Ogden, UT news and local guide

Ogden began as Fort Buenaventura, the first permanent settlement by people of European descent in what is now Utah, founded by the trapper Miles Goodyear in 1846 about a mile west of today's downtown. In November 1847 Captain James Brown bought the fort, some livestock and all the land of present Weber County, then part of Mexico and held under a Mexican land grant, for $3,000. The settlement was called Brownsville after him, then renamed Ogden for Peter Skene Ogden, a Hudson's Bay Company brigade leader who had trapped in the Weber Valley a generation earlier. There is some confusion over which Ogden came first, since a Samuel Ogden traveled through the West in 1818. The site of Fort Buenaventura is now a county park.

More about Ogden

Ogden is the nearest sizable city to Promontory Summit, where the first transcontinental railroad was joined with the Golden Spike in 1869. Lying on major east-west and north-south lines, it became a great passenger junction, and the chamber of commerce adopted the motto "You can't get anywhere without coming to Ogden." Travelers from the East to San Francisco usually passed through Ogden rather than the larger Salt Lake City. Amtrak no longer serves the city, and rail passengers now use FrontRunner commuter trains to Salt Lake City and Provo. The Danish writer Herman Bang died in Ogden in 1912 while on a lecture tour. Sources Wikipedia: Ogden, Utah