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Show Building by the Railyard: The Historic Commercial and Industrial Architecture of Ogden, Utah Western Regional Architecture Program Center for Architectural Studies Graduate School of Architecture University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 Publication No. 7 This publication is made possible by grants from the Ogden City Planning Commission, Weber County Heritage Council, Utah State Historical Society, and R. Harold Burton Foundation. Layout and Design by Julie W. Osborne, Salt Lake City, Utah Cover: North Elevation, Union Station, Ogden, Utah. Photo by Thomas Carter Title Page: Capital Details, Stockyard Administration Building, Hodgson and McClenahan, Architects, Ogden, Utah. Drawing by Brian Parker. Copyright 1998, University of Utah THE UNION STOCKYARDS Begun by mountain man Miles Goodyear and continued by the Mormons, raising animals in Ogden's pastures was important to the town's economy and identity from the very beginning. With the railroad in town after 1869, however this business increased as the city became a major shipping point for cattle and sheep from ranches all over Utah, eastern Nevada, and southern Idaho. Ogden was an ideal place for railroad companies to feed and water the livestock on their trains. Initially, there was a small stockyard in the railyard that was shared by the different railroad companies. As new mechanical facilities were constructed on the railyard, they crowded out the animals. In 1917, the companies created a new stockyard on the other side of the Weber river and built tracks to connect it to railyard. In 1920, the Ogden stockyard held the first Ogden Livestock Show to promote Ogden's position in the livestock market. The show featured, in addition to livestock shows and auctions, a stockmen's ball, a stockmen's banquet, a boxing carnival, and access to shows at Ogden's theaters. In 1926, the show was so popular that Ogden built a $ 100,000 coliseum to house it and other events. They renamed the show the "Annual Golden Spike National Livestock Show." By 1929, Ogden was the largest livestock market west of Denver; each day it handled 250 carloads of cattle, 200 carloads of sheep, and 100 carloads of hogs. 18 An article in The Ogden Livestock Digest in 1930 named the city, "Ogden, Center of the Range Empire of the Inter-Mountain West." An exchange building was completed in 1930 as a respectable center for transacting business. An entire sheep division was added to the stockyards in 1934 with an impressive sheep barn. With a Swift meatpacking plant close to the stockyard, Ogden was the largest sheep and lamb processing plant in the nation. Ogden's livestock industry grew and peaked in 1945. However, with the rest of the nation, the industry declined in the 1950s and 1960s. Commission agents closed operations of Ogden's livestock yards in December 1967. Today, there is still small-scale buying and selling of animals, but most of the old buildings have burned down, been torn down, or fallen into disrepair. There is no longer a sense of Ogden's role as a key city in the national livestock market. Figure 23: Site Plan, Ogden Union Stockyards. Drawing by Ben Rogers. HAIlCAfttOAOWGlHEA 5tAUO*nERr10U5£ AUCTIONS i SHOWS BUYERS/SELLERS i OGDEN UNION STOCKYARDS OUT WITH NEW OWNER- Figure 24: Diagram showing movement of livestock through the Ogden Union Stockyards. Drawing by Ben Rogers. 19 Figure 26: Entry Detail, Stockyard Exchange Building. Each bay in this structure has vertical piers capped with pre-cast elements that are common to the Art Deco style. High relief images of cattle, horses, sheep, and swine are used as column capitals (see title page drawings). Drawing by Brian Parker. Figure 27: South Elevation, Sheep Barn. Photo by Thomas Carter. FRONT ELEVATION Figure 25: Front Facade, Stockyard Exchange Building. This building designed by Ogden firm of Hogdson and McClenahan was constructed in 1931 to add an elegant, formal space in which to conduct the clerical and financial business of the stockyards. Designed in the Art Deco style, this symmetrical building is divided into a series of repetitive bays. Drawing by Brian Parker. 20 NATURAL LIGHT Figure 29: West Elevation, Sheep Barn. The roof on this barn was designed to allow for maximum light, ventilation, and drainage. It has windows in continuous pairs on the jagged structure. Drawing by Jackson Ferguson and Figure 30: Loading sheep to take to market was not always an easy Stanford Richins. task. Photo courtesy Ogden Union Station Collection. Figure 28: Sheep Barn. Axonometric Drawing. This wood frame and brick building was constructed in 1930 as a "palace for sheep. " When it was built, the stockyards general manager said the barn had all of the latest facilities to eliminate "wet feet and fleeces" to make sheep "unusually attractive" when they were up for sale. Drawing by Jackson Ferguson. 21 |
