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Show Page 12 The Ogden Valley news Volume XXVI Issue V April 15, 2020 Weber-Morgan Health Department Extends Ogden Historian Needs Help From the Community to Solve Riddles from the Past Public Health Order for COVID-19 Prevention I’m John H Thompson and I’ve been a volunteer docent down at the Browning Gun Museum in Union Station for over two years. My connection there started back in the early 1960s when my mother was the secretary to Bruce and Val Browning when they worked on Grant Avenue in the R & D shop prior to moving to Mt Green. Mom just could not handle that Weber Canyon drive back then. Because of my time there, I noticed that some of the information there just wasn’t correct and just didn’t make sense nor tracked with other recorded information. Accordingly, I started my own research project to try and correct the facts and then to set the record straight. I also have a desire to discover, preserve, and protect our history. Because of these lockdown, confined-toquarters, stay-at-home, social-distancing times, I’m requesting the assistance of the community. If you have records, files, or photos stuck away in the closet, or the barn, or the garage, or a filing cabinet somewhere that are old and haven’t been looked through for a while, I hope you will take the time to do so now while you may have a bit of extra time on your hands at home! The Browning “Factory” - My first request deals with the Browning “Factory,” which was located at or near the south side of the now Bigelow Hotel in Ogden. There is a plaque and monument where it’s thought to have stood right off Washington Blvd. at the entrance to the hotel. The building was used for ten years—the first five by the Brownings where they built most of the 1878 rifles that made John Moses (and Ogden) famous. Starting in 1885, it was used by at least three other businesses of Carr & White Shooting Gallery (Jun1887), Larkin & Lindquist Undertakers (Feb. 1988), and a C.O.D. Steam Laundry (1990 Sanborn map). The building was demolished in 18891890 for the building of the new Grand Opera House, which opened in December 1890. I can’t believe, or don’t want to believe, that over ten years, there is this only one photo of the Browning “Factory” building! I have to believe that somewhere, in the background, over a shoulder, or just as a part of the scenery, the building was photographed, before or again. The known photo does not show specifically where the building was, nothing to the north or south, i.e., was it standing alone or was it next to another building. Written information contradicts where it actually stood. Ogden’s Adobe Homes - The second request is for early photographs of Ogden’s adobe homes—primarily from the 1850s, but also the 1860s. Early photos of Ogden show white clap board buildings in Ogden. A few brick buildings were around but were expensive then to build. John Moses determined early on that he did not want to earn a living making bricks or doing tannery work—early businesses of his father Jonathan, Jonathan’s first home was on the southwest corner of 24th and Washington Blvd. It was described as an adobe house. This would be 1852—one year after Ogden was incorporated as a city. Throughout the 1850s, ‘60s, and into the ‘70s, Ogden was rough with dirty, muddy, rutted out streets. The home, by 1860, had to be fairly large as he lived there with three wives and at least members of two of those families. Does anyone have early photos showing these adobe-style homes in downtown Ogden? I would also like to include the 27th and Adams Ave. location. Jonathan, being a kind and very generous man, was also a hardworking man and probably enjoyed some solitude and dedication in his work projects. The 24th St. location was too central; he would be constantly interrupted when doing his work— being in the center of the business district, people coming in and asking him to look at this, or could he fix or repair that, etc. Accordingly, he moved away from the main road to an acre at 27th St. and Adams and built an adobe home here for the second wife and family (John Moses and brother). He subsequently built a third home for the third wife and family. Would anyone have photos of this area from the 1860s or ‘70s? It was on this property where the 1878 rifle was invented. During this time, what did an adobe home actually look like? Ogden’s Street Numbering System - My last request deals with early street numbering in Ogden. Before 1889, no records or information has been found that explained how the street numbers were assigned or picked for use. The early Browning buildings, shown by newspaper ads, had up to three different numbers used for probably the same building. The 1860 census showed Jonathan’s three families living in “dwellings 300 and 301” on the 24th Str. and Washington Blvd. corner. By 1889, with a new city administration in place, they renamed the streets after U.S. presidents and shortly thereafter tried to implement a street numbering system for the city. From these actions, after moving from the “Factory” to their new building, it was assigned its 2461 Washington Blvd. number, which would be where, or close to, the Egyptian Theater is now located. It took some time for the city enforce the new numbering system, and for years the old numbers stayed around. Does anyone have any idea of how and by what logic the new address numbering system was chosen and assigned? I thank anyone who might make the effort or take the time to help with providing answers for these questions. For those that might uncover this early history, I can be contacted by phone at 801-621-1808, by email at johnhthompson@ aol.com or visiting my home at 1506 24th, Ogden, Utah. April 2, 2020 – In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Weber-Morgan Health Department is extending its Public Health Order and adding provisions for businesses and recreational sites to practice enhanced social distancing throughout the health district. “Decisions to limit activities in our vibrant communities are not made lightly,” said Brian Bennion, executive director of the WeberMorgan Health Department. “We are asking people to take these preventive measures seriously and stay home as much as possible to help us move beyond this urgent phase. “Many businesses, consumers and employees who were not able to maintain that 6- foot radius have asked for more direction, and so we are announcing an extension to our previous order to include new provisions to help to protect them from the COVID-19 virus.” The new order: 1. Directs all individuals to stay at home except to engage in essential activities, which includes going to work under the conditions outlined in the order. 2. Matches earlier county and state public health orders regarding food service operations to offer drive-through or curbside services. 3. Closes certain businesses that act as gathering places or involve close contact between people. 4. Closes children’s playgrounds and prohibits team sports, including pickup games, though outdoor sport courts and fields will remain open for individual and for individuals that reside in the same household. Residents are asked to responsibly enjoy recreational amenities by always maintaining 6 feet from people outside of their household. 5. Requires businesses to actively enforce social distancing practices and exclude ill employees from working; social distancing should include at least 6-feet between all people in the establishment, and workers symptomatic with respiratory illness or fever must not be present under any circumstances. Over the past few weeks, health department staff has met with officials from both counties through online and telephone conversations to develop the new order, which was announced Thursday, April 2, when it went into effect at 11:59 p.m. and continues to April 16. “This is not a shelter-in-place order and we are not shutting down most businesses,” said Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey. “We want to keep our communities and our economy moving as much as safely possible. As your Commissioners, we spend countless hours listening to problems and looking for solutions. We know this time is extremely difficult. I am confident Weber County residents will continue to do their part so we can move through this quickly and on to a brighter day. We are incredibly grateful to the WeberMorgan Health Department, our first responders, and all of our health workers for their expertise and dedication.” For more information on specific guidance and signage to use in your businesses, public spaces and homes, please see our website at <www.webermorganhealth.org> EDEN WOMAN cont. from page 1 to an unknown base camp on the island of Fiji to camp the night before the race. “We got lost for three hours in the van before the race even started! We were not laughing anymore; reality was setting in as we lined up in the jungle just before 5:00 a.m. September 10 to compete in the “World’s Toughest Race.” To say that I was fearful is an understatement! I didn’t have enough pages on me—to track the amount of times I questioned what I was doing, or if I was going to survive this race with my three teammates who I didn’t even know four months ago!” Course details were kept under lock and key up until the very moment of go time. The first section was revealed minutes before the start of the race by Bear Grylls himself. “We had 15 minutes to study the map and be on our way. Out in to the ocean we would go. The anticipation was palpable, as we huddled up as a team and made a pinky promise to each other that we would do—whatever humanly possible and in our power—to stick together and finish! “This was the process for the duration of the race. Only small sections of the racecourse were given to us at a time. If we navigated correctly, it would lead us to the next base camp where we would find our next set of maps and information about what we would be dealing with for the next two to three days. We called these base camps ‘Fools Christmas.’ It was a myriad of emotions arriving at a checkpoint. It felt like Christmas, because we had survived in the jungle, navigated our way across 100’s of miles in the right direction to find camp. Yet, it felt like April Fool’s day as we opened our next set of maps and were given information about what the next two to three days of our lives were going to be filled with! Yes, ‘Fools Christmas.’” The course became progressively harder as the days went on in an effort to weed teams out, and find every possible weakness of each team member. “The course found every competitor’s weakness. Coming in to this race, I knew it was going to be hard, but I had no idea just how hard it would be… until I was in the thick of it—in the literal and emotional sense of the word! “Traveling through the jungle is something that is incredibly hard to prepare for, especially when your team comes from, and trains in, the mountains of the Wasatch. How do you train for mud, vines, bugs, humidity, heat, rain, and more MUD! Then to try and move quickly through these elements, to meet cut-off times, is a pressure that mounts hour by hour. With very little time spent sleeping and days and days of absolute physical exertion, on limited essentials like food and water, it is a guaranteed formula for whittling down a team to a dangling thread. And this is exactly how the course was designed to be—to test a team on every scale imaginable. Tedious, meticulous measures were taken to make the race as difficult, yet survivable, as humanly possible. Bear Grylls and Mark Burnette had no idea what to anticipate. What they did know, however, is Eco-Challenge Fiji would mold stories worth telling, and, boy, do I have some stories to tell!” Eco-Challenge Fiji will be aired on Amazon Prime in early summer of 2020. When you can watch Sylvia’s, and the Sundance Kids’ journey unfold as they compete with 66 other teams from around the world in the “World’s Toughest Race!” Sylvia is an Eden resident who coaches Track at Snowcrest Junior High. She is also a full-time endurance coach for her business Greer Endurance Coaching. For more information, visit <greerendurancecoaching.com> and fatigue had any hope of reaching the finish. Sylvia Greer is not a stranger to racing under extreme stress and fatigue. She has run over fifty ultra-marathons, fifteen 100-mile races, and five 200+ mile races. In 2016 she was the first female to finish the Colorado 200. And in 2017, she was the first woman to finish the Triple Crown Series of 200’s—a series consisting of the Big Foot 205, Tahoe 206 and Moab 240, all 200-mile races run within a three-month time frame. It was Sylvia’s running background that led her to the Eco-Challenge team named “The Sundance Kids.” Her friend Tiffany McQueen of Huntsville connected her with the three other racers in May, after their original female competitor dropped out. The race would take place in September, and they no longer had a complete team! Deadlines were quickly approaching and they had to decide if they were in or out. “I spent all of 5 minutes thinking about it before I said, ‘Yes!’ An opportunity like this, as unknown as it was, would never come up again. I couldn’t pass it by. I signed a ten-page contract from Bear and Mark, warning me of life and limb loss possibilities, and became an official racer of Team Sundance Kids. For the next four months, training as a team and getting to know each other became priority.” All team members were required to be certified in White Water rafting, Jungle Navigation, Climbing, Sailing, Wilderness First-Aide, and reading Ocean Tide Charts. Once in Fiji, teams had to demonstrate proficiency in all areas before they were allowed to start. “Training for this race became a part-time job. It was incredibly stressful.” Most teams know each other for years, and train for well over a year to get ready. “We had just met, and Fiji would be the first expedition race for all of us. We were learning as we were going!” Each team was responsible for getting all of their race gear to Fiji, including bikes, climbing gear, oars, and food. Once in Fiji, teams underwent three days of testing to verify their qualification to even start the race. “It was incredibly stressful with the starting line on the fence. All the things that we had been training for and were certified in over the summer had to be passed off before we could even compete.” Thankfully, The Sundance Kids passed the skills and gear test, and were given the green light to line up. The first test—of navigation skills—came when teams were given a map |