North Ogden Divide Road in 1914

      The view below North Ogden Divide. The road is on the north side of the canyon.


THE North Ogden, Utah Divide Road has been around for more than a century.
In a Sept. 11, 1914 report in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, Weber County Commissioners traveled by automobile over the North Ogden Divide, also called "North Ogden Canyon Road" in those days.
Their report was a "fairly good" road, though "pretty steep," with a "most pleasing" high point.
Even today this road, about seven miles south of the main route through Ogden Canyon (Utah Highway 39), is a shortcut to Eden and Liberty in Ogden Valley,.

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.)

Before Pineview Dam there was the Wheeler Dam

                       Pineview Dam.          Photo by Whitney Arave

IN 1898, the first major dam east of Ogden was the Wheeler Canyon Dam. Located west of today’s Pineview Dam, was some 300 feet long and about 40 feet deep.

According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of June 30, 1898, the Pioneer Power Company built the dam of masonry and concrete.

Work on this dam had started in 1897.

The Standard-Examiner of Sept. 8, 1905 reported than an engineer had proposed that a new dam be built to the east of Wheeler Dam, near the Shanghai River Bridge. That was amazingly close to where Pine View Dam was eventually constructed decades later.

After that, the South Fork of the Ogden River was surveyed and even bull dozed somewhat for a possible dam site that never happened, despite several decades of trying.

According to the Standard-Examiner of Sept. 5, 1910, another dam was proposed to be built in Coldwater Canyon. 

    All that's left of the Coldwater Canyon water system today is a small shack and some old piping.

However, that never happened and a 10-inch water that had been installed in Coldwater Canyon in 1909 was used for many years to supplement the Ogden City water supply.

                                         The replica lime kiln near Coldwater Canyon today.

-The lime kiln in Coldwater Canyon was reported operating again, according to the July 20, 1924 Standard-Examiner. After a three-decade lapse, the kiln was working again and even a road was built to the site.

(Today, the lime kiln is commemorated along the Coldwater Canyon trail as a pioneer industry, complete with a rebuilding of a kiln.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net

Skull Crack vs. Causey Reservoir -- the tame name took hold

                         The South Fork of the Ogden River, just below Causey Reservoir.

OGDEN City was becoming desperate for more reliable water sources in 1920 and Skull Crack Canyon (part of today’s Causey Reservoir) was considered the best location for a dam.

“Skull Crack Canyon in South Fork Canyon is the most feasible place in which Ogden must look for its future water supply,” Mayor Frank Francis said in the Standard-Examiner of June 26, 1920.

A tour of the area that month convinced the Mayor that Skull Crack was the premier location. However, Mayor Francis did not receive the support needed for a dam and so Ogden simply had to drill more and deeper wells in its Artesian Well Park (located under the west end of Pineview Dam today), until Pineview Reservoir came along in 1937. Causey Reservoir, a part of Skull Crack Canyon, was not built until the 1960s, completed in 1966.

Skull Crack received its unusual name for a 19^th Century hunter who was said to have hit his unruly mule over the head with his gun barrel, cracking the animal’s skull. However, Thomas Causey had built a sawmill in the Skull Crack area in pioneer times and it was his name that was chosen to eventually title the reservoir.

The same 1920 Standard story also reported that the Weber LDS Stake had selected a site in the meadows of South Fork for an upcoming “Fathers and Sons” outing. Young men participating in this would take the train to Huntsville and then hike up to the camp site.

More historical tidbits:

-Back in the automobile’s early days, 1911, an attempted hold up resulted in a wild chase – car vs. horse, in a stretch of country, between Lagoon and Ogden. According to a July 19 Standard story that year, a car driven by a Miss Guernsey of Ogden was accosted by a band of highwaymen on horseback. She refused to stop the vehicle, put it in high gear, drew up the glass windshield and outraced the robbers. They even fired 10 shots at the car. Miss Guernsey’s father was in the vehicle and he returned fire. No one was hit by any of the gunfire and a Davis County Sheriff eventually arrested several suspects.

-Some of the first known long-distance daily commuters along the Wasatch Front lived in Salt Lake City, but took a train to Ogden. “Work in Ogden, reside in S.L.” was an Oct. 17, 1920 Standard headline. More than 50 men from S.L. commuted to work in Ogden each weekday, spending more than two hours on the train. Most were employed by the Ogden Arsenal. Many men hoped to find homes in the Ogden area to lessen their work travel time.

-Finally, travel time from Salt Lake City to Bear Lake today is possible in just over two hours. However, in 1880, it was a full three-day trek. Because of rugged canyon travel and poor roads, it was no easy trip, according to the Logan Leader of Nov. 12, 1880.

1891: A Second La Plata

             Ogden Valley with the Monte Cristo and La Plata area in the far background.

By Lynn Arave

MINING fever was at its height in the Ogden area during 1891. Not only had La Plata, northeast of Huntsville, gained regional attention, but rumors of other claims were rampant.

“A second La Plata” was an Oct. 20, 1891 headline in the Standard-Examiner.

This second claim was in the mountains northeast of Brigham City, south of Devil’s Gate (not to be confused with the Weber Canyon formation with the same name).

Mose Jensen of Brigham City made what appeared to be a rich strike of silver. “Prospectors are now out searching the mountains in every direction, north, east and south of Brigham,” the story stated.

History proved this second La Plata claim was way overblown, but it was typical of the mining frenzy of the early 1890s in the Ogden area.

Although La Plata was just over the border in Cache County, it had the best access from Weber County – and it was wrongly initially believed to be in Weber County. According to the Standard of Aug. 16, 1891, a  sheepherder, “Mr. Johnson” (first name unknown), in July of 1891 noticed an unusual rock after his horse accidentally chipped off a piece of mineral along an old sheep trail and thus started the La Plata boom. Originally called Sundown, a few more small pockets of silver ore were soon discovered there. The sheepherder’s interest in La Plata was soon bought out for $600 by J. Ney, owner of the 8,000 sheep in the area and Johnson’s employer. After Johnson had showed Ney the rock, he recognized its value and filed claims.

“Mines are being opened in every direction from the city,” the Standard reported.

La Plata (meaning silver in Spanish) was soon dotted with tents and wagons. Three log cabins went up in less than five days. Eventually, 60 buildings sprang up at La Plata – stores, saloons, post office, hotel and more. Three different springs supplied water to the area and miners were paid $3 a day for work there.

The Standard of Nov. 26, 1891 reported that despite winter, La Plata was still a busy place and some miners and even their families were well stocked and planning to spend all winter there.

A total of 1,500 people were believed to have lived and worked in La Plata during its heyday. Three summer seasons produced about $3 million, mostly in silver.

By the summer of 1893, mines were closing fast in La Plata, the small veins having been worked out. Come 1894, no one was left in La Plata and it became a ghost town.

-Mines were also scattered all over the mountains on Ogden’s east side. For example, the Standard of Feb. 9, 1881 reported that Strong’s Canyon was home to the Star Mine, some 164 feet deep, for gold and silver. The miners also had a water wheel built there.

The Little Quick mine was found at the same time in Waterfall Canyon. This gold mine was made at least 50 feet deep in solid rock and required no timber for support.

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net

When Monte Cristo was mysterious and isolated

                   Utah Highway 39 with Monte Cristo Peak, center, in the background.

BEFORE Utah Highway 39 was constructed, that would travel just a few hundred yards below Monte Cristo Peak, the only way to access the area was on foot or horse. And, it was a 10-mile trek up from Camp Kiesel, the nearest trailhead.

“Monte Cristo, that mysterious peak on the great ridge running between Weber and Rich counties, is a part of the watershed of Camp Kiesel,” stated O.H. Bybee in the July 2, 1926 Standard-Examiner.

Bybee had recently hiked to Monte Cristo Peak, elevation 9,148 feet above sea level, from Camp Kiesel, elevation 6,100 feet. He noted that some of the finest aspens he had ever seen were traversed and that on the Monte Summit he could see the High Uintas, Mt. Ogden and Ben Lomond peaks.

On the way down, he ran across the “fresh trail of a bear not more than 15 minutes before.” He proclaimed he was glad he was heading south and not the way that bruin was. He also said that any Boy Scout who makes this 20-mile trek “will be given a special award to show their prowess.”

(Note: The first road to Monte Cristo Peak was built from 1927-1928. And, the fact that the peak was named BEFORE Highway 39 was built, proves road builders did not name the peak -- by a road worker who was supposedly reading a book about the Count of Monte Cristo. It was likely named three decades earlier, back in the La Plata mining boom in the area.)

-The campfire has always been a key focus of any stay at Camp Kiesel. A July 3, 1925 Standard story said that all Scouts at the camp gather at the campfire each evening.

“The forepart of the program is confined to community singing. Then comes the scribes’ report, in which the scribe of each patrol reads his record of the day’s events from the humorous viewpoint of a boy. Following this the boys listen to stories of the great out-of-doors, of adventure and of thrills and exciting experiences,” the story reported.

The report concluded: “Nine o’clock is dismissal time. The boys arise, repeat the scout promise and law. Then, they bow their heads while a short prayer is uttered. Soon the melody of taps float away on the breeze and the day is done.”

  More historical tidbits:

-“Spectacular parade morning feature of Ogden’s celebration. Great throng lines streets; Logan and Brigham make fine showing; Plenty of band music adds to patriotic occasion,” was a July 4, 1924 Standard headline.

Ogden’s parade was described to be four miles long, with more than 80 floats, plus cowboys, horses and automobiles. Brigham City’s parade entry, with a peach theme, was judged as the best. Second-place went to a Daughters of Utah Pioneers float overflowing with patriotism; and Logan City’s float was ranked third-place.

-Back on July 4, 1888, Ogden’s Fourth of July festivities were described as “a glorious time,” with “processions, speeches, music and song,” plus with “baseball and games.”

The celebration concluded with 10 p.m. fireworks in Lester Park. However, earlier that afternoon a four-year-old boy, was playing with fireworks near Lester Park, had set his family’s eight-ton haystack afire, after his father refused to give him money to buy more. Joseph Wheelwright’s hay was a total loss, but firemen saved the surrounding buildings.

 (-Originally published on-line and in print on July 3-4, 2015, in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, by Lynn Arave.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net

The Mountain Green Indian battle that never happened …

DID you ever hear about the Mountain Green Indian battle of 1862?

No, because it didn’t happen, though it could have.

According to a story in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on July 20, 1916, all the men of the Morgan Valley were absent and busy in Uintah, with the Morrisite War (June 13-15, 1862).

Some of the nearby Indians became bold after quickly realizing that the men of the area were gone. So, they began feeding their horses in the settlers’ field and demanded food from the area homes in Mountain Green. They also took chickens, pigs and calves.

According to recollections by Mary R. Jessop, about age 62 in 1916, and on which the newspaper account is based, it became a very fearful situation for the women and children in the area.

“We had hoped that soldiers would be sent to protect us,” Jessop recalled. “But instead Bishop Chauncey West of Ogden sent up six wagon loads of provisions and some six head of cattle as a present to the Indians. At once there was a change. The Indians killed the cattle and had a great feast. After that they were very quiet and friendly. That was the favorite method of the pioneers in dealing with the Indians. It was found to be cheaper to feed them than to fight them.”

That’s how an Indian was avoided in Mountain Green.

Yet, Jessop said a year or two later in Ogden Valley there was a battle between Cheyenne and Shoshone Indians, southwest of Huntsville, with many Indian casualties – and no settler involvement.

                        Today's Lucin Cutoff, as viewed from Fremont Island.

More historical notes:

-“To reduce lake area” was a Dec. 16, 1903 Standard headline. With the Lucin Cutoff being finished then, the idea was being explored to use the Cutoff as a dam, to allow the north end of the lake to totally disappear, replaced by a desert.

It was speculated that such a dam could raise the south arm of the lake up to six feet, at a time when some lake resorts had been left high and dry by a receding lake.

Still, the story urged caution because if the GSL totally dried up, it could ruin the local climate and raising certain crops in the area might then be impossible.

-Almost 11 years later, on July 11, 1914, a Standard headline was “Large fresh water lake near Ogden.”

This story stated the north arm of the Great Salt Lake was being made fresh by the Lucin Cutoff and some fish were reported thriving in portions. The possibility of planting fish was being explored.

There were also reports then of carp swimming southward in the north arm of the lake, only to be blinded by the briny waters they encountered. The carp would then swim to the surface, where they were easy prey for seagulls, or they died and washed up on a lake shore.

However, in 1959, a solid fill railroad causeway was constructed across the lake. With this “dam,” salinity then soared in the north arm. Today, salinity averages about 26-28 percent in the north arm and only about 13 percent in the south arm of the lake.

 (-Originally published on-line and in print on April 16-17, 2015, by Lynn Arave in the Ogden Standard-Examiner.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net

Monster bear encounters and a forgotten distillery

                    A bear statue at Ogden's Prairie Schooner Restaurant.


"KILLED a Monster Bear” was an Oct. 17, 1904 headline in the Standard-Examiner.
Frank Adams of Hooper came home with the hide of a 900-pound grizzly bear which he killed “in a desperate encounter in Black Bear Canyon at the head of Beaver Canyon.”
(Beaver Canyon is in the upper portion of today’s South Fork of Weber County, off Highway 39.)
Adams was on his way from camp to the bedding ground for sheep in the area, “when he was suddenly confronted by a huge infuriated bear that came for him open-mouthed. The beast was only twenty yards away and Adams had no weapon but his twenty-two,” the Standard report stated.
“With a nerve and accuracy which is astonishing under the circumstances, he began firing as rapidly as possible … The little missiles seemed to have no effect … Thirteen shots were fired while the bear was approaching, the last striking under the eye and penetrating the brain; but none too soon, for the brute literally fell at the feet of the brave hunter.”
Some eleven years earlier, the Standard had reported “A Narrow escape. A close encounter with a monster cinnamon bear” in its Oct. 25, 1893 issue.
Ogden City Councilman A.I. Stone, Joseph Ririe, R.H. Froerer, George Froerer and David Johnson were climbing in the mountains west of Huntsville, where a bear had been sighted earlier in the week.
They spotted the huge bruin and commenced shooting at it, amidst thick brush. It got within six feet of the men, before falling. It weighed 258 pounds and was put on display in Ogden. The men believed it would have killed one or more of them, had it not been brought down.

-In separate historical note, Carla Vogel of Ogden, 82, said in the early 1940s she recalls finding an old distillery, not anywhere near 25th Street, but on the land that is today’s Mount Ogden Junior High School.
About 100 feet up from 32nd Street, she and a Polk School classmate were digging around the area and discovered this great underground room.
“It was full of barrels, buckets, wood stoves,” she said.
Even at elementary school age, she said they knew what it was, though they never told anyone about it at the time.
Vogel said she later rode horses all around the east bench area of Ogden. She moved away in 1953 and Mount Ogden Junior opened in 1958.
“They probably didn’t know it was there,” she said of the still and the school builders. She’s convinced it was left over from the Prohibition of the 1920s and today is located under grass of the playing fields behind the school.

               The old St. Benedict's Hospital today, senior housing.

-Vogel also said she recalls her father saying the eventual site of St. Benedict’s Hospital (top of 30th Street) was the specific place where the Clark Family wanted the LDS Church to build an Ogden Temple back in 1921. That was the top of a hill above Harrison Avenue on land the Clarks were going to give the LDS Church, if it would construct an Ogden Temple there. (News reports of 1921 had stated the land donation address as 30th Street and Tyler Avenue, at the base of the hill and perhaps the last developed eastward street at the time.)
The Church declined the donation and it would be another 50 years before Ogden received a temple.

(Written by Lynn Arave and published on-line and in print by the Ogden Standard-Examiner on Nov. 6-7, 2014.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

From Magpie to Skull Crack Canyon: Ogden Valley Area Place Names

                           The top of Wheeler Canyon.                    Photo by Whitney Arave.

By Lynn Arave

"PLACE names in some respect are like historic moments. They are windows through which we can see the history of an area,” the late William W. Terry, an Ogden-area historian, wrote in his book, “Weber County is Worth Knowing.”

Here is a list, not intended to be comprehensive, of selected place name origins in the Ogden Valley section of Weber County. (More name origins in Northern Utah will be explored in future articles):

Causey Creek/Dam: Named for Thomas Causey, an early settler, who operated a saw mill there. (The dam was built from 1962-1966.)

Chicken Creek: This moniker is derived from all the wild chickens, who roamed this area in Liberty’s early days.

Dairy Ridge: So called by a rancher who had dairy cattle roaming in the Monte Cristo area.

Dog Pen Ridge: Called after the pens of dogs kept there by area sheepherders.

Dry Bread Hollow/Dry Bread Ponds: Levi Wheeler built an early road in the Monte Cristo area, but he and his crew ran out of provisions and only had dry bread to eat until the project was completed. The ponds were originally called Elk Ponds, since so many elk watered there.

Eden: So named by Washington Jenkins, a government surveyor, who thought the area was beautiful and that the town deserved the Biblical name of Eden. (North Fork Town was its prior name.)

James Peak: Titled for James Davenport, who cut timber in the area for the railroad.

Lightning Ridge: So named after a bolt of lightning struck some trees there during a storm.

Magpie Campground, Creek, Canyon and Flat: Named for Bryon Fifield, who was nicknamed “Magpie” and was one of the first Ogden Valley settlers to enter the South Fork area, searching for wood. There is also a nearby Magpie Canyon and that was perhaps the first reference to Magpie in the area, as the campground came afterward.

     Today's Pineview Dam. The old Pineview Hotel was located in that area.

                                                                            Photo by Whitney Arave.

Pineview Reservoir: Named by Eudora Decker Wilcox, who operated the historic Pineview Hotel, campground, cottages and way station with her husband, Moroni Edward Wilcox. This hotel, a rival of the Hermitage, was located at the edge of Wheeler Creek in upper Ogden Canyon and disappeared when the Dam was built.

Shanghai Creek/Canyon: Named after the historic pioneer bridge of the same name that at one time crossed the Ogden River at the west end of Ogden Valley. This area is now under Pineview water.
However, where did the Shanghai name itself came from?
"The Shanghai Bridge, situated a little east of where Wheeler's Creek emptied into the river, was long and narrow, standing about fifteen feet above the water. It had no railings on the sides and was approached by a curve in the road which made it an extremely dangerous place especially on a dark night." 
The bridge was also known for having loose boards at times.  --This is a historical excerpt from the history of Martha Ann Bronson (found on: http://gatheringgardiners.blogspot.com/)
She lived in Eden from the 1850s ,until her death in 1926.
One can then surmise the bridge earned its name perhaps from pictures seen of other risky, narrow bridges in the Shanghai area of China and this early bridge was reminiscent of them.
The first reference to Shanghai Bridge was May 19, 1881 in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, where it stated that the new bridge, just opened, has a "high name." Apparently, area residents built the bridge on their own, after losing patience with the  government.
Skull Crack Canyon: Received its unusual title after James Slater and Marinus Johansen were hunting in what would become the Causey Dam area. Johansen hit one of his unruly mules with his gun barrel and cracked its skull.

Snowbasin: The area was originally named Wheeler Basin for Levi and Simon Wheeler who operated a saw mill there. The Ogden Chamber sponsored a “Name Wheeler Basin” contest in the summer of 1940 to herald the coming ski resort. Geneveve Woods (Mrs. C.N. Woods) won the contest with her Snowbasin name submission, officially announced on Aug. 2, 1940.

Trigger Gulch: No gun connection here. The name came from a shingle mill in the area that had a trigger used to move a large blade up and down that cut pines into shingles.

 The South Fork of the Ogden River is a popular tubing area today, thanks to Causey Reservoir and its control of the runoff water.

Wheat Grass: The title simply came from all the tall, wild grass that used to grow in the Causey Dam area.

Wheeler Creek/Wheeler Basin: Their name came from Levi Wheeler, an early settler who operated a saw mill where Pineview Dam is now.

Wolf Creek: No definite answer here. Either it was named for a large gray wolf who roamed the area in pioneer times, or it was for a man named “Wolfe.”

-Ant Hill Flat: On the dirt road from the top of South Fork to Hardware Ranch. Its nickname is "Piss Ant Flat," but that's an unofficial name that has never been on any maps I've seen. Presumably, a lot of ant hills were found in that area.

SOURCES: Ogden Standard-Examiner, June 6, 1918 and also June 29, 1975; “Utah Place Names,” by John W. Van Cott.

(-Originally published by Lynn Arave in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, Jan. 10, 2014.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

Ogden's old artesian well park gone, but its waters still flow ...

(From "History of Ogden, Utah in Old Post Cards," by D. Boyd Crawford, used with permission.)

By Lynn Arave
  

WATER has always been a centerpiece of Ogden Valley.

Before the days of Pineview Reservoir (pre-mid-1930s), at the west end of the valley there were green meadows and many flowing artesian wells.

When the pioneers arrived in force in the 1860s, cattle would roam the area and ranchers noticed cool waters bubbling up from the ground, likely near where the west end of Pineview Reservoir is today.

In 1889, the first artesian well was drilled 84 feet down. It provided 40 gallons a minute.

Between then and 1935, a total of 51 wells were drilled, with 48 of them flowing. Average depth of the wells was 135 feet, but the deepest went some 600 feet down.

Ogden City drilled the wells to augment its water supply. Ogden was already receiving water from the Weber and Ogden rivers, plus from Taylor, Waterfall and Strongs canyons.

In 1925, there was a temporary sand problem in one of the new wells drilled.

However, the 1920s heralded the artesian wells as a new tourist destination each summer. The July 16,1924 Standard Examiner reported scores of inquires a day to Ogden City from all over the nation about its artesian well park.

Indeed, that summer, the Ogden Chamber of Commerce would regularly shuttle tourists to the wells. It also mailed out some 10,000 booklets that summer on the wells all over the country as a promotion.

  The west end of Pineview Dam, near where the old Artesian Well Park likely would have been.
                                                                                                                  Photo by Whitney Arave.

“Take a cool ride through Ogden Canyon stopping at Hermitage Inn and Park Pineview and Artesian Wells” was part of an advertisement in 1926 in the Standard-Examiner.

Even before the first deep well was drilled, there were some types of simpler water fountains there. The Standard-Examiner on March 25, 1888 reported: “It is worth the pains of the trip (up Ogden Canyon) to get a drink from these fountains and enjoy the fresh, invigorating mountain air.”

The city planted grass, trees and shrubs in 1922 at the well park and used cement to create standard circular fountains there. You didn’t visit Ogden Canyon,or Ogden Valley without taking a cool drink from one of the flowing wells.

The artesian wells soon provided 811,000 gallons a minute, or 16 million gallons of water a day. The water was piped to Ogden in a redwood pipe, used for some 50 years.

The artesian wells soon formed Artesian Well Park, a refreshing summer spot for residents and tourists.

August of 1933 was the only dark side to the artestian wells, as some sort of contamination plagued the well water part of that summer.

When Pineview Reservoir was filled in 1937, the artesian wells were capped and piped out to Ogden Canyon, to continue to supply drinking water to area residents.

By 1956, two-thirds of Ogden’s water, some 20 million gallons a day, were from the artesian wells.

However, it was realized in April of 1968 that after three decades, the 70-foot-deep reservoir water and accompanying pressures had damaged the piping and caused untreated Pineview water to seep into the drinking water pipes. This turned the water red and created slime and odor problems with the water.

All the Pineview water was then chlorinated for health reasons in that emergency, though that also killed most of the trout in the waters.

Pineview Dam was then drained and the old artesian wells were capped. From December of 1970 to May of 1971, six new and larger artesian wells were dug above the high water elevation of the reservoir – all about 260 feet deep – and funneled into a 36-inch pipe that goes beneath Pineview Reservoir and into Ogden Canyon.

These supplied about as much water as the old 48 wells.

According to Justin Anderson, Ogden City Engineer, this newer artesian well field provides for 67% of the drinking water demand to Ogden City today. During peak use, water from the Water Treatment Plant (just west of the base of Pineview Dam) is used to supplement the demand.

“Along the Wasatch front it is not unusual for drinking water utilities to utilize well fields,” Anderson stated. “The amount of water extracted from Ogden’s well field is relatively large when compared to surrounding water systems. “

Anderson also noted that the water rights associated with Ogden City’s wells are some of the oldest in the surrounding area. 

So, although the original artesian well park has been gone for almost eight decades, refreshing waters from the same vast underground source in Ogden Valley still dominate Ogden’s drinking water supply.

(-Written by Lynn Arave and originally published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on December 27, 2013.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net