OGDEN

city, seat (1852) of Weber county, northern Utah, U.S. It lies at the confluence of the Weber and Ogden rivers, just west of the Wasatch Mountains and east of the Great Salt Lake. The community began as a settlement developed around Fort Buenaventura, a log stockade with an irrigated garden built (c. 1844) by Miles M. Goodyear and purchased by the Mormons in 1847; Goodyear's cabin is preserved. First known as Brownsville, it was laid out in 1850 by the Mormon leader Brigham Young and renamed for Peter Skene Ogden, the fur trader. After the arrival of the Union Pacific Railroad (1869), Ogden became a distribution point for the agricultural produce of the intermountain region. Transportation, income-tax processing, light manufacturing (pharmaceuticals, clothing, and transportation equipment), and aircraft industries (located at nearby Hill Air Force Base) are the city's economic mainstays. Weber State University was founded in 1889 as a Mormon academy. The John M. Browning Firearms Museum has a collection of the inventor's firearms. The Snowbasin winter sports area, on the east slope of Mount Ogden, is 18 miles (29 km) east. Inc. 1851. Pop. (1990) city, 63,943; Salt Lake CityOgden MSA, 1,072,227; (1994 est.) city, 67,763; (1995 est.) Salt Lake CityOgden MSA, 1,199,323.