Your Guide Book to the Pacific Railroad, 1879
Stations in Utah
with optional side trip to
Salt Lake City
ECHO TO OGDEN
|
ECHO
(993 miles from Omaha, elevation 5,315 feet)
A beautiful spot, a valley nestled between the hills, with evidence of
thrift on every hand. The town and the canyon are rightfully named for the
report of a gun or pistol discharged in this canyon will bound from side to
side, in continuous echoes until it finally dies away.
WEBER
(1,008 miles from Omaha, elevation 5,130 feet)
It is a telegraph station in a thrifty looking Mormon
village. This station is the nearest point on the Union Pacific Road to Salt
Lake City. The town and cultivated farms in the valley seem like an oasis in the
midst of a desert.
Here for the first time on the road, the traveler will see
the magic sign, "Z. C. M. I.," which literally translated means
"Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution," where all the faithful
are expected to purchase their dry goods, groceries, notions, etc.
The Mormon name for this station is Morgan City.
PETERSON
(1,016 miles from Omaha, elevation 4,963 feet)
Another telegraph station, which a wagon bridge crosses
Weber River to the left. It is convenient to a Mormon village called Enterprise,
near by, and within a few miles of another, called Mountain Green.
UINTAH
(1,025 miles from Omaha, elevation 4,560 feet)
This was formerly the stage station for Salt Lake City,
but the completion of the Utah Central Railroad from Ogden, took away its glory. While it was the stage terminus it was a lively place, although it never
possessed indications of being a town of any great size.
Leaving Uintah the road pursues its way in a general
northerly direction along the base of the mountains, it arrives at..
OGDEN
(1,033 miles from Omaha, elevation 4,340 feet)
The western terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. By
agreement between the two roads, it is also the eastern terminus of the Central
Pacific Railroad.
Ogden is the county seat of Weber County with a population of
fully 6,000 people with a bright future before it.
It has a court-house of brick, which with the grounds, cost
about $20,000, two or three churches and a Mormon tabernacle.
One peculiarity of the towns in the these western or
central Territories, is the running streams of water on each side of nearly
every street, which are fed by some mountain stream, and from which water is
taken to irrigate the yards, gardens and orchards adjoining the dwellings.
Ogden is destined to become a manufacturing town of no
small importance. Vast quantities of iron ore can be obtained within five miles
of the city, and iron works on a large scale have been commenced, but owing to
want of proper foresight, the company ran short of means before their works were
completed. An effort is now being made to resuscitate them, and with additional
capital carry them on to completion.
At
this point you may take a
side trip to Salt Lake City
Or
have dinner in Ogden and re-board your train to
Promontory, Utah and San Francisco