"Wonderful things" discovered in Union Station archive

Picture of Ogden's 25th Street taken in 1901. A print hangs in Union Station.  This scan
is from the original negative.

When archeologist Howard Carter discovered King Tut's tomb in Egypt in 1922 he was struck dumb with amazement. As he described it:

"When Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, "Can you see anything?" it was all I could do to get out the words, "Yes, wonderful things."⁵

That was me on Thursday in Union Station's library.

The library is small. Boxes fill close-stacked shelves. There's a catalog system which numbers things and says where they're stored, but no system is foolproof.

What I saw inside

Which is why, on Thursday, our chief archivist, Lee Witten, was digging and muttering, looking for a box of road maps he knew was somewhere, just not where it should be.

I went back to help, bending in the narrow aisle, pondering box ends, and saw one that had no number. Just the notation, "Miscellaneous negatives."

Picture negatives?

"What are these?" I said.

"I don't know, I've never had time to go through them," said Lee who, I must stress, is a monumentally overworked volunteer.

So I looked inside. I was amazed.

"Wonderful things," Indeed!

I saw rolled up negatives. Half a dozen. Tubes 5 and 10 inches long, but  who knew how long the roll was?  They could be panoramic pictures.

Did I dare hope?

Color scan of original negative. Green is from retouching done by the photographer
in 1901 to lighten areas. He used red coloring which, in this color scan
of the negative, shows up green.

In my office in the archive hangs a huge panoramic picture of Ogden, taken in 1901. It shows 25th Street and the Ogden City Hall, is about 18 inches high and about 7 feet long. I've often wondered where the negative for that print was.

Negative of 25th Street Panorama on the scanner. Note
the red retouching coloration.

Yup. About 20 feet away, as it turned out.

There are envelopes full of more standard negatives. I haven't had a chance to look at those smaller negatives yet. I've been obsessing on the big ones.

There's the negative from that one big print that hangs in my office, and another of the same scene from a different angle. There's a couple showing city hall and the old fire station, and some mystery resort.

Really, this is beyond remarkable. What are the odds?

These pictures were taken by a professional. Nobody else could afford the equipment.

They were taken with a Graflex Cirkut camera, a very specialized and expensive piece of equipment that used long rolls of film. The camera rotated one direction while the film ran the other by a clockwork motor.

Whoever took the shot of 25th Street made good money out of it. I've seen the same image, or sections of it, on post cards, a lantern slide, even stereo views. The photographer took pictures with everything in the studio to sell to the trade.

You can find the pictures on eBay. There's lots around. I could easily go broke buying versions of this thing.

Stereo view on eBay. Note identical
buildings, angle of view, trees.

But what of the negatives? I always assumed they were tossed out. Studio photographers would keep their negatives to sell reprints, but when the studio closed or was sold, their inventory of negatives was too-often tossed.

How came these to the archive? An envelope in the box has the name "Glen Perrins" on it. Perrins used to work for the  Standard-Examiner and collected a lot of old pictures that are now in our archive. If he had these negatives and donated them, or just left them, I don't know.

Now you're thinking, "so make prints."

I wish.

The rolls are so large, and so stiff, it would be extremely difficult. I'm amazed we were able to flatten them enough to make scans. Photographers who shot these type of pictures made their prints on a specialized enlarger that ran both negative and printing paper through another set of clockwork mechanisms.

I found a link on circuit cameras here, showing a guy who uses them. He talks about how he makes pictures from them, which is interesting and gives you a lot more respect for the folks who shot these images.  One contact printing frame looks about eight feet long.

A Graflex cirkut camera

Rather than struggle with these negatives in my own darkroom, and probably damage them, I took them to Michael Slade, in Salt Lake.

Mike is one of Utah's premier large format photographers. I know him because he is also a former Standard-Examiner intern. He's got a specialized large format scanner, works with negatives this size all the time, and had no trouble making high quality scans.

We spent about five hours getting them all scanned in. It was great fun seeing those old views of Ogden come alive again after all these  years. The onion dome over the old Orpheum stands out above the skyline. The old city hall is gorgeous in its Victorian splendor. A second view of 25th Street shows horses and wagons along the street.

One surprise was a view of Washington Boulevard looking north from about 26th Street. It is winter and you can see a man walking along the sidewalk in front of the old Carnegie Free Library. A horse and wagon is in the distance, and the street car line is visible.

This was obviously not taken the same time as the others. Was it shot by Adams Brothers Photographers, whose ad can be seen on the Orpheum's outside wall on the right?

And the view (see below), of what looks like an early Lagoon resort, or at least a resort with a lagoon. Is it Lagoon?  Or is it one of several other lakeside resorts that were in use back then. More research.  This negative was extremely dense, but Mike found the image somehow.

What next?

We're still pondering. I want to do some sort of exhibit. We've had some amazing stuff show up this year alone.

What else is there?

I have no idea. But there's a lot of boxes in the archive. More than this one contains "wonderful things," and I mean to find them.

Second view of 25th Street. Note horses and wagons on left

Washington Boulevard in winter, looking north. Carnegie Free Library on left

Lagoon? We don't know. Do you?

City Hall block. Old fire station on right, I think.

I'm not going anywhere near a cemetery on Memorial Day

If it's all the same to you, I'm going on a picnic this Memorial Day with two of my grandkids, my lovely wife, our beautiful children.

We're going up to Ogden Valley. When we're done we'll come back and go on a family bike ride. The weather should be ideal, the kids will laugh and play, as will the adults.

I'm not going anywhere near a cemetery. Won't even walk the dog through one. My parents' grave will go undecorated, at least by me.

This apparently is wrong.

I think it's nice that soldiers decorate graves of veterans on Memorial Day. The holiday has Civil War roots and is a fine tradition.

But judging by the posts I see on Social Media, that's not good enough.  I'm supposed to spend Memorial Day buying flowers to decorate the graves of my parents, who are the only immediate dead I have to deal with.

I'm supposed to spend the day remembering the dead, either soldiers or family, and being happy is frowned upon.

The posts  started last week and continue. Their number and intensity borders on nagging, and not in a nice way. It smacks of political correctness, of thought police even.What am I supposed to think of posts that say "Some soldier died for your BBQ"?

So far it's only my parents I'm seemingly ignoring on Memorial Day. More family dead will come, and when they do I'll deal with them the same way I do with my parents. If that dead is me, I want my kids to treat me the same way.

Which, to all appearances, is pretty negligent.

I get to my parents' grave, maybe, once every three or four years, and then only if I'm passing by and have time. They're in SLC, the cemetery is out of the way.

Sounds pretty cold, eh? Won't go out of the way to visit his mother's grave, even on Memorial Day.

It was interesting. When mom died 13 years ago, my sister and I were walking away from the grave and neither of us had a strong urge to go back up and spend some more time. 

"She's not there," my sister said, and she's right. Mom's still not there. Dad neither. Dead bodies are called "remains" for a reason.

Here's the thing. I don't need to buy some mums at the grocery store and let them die in a cemetery to know that I loved my parents and miss them. If I fail to fulfill someone else's expectations about how I should be showing my filial devotion, that's not my problem.

I think about my folks all the time.

Every time I wash the dishes I think about Mom. I inherited her dish drainer. It's an aluminum tray and stainless steel rack, probably almost as old as I am, but still able to hold dishes up to the air. It is impossible to look at it doing its job without thinking of where it came from.

We use mom's dishes. After mom died Carla said she only wanted one thing -- Mom's everyday dishes, lovely stoneware. "It will be like having dinner with her every day" she said at the time, and it is.

I broke one of them a few years ago. "It's all right," I heard my wife say from another room. "No, it's not," I said, and moved heaven and earth to buy a replacement.

I have my mom's fountain pen, which she used to write dozens of letters to my dad when the two of them were separated by work or events. I'm tempted to get it fixed and use it, but the nib is worn to mom's hand, it would never work for me. It sits on my desk. Every time I touch it, that's Mom.

I cook my Mom's recipes. I pick the rhubarb I stole from Mom's garden and planted in mine.

Dad is in and of me. I got his watch, his camera, his appreciation of funny poetry, his wry/sardonic sense of humor, his difficulty dealing with authority. I've got one of his bow ties I intend to learn how to tie one of these days. Dad taught me photography, gave me my first camera.

He gave me advice on many things that I use to this day. When I tell my children, "As my old pappy used to say ..." it really is something dad used to say. I got a whole column out of his sayings one year.

But still, you say, why not one day a year at the cemetery? Why use the day partying, or BBQing or bike riding? It's unseemly!

My parents didn't get lot of time with their grandchildren. By the time a couple came along Dad was sick and old beyond his years. Mom had to take care of him and grew increasing distrustful of leaving the house.  We didn't get to their home way down in Holiday as much as we'd have liked to. Busy lives, inconvenient distances, it happens.

Now they're gone.

Memorial Day is one of the few weekends that my kids have the day off and can come over and play with their children, my grandchildren, for the day. A whole day with them is a gift, a blessing.

And you want me to spend it in a cemetery?

So before you post one of those "Remember Why We Have Memorial Day!" things, ponder this:

Nobody knows the heart. You can't read what's going through someone's mind, how they think or feel, what tears at them or makes them ponder, what they've gone through, what inner sorrows they have.

And you have no business telling them how they should remember their dead, or any dead.

I think about, remember, and mourn my parents every day. Memorial Day is a day I can play with the living, so I'm going to.

If that makes me a bad person, fine.

Spectacular Hawaiian Quilts Uncovered At Union Station

Henry Hite and an American Flag
Quilt from about 1900

Every three years or so the descendants of E. O. Wattis, one of Utah's founding industrialists who built Ogden, hold a reunion.

This year they're holding one in Ogden. Henry Hite,  Wattis' great grandson, is visiting Ogden from his home in Aspen to set up for the reunion next month and took the opportunity to put on a display of his amazing quilts from Hawaii.

Henry and his wife, Angela, have been collecting quilts for years. He said he's particularly fond  of his Hawaiian quilts because of their beauty and rarity.

Most folks don't think of "Hawaii" and "quilt" in the same breath because it's so warm there, but he said quilters in Hawaii quickly developed their own themes and techniques.

His quilts date from 1890 to about 1992. They're made by appliquing one color on top of another, the top color featuring a design with Hawaiian themes, such as palm trees, bread fruit or pineapples, but there are also flag themes that feature both the Hawaiian flag and American flags.

The quilters used a technique called "echo quilting," he said, in which the lines of tiny quilting stitches parallel the designs, "and that's what makes then uniquely Hawaiian."

Hawaiian flag quilt

Hite said he isn't trying to find more quilts for his collection at this point because, frankly, it's a chore to store and preserve the things. "It's a lot of responsibility," he said. Displaying them takes great care to prevent damage from sunlight or even just the weight of being hung. Even a quilt that is carefully stored away can undergo changes, he said.

The show opened Wednesday and will be open through June 7 in Gallery 51. Admission is free.

RR Schedules Reveal An Amazing Lost World

Lee Witten 

Lee Witten, Union Station's archivist, had a friend in Seattle, Roy Thompson, who apparently collected railroad schedules. When Roy died his son, Rhude Thompson, who lives in Hawaii, got the job of clearing out his dad's stuff.

So Tuesday morning Lee opened up a box Rhude sent and poured out the most amazing treasures. Dozens of old railroad schedules.

They're from every conceivable railroad, going to every conceivable place. Back in the 30s, 40s and 50s you could go to Ogden's Union Station and buy a ticket to anywhere, and these schedules let you chart the way.

This was when travel was fun, too.

A few of the dozens

You didn't start a trip by going to the airport, having a rude/bored federal security guard feel you up and then jamming you into flight 32 to Pahokee. No, you went to the station, a grand hall much like a cathedral,  where porters tipped their hats and conductors waved you to the platform. You stepped onto the Great Northern's "Empire Builder" express and settled back in comfort in a seat that had legroom. You dined on linen and enjoyed scenery going by.

Many of these schedules emphasize the pleasure of the journey, the elegance of the dining and the comfort of the cars. Shouldn't travel be that way?

Note blacks are all servers

But those days are long gone. My compatriot up here in the archive just told me of his 24-hour effort to fly out of Dallas last week...two flights cancelled, endless standby lines and long waits on phones to get someone, anyone, to give you hope you might see home again some day.

Travel guides like these were useful in other ways than just telling where you were going. Some offered tourist highlights, scenic places to watch for or visit.

A student of history or sociology would find an interesting study in what people expected out of a corporation providing them service. Cultural and social issues show up too -- for example, the only black people you will find anywhere in these are working as food servers, baggage handlers or the like.

The days of elegant travel are never coming back, I guess, so it's especially important we save these timetables. Someday we'll show our kids where they could go, and how they could get there, and not have to feel like cattle on the way.

Luxury!

Union Station's New Artistic Neighbor

Elizabeth Robbins, left, and Shanna Kunz

Union Station has three art galleries of its own, but that doesn't mean it doesn't welcome more of the same.

So, welcome to the Bella Muse gallery on the southeast corner of Wall Avenue and 25th Street, southeast corner, right by the bronze statue of the little Indian girl.

I discovered the gallery Thursday morning. Elizabeth Robbins and Shanna Kunz, both highly accomplished and well-known local artists, were in the process of setting up. They officially opened last Friday, but are still so new they don't even have the sign out front yet.

Shanna said the two wanted both a studio and gallery space, and when a dress shop in the building closed up last month "it fell in our lap like it was meant to be."

They grabbed it three days later and started moving in.

They're going to do demonstrations, give classes, do fund raisers for local charities and work with other shops on the street.

They're still setting up their web site, which will be http://www.bellamusegallery.com. If the link doesn't work yet, give it a few days.

This is a good thing. More galleries, like more coffee shops or any other type of business, means more folks come down and visit us all.

Thus does Ogden's central business district grow.

Ogden Revitalizes Amazing Support Of Union Station

Union Station at 90

The folks in the Union Station Foundation are smiling today. Ogden's City Council stepped up Tuesday night and showed it really does support what several members of that council called "the gem of Ogden."

They backed that up with money, too.

The deal's still got a couple of hoops to jump through, but the council was clear in its support, and that's what's so good to see.

This is really big and we are really grateful.

As most folks know, Union Station was a city-owned and city-run entity until Mayor Matthew Godfrey  cut it loose 10 years ago. Ogden still owns the building and everything in it, but Godfrey pulled the city employees out, along with most city funding.  He told the Union Station Foundation, aided by a few very generous families, that they could run the place if they could.

Julie Lewis presents

Which they have. The city, Union Station's owner and landlord, has helped with a few really basic repair projects, but the day-to-day running has been all on the foundation. Just keeping the electric and heating bills paid has been a major chore. More times than the city would like to admit, those generous families have stepped up and saved the station's bacon.

Which is really unfair to those families. Union Station benefits the whole city.  The whole city should take part.

With new Mayor Mike Caldwell, that seems to be happening. Management Services Director Gregg Buxton has been very responsive to maintenance needs at Union Station. City staff seem to feel free to speak out for the station.

I was very heartened when, at Tue
sday's City Council meeting, the city's Chief Administrative Officer Mark L. Johnson talked about visiting the station during the display of the UP's Big Boy steam engine. The thousands visiting the station reinforced his own view of the key place the station holds in Ogden, he said.

But the situation has to change. The station has a lot of long-delayed maintenance needs. The boiler, just to pick one, is in critical shape.

Crowds line up to see Big Boy

The Foundation was visiting the council Tuesday for two reasons: To receive a proclamation about the current station's 90th anniversary, and to give a presentation on the need for the city to help keep Union Station thriving.

The proclamation, which is very appreciated, was during the council meeting.  The real meat and potatoes came with the presentation during the council's work session afterwards.

Foundation Vice President Julie Lewis gave a long presentation which I can best summarize thus: Union Station needs to grow, Wall Avenue needs to develop, everyone loves agrees Union Station is invaluable, now's the time to do it.

Hundreds flocked to Union Station

The ultimate goal is a capital campaign to renovate the station's building and develop the laundry building.

In addition to Ogden, the foundation is working to get state support for the two state museums that are housed in Union Station.  Buxton argued for this as well, pointing out that the state provides operation and maintenance for other state buildings around the state, so it should also for Union Station.

The kicker was that the council agreed to amend the Capital Improvement  Plan budget to provide $283,000 to Union Station. The $200,000 will be to do the initial studies needed for a capital improvement campaign, which the Foundation will do to raise money for the eventual renovation.

The $83,000 is a down-payment on keeping Union Station running now. It will be a back-up fund, paying utility bills when the Foundation's own funds run short. The council approved amending the CIP budget to move the funds. A public hearing still has to be held and a vote taken during a regular City Council meeting later this month.

The whole council seemed to favor the move, though. It's really impossible to say how big a help this is.

The city will provide leadership and staff help for the capital campaign while the Foundation will chase the donations.

Meanwhile, Ogden is stepping up to keep Union Station functioning.

If the UP can keep Big Boy alive, Ogden can keep Union Station alive to greet it.

C-SPAN weekend in Ogden!!

C_SPAN spent a full week filming in and around Ogden last month. Now you can see the result, a full weekend with many segments on the city, its history and surrounding areas.

Here's the official release from C_SPAN with links to the full schedule:

Hello all!

C-SPAN’s Ogden Weekend is here! Highlighted below is the programming that will air throughout this weekend. Mayor Mike Caldwell’s segment will kickoff Ogden Weekend this Friday, May 2—airing on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal between 5am MT/7am ET-8am MT/10am ET. C-SPAN is available in Ogden on Comcast channel 78 and HD channel 762.  It will be available to view online at www.c-span.org

In addition to having the below pieces sprinkled in throughout the weekend on the respective networks, both AHTV and BOOK TV will have a block of programming where ALL of the respective Ogden pieces for their networks will air. C-SPAN2’s Book TV – SATURDAY, May 3 at 10am MT/12pm ET and C-SPAN3’s American History TV (AHTV) – SUNDAY, May 4 at 12pm MT/ 2pm ET.

We have created a special “Ogden” city web page at www.c-span.org/LocalContent/Ogden You can also visit www.c-span.org/LocalContent. The Ogden website will be LIVE sometime Friday, giving you an opportunity to view the segments before they air! We have posted your web links there as well. If there are web links you would like for us to post on that site, please let me know and we will make sure they are highlighted. In addition, all video segments will be available indefinitely on our C-SPAN Video Library site at www.c-span.org  after they air this weekend.

We have been promoting on-air “Ogden Weekend” programming and Comcast across all three networks for the last two weeks. We have sent out “tune-in” releases to the media and special email alerts to our viewers. In addition, we will be utilizing all of our social media outlets – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We will be using the Twitter handles @cspan, @BookTV, @cspanhistory and @CSPANCities.

Special thanks to Comcast for their continued support and partnership, Mayor Caldwell, the city of Ogden and to all of you for making the week a huge success! 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

On behalf of myself, Mark Farkas, Adrienne Hoar, Tiffany Rocque and Ashley Hill it was a sincere pleasure to work with all of you!

Sincerely,

Debbie Lamb

C-SPAN Cities Tour Coordinating Producer

Amazing 25th Street Photo Exhibit Goes Back Up

One of the realities of Union Station is that it needs money to stay open, and gets that money by renting out rooms for weddings and parties and such.

One room is the Gallery 51 exhibit hall, which until Saturday was showing "Spotlight on 25th Street," a special exhibit by Weber State University's Special Collections library.

The exhibit, which shows images of Ogden's past and present, and features a special display on Joe McQueen, will be up until May 10, Train Day and Union Station's observance of its 90th birthday. But  Gallery 51 was rented out for a wedding this week, too.

Union Station, which receives very little money from Ogden, needs that revenue. So Sarah Langsdon and her crew from WSU came and took down the exhibit. Today, Thursday, she and her crew are back at Union Station putting it back up.

That's nearly 200 photos and their accompanying tags.

It's a lot of work. They're doing all this because the exhibit is a key part of Train Day and the station's 90th birthday. They're doing this because they know the history of Ogden is important to show.

Mostly, though, they're doing all this work because they're just really nice people.

Thank you, Sarah and crew. We're very grateful.