Pioneer Days Parade Photo History

You shot historical photos today, although you may not have thought so.

It's sad that so many of the shots taken today will remain on the cell phones that took them. Transferred to computers or, maybe, even paper? It rarely seems to happen any more.

Which is a shame. They look ho-hum today, but discovered 70 years down the pike, they're fascinating, time machine images.

A bit ago I found a pile of old negatives in the Union Station Archive. They were unsorted, unlabeled, just sitting there. As I looked I realized that what they were were shots of Pioneer Days Parade, probably around 1940, taken from in front of a drug store on the corner of 22nd and Washington. The auto parts store across the street, which just recently closed, is clearly visible.

Who took them? Ray Cardon, the father of Ogden Attorney Kelly Cardon. Ray was a pharmacist in the H.E. Riley drug store. His name is on the film envelopes holding the negatives. I have no clue why Ray's negatives are in the Union Station archive, but I'm incredibly glad they are.


They are fun pictures.

You can see floats in the background and people in the foreground. The clothing styles, the way people held themselves, the way they stand around, all give a great picture of how people, then, conducted daily life.

These are great pictures, too.

We can date the pictures pretty closely to about 1940. Ray only worked at the drug store a couple of years before joining the U.S. Navy in World War II. After the war he returned to Ogden and set up his own drug store on 24th Street. Kelly remembers a lot about growing up in central Ogden in the 50s and 60s as a result.

So when you ponder your pictures from today, have some prints made up, put them in an envelope and set them aside where the kids may, one day, come across them. Your kids will marvel at the cool old cars, the funny clothes, the odd way people spent the day.

History in the making, today.

People watching in 1940. See how funny they're dressed? (Actually, they're mostly dressed in
their best. To watch a parade? That's how folks dressed to go out back then.)

I took this one. See the funny way folks dressed back in 2014?