historical description a public relations team gave 25th Street in
1973, when Ogden was battling for funds to refurbish the infamous street. The
narrator of the slide presentation went on to say that 25th Street had a much
better reputation in its early days than after World War I.
"New businesses came to take a look and never left, like kids in a candy
store," was the positive, pre-1920 image.
But after the war the reputation changed, largely as a result of Union Station
and the swarm of travelers who poured through Ogden and brought a new kind of
business to the street.
"Business was adapted to the interest of the soldiers, and much of it was
found up a flight of stairs," said the narrator on the public relations
tape.
After the 1930's and the decline of railroad transportation, the role of the
street in Ogden's history changed again. At its lowest point, 25th Street was
considered the skid row of Utah.
Colorful anecdotes about 25th Street continue, but the appearance and reputation
of the street have changed dramatically in recent years. 25th Street is now part
of the historic Union Station district that serves as an anchor for new business
and tourism in Ogden.
Vanessa-Ann Collection
The Vanessa-Ann Collection has sold more that 2 million copies of 90 needlework
leaflets and books on various crafts since partners Jo Buehler and Terrance
Woodruff started the company in Ogden in 1979. With 99% of its products marketed
outside Utah, the company is not well known in its hometown of Ogden. But the
firm has contracted with Better Homes and Gardens and Time Life Inc., and copies
of Vanessa-Ann Collection books on quilting and other crafts are sold in
bookstores across the country.
Farr's Ice Cream
Ogden families have been taking the children for a Farr's ice cream cone for
nearly 60 years.
Old timers around when the company at 286 21st Street was founded in 1920
remember driving to the store for blocks of ice to make their own ice cream. It
wasn't until 1929 that Aesel Farr got the idea to turn his ice plant into an ice
cream shop.
The business is still on 21st Street, but the original flavors of vanilla and
chocolate now have lots of company. Farr's makes 50 different flavors, including
seasonal favorites pumpkin and eggnog.
Farr's Ice Cream is marketed to stores throughout Utah, southern Idaho and
western Wyoming.
Sources:
Ogden Standard-Examiner story by Mark Armstrong 9/21/86
First Security Bank Annual Report, 1994
