Place Information
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Ogden is the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States. The population was 77,226 at the 2000 census. A 2005 estimate placed its population at 78,309. Weber State University, founded in the year 1889, is located in Ogden. Ogden-Hinckley Airport, Utah's busiest municipal airport, is located just to the southwest of the city. Ogden is home to the minor league baseball team Ogden Raptors of the Pioneer League, and minor-league soccer team Ogden Outlaws of the Premier Development League. History
Originally named Fort Buenaventura, the city of Ogden was the first permanent settlement by people of European descent in the region that is now Utah. It was established by the trapper Miles Goodyear in 1846 about a mile west of where downtown Ogden is currently located. In November 1847, Fort Buenaventura was purchased by the Mormon settlers for $1,950. The settlement was then called Brownsville, but was later named Ogden for a brigade leader of the Hudson Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. The site of the original Fort Buenaventura is now a Utah state park. Ogden is the closest sizable city to the Golden Spike location at Promontory Summit, Utah, where the First Transcontinental Railroad was joined in 1869. Ogden was known as a major passenger railroad junction owing to its location along major east-west and north-south routes. Railroad passengers traveling west to San Francisco from the eastern United States typically passed through Ogden (and not through the larger Salt Lake City to the south). Ogden, however, is no longer served by Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, and passengers desiring to travel from Ogden by rail must travel by bus to Salt Lake City. In 1972 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints completed construction of and dedicated the Ogden Utah Temple in Ogden. The temple was built to serve the large LDS population in the area. Because Ogden has historically been the second largest city in Utah it is home to a large number of historic buildings. However, in the 1980's, several Salt Lake City suburbs and Provo had surpassed Ogden in terms of population. The Defense Depot Ogden Utah operated from 1941 to 1997 in northern Ogden. Some of its 1,128 acres (4.6 km²) has since been converted into a commercial and industrial park called the Business Depot Ogden. Research Tips
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