Ogden City has a well-established history as an old railroad town blazing tracks to all the great cities of the wild west. Lore of underground tunnels, stories of cowboy ghosts, and family histories of pioneers struggling to settle Weber County, helped make Ogden what it is today. These rich narratives are recorded, documented, and preserved, but many are still untold. Getting those stories out into the ether, added to the catalogue of city history, is the purpose of a new youth-led podcast mentored by the city’s Office of Community Engagement. Biographies of Ogden’s past are now a part of the future in “The Untold Stories of Ogden City” podcast.
2892 Miles to Go launched this program supported by the National Geographic Society in hopes of finding communities willing to share local, diverse storytelling through media such as podcasts. The Office of Community Engagement recognized the value of mentoring local students in the art of storytelling, including research, interviewing, and the editing needed to produce a podcast. Ogden City is the first city in Utah to participate. With the assistance of Weber State University faculty, plus their podcasting studio, these students are ready to release “The Untold Stories of Ogden City”. “I’m super excited for the public to hear these stories. They deserve to be told, and they’re fresh to our city,” says Scarlett Solomon, one of the 2892 Miles to Go participants.
Bryson Oleson, Ogden City’s Community Engagement Intern, led this venture. He says the project not only tells Ogden stories but gets youth interested in their city. Oleson explains, “We wanted them to be involved with the community, we wanted them to connect with the people that they live around.” High school students from Ogden, Ben Lomond, Northern Utah Academy of Math and Science, and Bonneville applied for the opportunity by simply sharing their connection to Ogden City.
Students Kaiya Clark and Aleksah Mendez sat down with Anderson, who graduated from Ben Lomond High School and eventually on the Ogden School Board. Anderson’s father came to Ogden from Mexico at just 14-years-old, eventually meeting her mother. “They wanted a better live for themselves but more importantly for their children. And even though my father and my mother didn’t have even a high school degree, they knew the importance that by having an education, their daughter could do better in life,” says Anderson.
Anderson’s father worked for the very railroad that opened Ogden to the world, hard work that still defines our untamed city. When asked why it’s important to share her family’s story, Anderson replies, “I think it’s extremely important, not just for myself and for my father, but for the communities of color. There are so many different communities of color that were a part of creating Ogden, Utah. That is what makes our city absolutely beautiful and diverse.”
Just as the Office of Community Engagement and 2892 Miles to Go hoped, the students not only learned how to develop a podcast, but how far Ogden has progressed. “I really enjoyed learning about her (Anderson’s) childhood. It was really different from now. It wasn’t as diverse and she experience a lot of discrimination,” says Aleksah.
Subsequent series episodes focus on multigenerational Ogdenites, including Steven Lindquist, the descendant of two of Ogden’s most famous families—Browning and Lindquist. Brownings settled the Ogden Vally back in 1850, the Lindquists moved to Ogden in 1885. Students Vander Geiger and Titus Woodbury heard tales from Lindquist describing how John Browning, with the help of his brother Matthew, designed and constructed the famous Browning rifles. “By going into deep focus we learned about Matthew, who is often overlooked,” says Geiger. “I really had a desire to tell Matthew’s story more.”
Megan Oleson and her partner Scarlett Solomon sat down with the owners of Ogden’s iconic Topper Bakery, Lance DeRyke with his mother Valeen. They had 82 years of history to cover since this multigenerational business was established back in 1939. From original owner Harry DeRyke being shot, to a devastating fire in 2021, Topper Bakery survived, still supplying the famous buns for Burger Bar. “When I told my grandma who I was interviewing, she told me how she went to Topper Bakery every week for a donut. It was neat to hear the history and connect it to my family,” says Solomon.
As these students gathered to watch the finished product, Mayor Ben Nadolski stopped in to congratulate and cheer on the spirit behind the podcast saying, “We can reach out and tell those stories of hardship. We can tell those Ogden stories of how it went from being hard to being successful. It gives people hope.” Now a new crop of students and interview subjects are needed to share more untold stories of Ogden’s history including The History of Union Station, Residents with Disabilities and New Americans. If know a student who would like to apply to produce an episode on “The Untold Stories of Ogden City”, head to the Ogden City Youth Podcast Application. You can listen and watch the podcast on most podcast platforms but you can actually watch the podcast on YouTube.