Home >
The dynamics of the City were soon to change as the transcontinental railroad tracks made their way toward Ogden from the east to join with tracks that were also being laid from the west that would meet together at Promontory Summit some 57 miles to the northwest. On March 8, 1869, the first locomotive steamed into Ogden following right behind the Union Pacific track layers. The citizens of Ogden came out to welcome the train with a ceremony that evening with banners that read, “Hail to the Highway of the Nations! Utah bids you Welcome .” Quoting from Tullidge’s Quarterly magazine about the event, “Three cheers for the great highway were then proposed and given, when the wildest enthusiasm and demonstrations of joy prevailed, and the shouts rent the air. Amid the alternate pealings of the artillery’s thunder, the music of the band, and the long continued shrill whistling of the three engines, the waving of hats, kerchiefs, and other demonstrations of pleasure, rendered the occasion such as will not soon be forgotten by those present.”
With the connection of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, plus other rail lines that went north and south of Ogden in the following years, Ogden was designated in 1874 as the junction location of the two companies; hence Ogden’s nickname “Junction City.”
An article in the Western Galaxy dated June of 1888 commented about Ogden’s future by stating, “Indeed, the ‘Junction City’ has a future almost certain to put in the shade any of her sister cities; she is likely to become the Chicago en miniature of the Intermountain region.”