Ogden is home to many historical landmarks and buildings, and the group behind it all is the Landmark Commission. “Create places people love by embracing the past, gilding the present and envisioning the future,” is the mission statement for the Landmarks Commission.
Starting in the 1980s, nine members of the committee decided the guidelines, criteria and planning of preservation in the city. The mayor and the city councils appoint them to help with any additions, changes or even recommendations for any new buildings.
“Creating the Landmark Commission was a way of promoting historic preservation. It’s a way of making us eligible as a certified government for historic preservation,” said Barton Briarly, planning director for Ogden City, “it gives us some access to some grants. I think groups of local citizens were interested in historic preservation.”
Other than simply being nominated, for a building to become a landmark it has to be at least 50 years old, associated with an important event or person or has to be associated with a specific architectural style, craftsmanship and or neighborhood significance. Each building or street has its own criteria to meet.
Some of the buildings labeled as landmarks make up the Historic District, Jefferson District, 25th Street and the Eccles Art Center.
“For a historic district, it says that it’s a group of structures or buildings or sites which provide the area with a sense of uniqueness, areas with a major historical focal point or points within the area, relatively dense grouping of historic resources, and defineable by manmade and/or natural boundaries,” said Alyssa Girardeau, planning director for the Landmark Commission.
The application to name a building or structure as a landmark can be made by a person, a group or an association. With this process, it goes to the Landmarks Commission, gets forward recommendations to the city council and then a meeting is held to decide whether or not the structure is approved as a landmark.
“(25th Street) was a rough, tumble part of town. Once that railroads stopped running passenger trains in the ‘60s and ‘70s, it became a place people didn’t want to be, and then in the ‘90s you had a couple of businesses … that were the first two that went back down onto 25th Street and helped spearhead the movement to turn it into what it is today,” said Sarah Langson, one of the Committee Chairs for Landmarks.
Though it may seem easy to get a building to be a landmark, there can also be some struggle when it comes to construction and keeping the building from being torn down. “It happens now and then, but you’ve got something that a lot of times it’s just costly, a lot of my retrofitting, and get it to be able to use for modern use. You’ll have property owners that just want it, tear down,” Briarly said.
The community has been a real key factor in helping landmarks stay and not being torn down. With protests and petitions being put up, many of the buildings in downtown have been able to live another day.
“I love that the community is so connected to its history,” Langson said. “Everyone who’s lived in Ogden for a long period of time has a connection with the Union Station, with Egyptian Theater, even Ogden High. Even if you didn’t go to Ogden High, you still drove past it and were like, ‘That’s a really cool high school.’ There are others in this city that I think need to be on the registry that I think have an important place in Ogden’s history and need to be preserved so that they’re not torn down, so that we can still save that.”
