West Ogden

by Emma Johnson & Megan Millerberg

                                                                    Map of West Ogden

         From Harrison Boulevard you can reach West Ogden in about 10 minutes. Turning west on 24th Street, you’ll pass the typical small cottages and bungalows Ogden is known for, sitting neatly on either side of the tree-lined street. The houses are old and small, every few blocks there will be one house that stands in marked disrepair with windows boarded over and roof sagging, but most of the quaint dwellings sit moderately well-kept, with Christmas trees in the windows and cars parked in small driveways or resting under sturdy carports. Passing through the lively business district, you’ll come to a long overpass, the entry to West Ogden. Old brick buildings sit in various states of disrepair amongst the many railroad tracks. Huge warehouses and manufacturing plants sprinkle the landscape. Beneath them sit more of Ogden’s little cottages and bungalows- but these ones look older, smaller, and more broken down. Nearly every property is lined with a chain link fence, many mounted with “Beware of dog” or “Private Property” signs. In West Ogden most of the small home’s roofs sag, 3 or 4 cars line up in driveways or sit under tipping carports, some cars sit right in the middle of the front yard. DIY roof patches and shingles, siding, or plywood

housing additions cling to nearly every other house. The small homes sit back from the street in a haphazard back and forth, businesses and industrial warehouses surrounding them. The streets seem wider than those of a typical neighborhood, as often seen behind warehouses and in industrial parts of cities. There are churches, car repair shops, a gas station, and abandoned businesses amongst the homes. On the outskirts of the neighborhood sit large industrial plants and warehouses, presumably where most of the neighborhood residents work.

    

        In recent years, Ogden has attempted to revitalize the area, by investing in a lively restaurant and bar scene on B Street. Rooster’s opened in 2018 and brought a large amount of attention and traffic to the area. Their original restaurant is located in downtown Ogden, and their brewing company is famous throughout Northern Utah. Just down the street from Rooster’s is Ogden’s Own Distillery, who are the makers of Five Wives Vodka and several other well-known alcohol brands. 

        Stretching west of the Weber River, you’ll find Fort Buenaventura Park, another popular attraction in West Ogden. The 26 acre park offers a wide range of amenities such as camping, fishing, disc golfing, canoeing, a historic fort, pavilions for picnicking, and a playground. There is also a visitor’s center where you can find all kinds of information about the settlers who established the Fort hundreds of years ago. 

 Demographics 

         While the population of Ogden is 86,798, according to the walkscore.com website the neighborhood of West Ogden only has 1,228 residents. Among the residents, there is a very high Latino population. Ogden itself is roughly 32% Latino, and according to a West Ogden shop owner, their Latino population could be more than 90%. The neighborhood consists of a majority of single family homes, with an average of three people per household (US Census Bureau). 

         The area of West Ogden covers roughly 800 acres of land, or about two square miles (Google Earth). It has a walk score of 19/100, a transit score of 33/100, and a bike score of 59/100. It is considered a car-dependent neighborhood, meaning that almost all errands would require a car (WalkScore.com).

                                                             West Ogden Walkscore map

History 

        According to Sarah Langsdon, Head of Special Collections at Weber State University, West Ogden is the oldest part of the city of Ogden. It started as the first Anglo settlement in the area, Fort Buenaventura, which was a hub for fur traders and trappers in the 1820s. A few decades later, in 1846, Latter Day Saints settled in the area, making their own forts and strongholds to protect against the Natives who lived and hunted in the area during the Spring and Summer months. Near 1870, the Railroad reached Ogden, transforming the area around it to a junction connecting travelers and traders to the west. West Ogden flooded with immigrants, looking for low-wage railroad jobs. 

         In the 1920s West Ogden became known for its’ stock trade. People came from all over the intermountain west to auction and buy cattle, sheep, and pigs. The cement stairs erected off the railroad platform still stand, and used to be connected to wooden chutes that were used to unload livestock right from the train. A local meat-packing plant called Swift was built near the stock trade where buyers could purchase their stock and take it directly to be processed. Locals described how the water of the nearby river would turn red on processing day, as the plant would simply wash animal byproducts straight into the river. The stock trade continued into the 70s. (Langsdon, 2022) 

                                          Stockyards drawing, 1950 Sheep loading pen, 1960 

        

        After a boom in the early 1900s with the coming of the railroad, immigration plateaued until the 1940s. As the United States entered World War II,more African Americans and Latinos migrated to West Ogden from Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas in large numbers in search of low-wage jobs building Hill Air Force base and West Ogden’s defense depot. There were plenty of low wage jobs, but housing was scarce. 

         According to Langsdon, locals emptied rabbit hutches and chicken coops and renovated them into small cabins for the workers. Some workers lived in empty boxcars on the nearby railroad tracks, others lived in a small tent settlement near the river. Loads of small, quick manufacture cottages and bungalows were erected and spread through the area. Due to redlining, the many Latino and African American workers weren’t welcome in other parts of the city, so a squalor neighborhood was slapped together, resulting in unstable, destitute living conditions for most residents. 

         As Ogden grew, West Ogden became the dumping grounds of the city. Another meat byproducts processing plant was built, causing a horrible stench that made residents sick. A landfill was developed and within a decade was filled to the point of being the tallest man-made structure in Weber County. By the 70s residents had had enough, the neighborhood had become unlivable. Those who could leave abandoned the neighborhood and those who couldn’t fought for change. Velma Saunders, an African American resident, spearheaded the clean-up of West Ogden. She rallied residents and petitioned for the meat packing plants to be closed, and the landfill to be removed. Eventually, their demands were met. The meat processing plants were forced to close (Langsdon, 2022). The landfill was compacted, buried and made into what is now the slightly unimpressive Observation Park: a partly paved, bumpy field with a pavilion. 

         Around this time, the neighborhood’s elementary school was found to be in violation of federal segregation law. After Hopkin’s Elementary was given nearly 5 years to resolve its “minority group isolation” problem without success, the decision was made to close the school and bus the remaining children to other schools in the area (Staff Report of The United States Commission on Civil Rights, 1977). The school was repurposed into a Catholic Community Service Center and remained so, until 2020 when they tore it down and constructed a new building. 

                                                     Catholic Community Services 

                                                                 

                                                        Analyzing West Ogden 

Conditions 

        Since the railroad made it to Ogden, the city has held a reputation of being a dangerous, immoral, place of vice by local Utahns (Glass, 2020). Most Ogden residents claim the reputation is unfounded, but even many locals think poorly of West Ogden. Immigrant populations report feeling the most positive about the area (Glass, 2020). However there were times in West Ogden’s history when even the minorities, who had been funneled to the least desirable part of the city, found the conditions between the landfill and meat byproduct plant unlivable and began to leave. 

         William H. Whyte (1988) likely would have seen this as evidence that something had gone terribly wrong. He pushed back against the idea that cities are better when the “undesirables” are pushed out. He claimed, “The time to worry is when street people begin to leave a place. Like canaries in a coal mine, street people are an index of the health of a place.” When the destitute in West Ogden, people who had historically lived in rabbit hutches, chicken coops, and abandoned boxcars, began to find the place unlivable, you can be sure something was very wrong. 

 

Segregation 

         Richard Rothstein (2017) wrote extensively in “The Color of Law” about laws and policies throughout the United States that limited where the disenfranchised, particularly people of color, could live and ways in which they were mistreated, cheated, and taken advantage of. West Ogden was redlined, along with other neighborhoods in the area, as the place where people of color were permitted to live. Segregation limited opportunities and every type of mobility for the people in this part of the city.

         Rothstein wrote that actions to combat segregation cannot be neutral, “They will either exacerbate it or reverse it. Without taking care to do otherwise, exacerbation is more likely (p. 190).” When West Ogden’s Hopkins elementary was found to be in violation of federal segregation laws by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, this kind of non-neutral action was taken to address the issue. To make the transition to desegregation as effective and smooth as possible school faculty were encouraged and paid to take a multicultural training and sensitivity course at Weber State University, curriculum was changed to include culturally inclusive materials, and more diverse staff members and teacher aides were hired. 

         Some concern was raised by minority parents of the amount of time children would spend on buses when Hopkins was closed, however most parents and Administrators were optimistic about the desegregation, reporting students and staff had better cultural understandings, fewer Mexican American students dropped out, and reading scores improved, due to a federally funded program the district qualified for. Whyte (1988) explored the idea that when things are better for the disenfranchised, things are better for everyone, as when city design that accommodates the handicapped is more accessible for all residents. The Superintendent at the time of Hopkins Elementary closure reported a similar observation when he said, “Based on reading test scores, there is evidence that our desegregation has improved the quality of education [for everyone](p.9).” Perhaps attempts like this to desegregate the rest of the neighborhood could have improved the area further. 

        According to Glass, “Segregation also continues today in the city’s “Little Mexico” where many Latino immigrants live in the same neighborhoods where previous generations of immigrant and minority populations resided (p. 104).” Glass (2020) argues that most of Ogden’s reputation for crime and trouble is empirically unfounded, however, the reputation remains due to Ogden’s comparatively high minority population and cultural differentiation from the mostly homogeneous, highly religious culture that surrounds it. 

Perceptions & Safety

         In Utah, you can find an LDS meetinghouse every few blocks, nearly throughout the entire state; this is now true of the greater Ogden city as well. However, there is not one LDS meetinghouse in West Ogden. This isn’t due to the small size of the neighborhood, as one might suppose, as there are three other churches within three blocks of each other in West Ogden. Glass (2020) argues that this religious divide may fuel the long-held assumptions Utahns have made about the people living here: that they are different, immoral, undesirable, “other”. Elijah Anderson (2012) described this type of racial perception when he said: “In the minds of many Americans, the ghetto is where “the black people live,” symbolizing an impoverished, crime-prone, drug-infested, and violent area of the city” (P. 8). 

Map of LDS Meetinghouses in West Ogden

         Today in West Ogden, nearly every property in the neighborhood is surrounded by a chain link fence all the way up to the sidewalk. Thick bars are mounted to the ground level windows of businesses and warehouses are surrounded by tall chain link fences topped with barbed wire. Jane Jacobs (1961) described fencing as one of three ways to manage safety in unsafe neighborhoods, the three options being: 1. Let danger hold sway, 2. Take refuge in vehicles, or 3. Cultivate the institution of turf. By “turf” Jacobs (1961) refers to the historical appropriation of certain areas by gangs. By carving out an area and refusing entry to anyone deemed to be a rival, gangs could protect themselves from harm and their potential customers from being taken by competitors. Jacobs saw fencing within dangerous parts of cities as a form of turf, using the division to mark out a safe space. In West Ogden, then, the chain link fences speak to the perception of the threat (real or rumored) residents and businesses feel. 

        When the cashier at the local West Ogden Market was asked about the safety of the area he responded that he did not believe the neighborhood was safe, “this place use to get broken into every night,” he said, “you probably saw the bars on all the windows, we had to put those up because we kept getting robbed.” When asked about violent crime, he said he believed it did happen, but he hadn’t experienced any, “but, there are gangs you know? Look at our garbage cans, they’re tagged, I don’ t know by who, but they’re tagged.” He also commented that crime used to be worse, and that the invasion of businesses buying up residential properties has flushed out most of the problems. 

         Driving through the neighborhood, one doesn’t feel threatened. A man walks his dogs, a father sits on the front steps watching his son play in the snow, men work on cars, and there are always industrial vehicles and construction business trucks sitting on a corner, or driving slowly past. However, the barbed wire and fences of differing heights, materials, and stability, create an uneasiness. Stereotypes about low income and minority populations feed further suspicion. You feel like you should feel unsafe. But Glass (2020) argues that empirical evidence doesn’t suggest that Ogden is significantly more dangerous than other cities in Utah with much better reputations. Jacobs (1961) and Anderson (2012) would also say perceptions like these are misguided, the fact that crime has ever happened in a place doesn’t necessarily mean it is unsafe now and Jacobs would argue that the ever present workmen driving by may even contribute to the safety of the neighborhood, serving as constant eyes on the streets.

 Walkability 

         The sidewalks are crowded and unwelcoming against the chain link fences that carve out the boundary of each property. Wide streets, designed to accommodate the large, industrial trucks that frequent the otherwise quaint neighborhood ignore the difficulty this poses for foot traffic. The West Ogden Market is the only market within reasonable walking distance.

The cashier told us, “people from the neighborhood ask for things and we try to keep them stocked for them. There’s a lot of poverty, they don’t all have cars- otherwise they’d have to walk over the bridge.” Jeff Speck (2013) argues that the walkability of a place contributes to the wealth, health, and sustainability of a place and better walkability certainly could make the West Ogden neighborhood more pleasant for its’ residents. Less driving could mean saving needed money spent on gas and building street life could contribute to a better sense of community. 

        Speck’s (2013) position claims that for walkability to contribute positively to an area it must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting. While he doesn’t argue that these things necessarily contribute to crime, the things that make the area un-walkable may also be factors contributing to the perception of crime in West Ogden, perceptions that say: there is crime in areas with barbed wire, there is crime in areas where people create barriers to protect themselves, there is crime in areas where the streets are uncomfortable and unpleasant.

 Future Prospects

         Efforts to revitalize the area have spilled into the east part of the neighborhood. Rooster B street brewery is a trendy tap room and restaurant serving draft beer, $17 burgers and appetizers called “naughty fries” and “beehive cheese curds.” Fort Buenaventura Park is a recreation area marketed as a historic park offering a number of high end amenities like horseback riding and archery. Such efforts, what Richard Lloyd (2006) might call the “Disneyfication” of a place, are celebrated by Ogden residents, but do little to serve the local neighborhood community who likely aren’t benefiting from the income generated or able to frequent the establishments themselves. 

         Lloyd (2006) believes that, “Emphasis on big ticket items… locates the production of new urban space solely in the hands of developers and political elite.” Maybe a restaurant or historical park don’t seem like the big ticket items Lloyd was describing, but in a neighborhood lacking basic amenities (like a grocery store), they might not be the place to start. These trendy businesses may even lead to the further degradation of West Ogden through gentrification or total dissolution of the homes. Lloyd (2006) argues that investing in amenities designed for the use of local residents fosters cultural development and may serve disenfranchised communities more effectively.

 Conclusion 

        While the West Ogden area was chosen as the best place to settle in its origin, segregation and lack of investment have contributed to negative public perception, influencing further segregation and lack of investment. Breaking this cycle will require efforts at changing perceptions and investing in local resident’s interests.

                                                                    References

Anderson, Elijah. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York:                              W.W. Norton, 2000.

Glass, Pepper G. Misplacing Ogden Utah: Race, Class, Immigration, and the Construction of Urban                                Reputations. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press: 2020

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1961.

Lloyd, Richard. Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. London: Routledge, 2006.

Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of how our Government Segregated America.             New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2017.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. School Desegregationin Ogden, Utah. A Staff Report of the United State Commission on Civil Rights. May 1977. 

Speck, Jeff. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. New York: North                     Point Press, 2013.

Whyte, William H.  City: Rediscovering the Center.   Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Original edition, 1988.

[1] Map of West Ogden, Google Earth

[2] West Ogden Walkscore map, https://www.walkscore.com/UT/Ogden/West_Ogden

[3] Stockyards drawing 1950, P 55; MSS 490 Special Collections Weber State University Stewart Library

[4] Sheep loading pen, 1960 P 55; MSS 490 Special Collections Weber State University Stewart Library

[5] Residents Protest Stench,The Ogden Standard Examiner, 1972

[6] Catholic Community Services,  Ogden Standard Examiner 2020

[7] Map of LDS Meetinghouses in West Ogden, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/meetinghouses/