Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Back when the road to Huntsville went through a duck pond

                     Pineview Dam dominates the west side of Ogden Valley today.

BACK in 1885, access to Huntsville, Utah, in Ogden Valley was a real nightmare.
According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of July 21, 1885, "The approach to Huntsville is through a duck pond, three or four feet deep, which is a terror to pedestrians, and it should be looked after."
The story reported that the road in Ogden Canyon was suitable, but once a traveler emerges into Ogden Valley and heads toward Eden, there are also two very bad places in the road, besides the duck pond. One is caused by a stream that creates "a very bad mud hole" and the other by a risky bridge across the North Fork of the Ogden River, "which will, if not fixed, cause a serious accident."

(Above photograph by Whitney Arave.)


Sunday, November 1, 2015

A 1932 LDS Church Directory reveals some surprising historical tidbits

By Lynn Arave

LOOKING at a directory of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from June of 1932 reveals a few surprising historical tidbits.

HOSPITALS:
For example, the LDS Church owned 5 hospitals in that era:
1. Cottonwood Stake Maternity Hospital, Murray, Utah.
2. Thomas D. Dee Memorial Hospital, Ogden, Utah. 
3. The Idaho Falls LDS Hospital, Idaho Falls, Idaho.
4. Dr. W.H. Groves LDS Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah.
5. LDS Children's Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Cottonwood and Idaho Falls hospitals are an obscure part of LDS Church history, as is that the LDS Hospital was originally named after a specific doctor.

SCHOOLS:
Of course the LDS Church had Brigham Young University, LDS Business College and Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho) back then.
But it also owned Weber College in Ogden and Dixie College in St. George back then.
In addition, there two other former properties, mostly obscure in today's knowledge: 
Gila Junior College in Thatcher, Arizona and the Juarez Stake Academy in Mexico.