Transcontinental Traveler's Excursions to Salt Lake City and Ogden: A Photographic Essay

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 47, 1979, No. 3

Transcontinental Travelers' Excursions to Salt Lake City and Ogden: A Photographic Essay

BY CAROLYN RHODES-JONES

A FEW CURIOSITY-SEEKERS CAME to inspect the Mormon settlements in the 1850s and 1860s, but tourism did not flourish until better transportation ended Utah's isolation. Once the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, even the less adventurous traveler took to the rails to see what lay between New York and San Francisco, and Salt Lake City required a special excursion.

Before Ogden was established as a railroad town, the westbound tourist left the train at Uintah, journeyed by stage to Salt Lake City, and spent a few clays sight-seeing before returning to Uintah to continue the train trip to Nevada and California. When Ogden became an important rail junction, however, travelers could refresh themselves with a good meal and a night's rest before taking the train on to Salt Lake.

Observations of tourists who visited Salt Lake and Ogden prior to the turn of the century narrate the photographic essay that follows. Combined with a little imagination, the essay provides a brief sightseer's tour of the two villages that were rapidly becoming cities.

"We came shortly upon the shore of the lake [travelling westward through Weber Canyon], Smiling farms, neat small stations, white and brown cottages, children selling melons and milk, squared fields, English stacks, herds of cattle, trim fences, appeared as if by magic — a cheerful contrast to the wilderness through which we passed."

Photo Essay 275

Washington Boulevard, Ogden ca. 1890. C. R. Savage photograph,

LDS Archives.

Sidney Stevens building, built 1869-70. on Washington Boulevard, Ogden. Ogden City, Utah.

The original Ogden Depot, built in 1889, burned down in 1923. C. R. Savage photograph, LDS Archives.

Top: Ogden Co-op, ca. 1880. LDS Archives.

Bottom: Robert Strahorn, To the Rockies and Beyond. 1878.

"The clear mountain water is also led through the streets and is used everywhere for irrigating purposes. The luxuriance of the foilage, splendid background of the rugged Wasatch range, and the broad, level streets, at once impress us pleasantly upon arrival. The environs are made up of some of the finest grain and fruit farms in Utah. The city claims 6,000 inhabitants, has a number of Gentile as well as Mormon churches, and several public schools. We found first class hotel accommodations at Beardsley's Railroad House, at the depot, where fish and game are nearly always appetizing features of the bill of fare. . . ."

Little Kate, Ogden's horseless streetcar, in front of the Broom Hotel, the "finest edifice and best hotel between San Francisco and Denver." The hotel stood from 1883 to 1959. Ogden City, Utah.

Ogden around the turn of the century. Courtesy Continental Oil Company.

"Travelers from the East, after dining at Ogden and having an hour in which to re-check their baggage, will board a train of silver palace cars belonging to the Central Pacific, in the evening, as the trains now run, and will soon be whirling away across the Great American Desert."

Henry T. Williams, The Pacific Tourist. 1877.

Top: Ogden ca. 1900. BYU Archives.

Bottom: Stanley Wood, Over the Range to the Golden Gate, 1891.

"From Salt Lake to Ogden the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad traverses a narrow plain. On the west lies the Great Salt Lake, while to the north rise the serrated peaks of the Wasatch Mountains. . . . Farms reach their golden or green fields over its length and breadth, and little streams run in bright threads out of the mountain canons down across the meadows. . . . The train speeds on, and entering an amphitheatre, set around with mountains, reaches Ogden, the western terminus of the Denver and Rio Grande and Union Pacific Railroads."

Top: Ogden, business. BYU Archives

Bottom: Saddle Rock Restaurant, Ogden ca. 1900. BYU Archives

Top: Ogden Paint, Oil, and Glass ^Company. USHS collections.

Bottom: Ogden, looking east, and Union Pacific roundhouse ca. 1900. Ogden City, Utah.

Top: Salt Lake City's First South Street showing the Salt Lake Theatre and, just opposite, St. Mark's school. USHS collections.

Bottom: Salt Lake City from Arsenal Hill. C. R. Savage photograph, USHS collections.

Looking northwest in Salt Lake City. USHS collections, courtesy Sam Weiler.

"Salt Lake is the city of the future—the natural metropolis of all Utah and portions of Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado. It contains nearly twenty thousand people, and bids fair to continue the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco. The hotel is usually crowded with guests, and the streets, one hundred and twenty-eight feet wide and watered by little rills on each side, are thronged with the wagons of immigrants and farmers, with women and children, Saints and sinners, miners and Indians."

Albert Richardson, Beyond the Mississippi. 1867.

Top: Walker House Hotel on Main Street between Second and Third South streets, Salt Lake City. USHS collections.

Bottom: Groesbeck Block, Salt Lake City. C. R. Savage photograph, USHS collections.

Fencing around Walker property on Main Street between Fourth and Fifth South streets, Salt Lake City. Art Work of Utah.

"Every taste is catered to. . . . The hotels are excellent, the climate unexcelled, and days may be passed delightfully in exploring and in studying the wealth of attractions. There are theatres, reading rooms, good horses, perfect order and universal cleanliness. Many of the private houses arc palatial, and altogether the city is one of rare beauty and interest."

Stanley Wood, Over the Range to the Golden Gate. 1891.

Main Street, Salt Lake City. USHS collections.

Eighth South between State and Main streets, Salt Lake City, 1909. collections. USHS

"In the summertime the excursion rates from Salt Lake City [to the lake] are $1.50 per ticket, which includes passage both ways over the Utah Western Railroad, a ride on the steamer on the lake, and the privilege of a bath—the cheapest and most useful enjoyment in the entire territory."

Henry T. Williams, The Pacific Tourist. 1877.

"Babies seem indigenous to Salt Lake. Their abundance through all the streets causes wonder till one remembers that they are the only product of the soil which does not require irrigation."

Albert Richardson, Beyond the Mississippi. 1867.

Top: First South Street, Salt Lake City, 1907. USHS collections.

Bottom: Main Street, Salt Lake City. C. W. Carter photograph, USHS collections.

"Of course the 'Walker House,' G. S. Erb proprietor, leads all hotels between Omaha and San Francisco in points of size, elegance and merits of cuisine. It is supplied with an elevator, water and gas on different floors, and is a model of convenience and system generally. . . . The rates . . . are only three dollars per day."

Robert Strahorn, To the Rockies and Beyond. 1878.

White House Hotel on Second South and Main Street, Salt Lake City. USHS collections.

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