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For those who may be unfamiliar with the County, we offer a brief introduction. Davis County is Utah's smallest county in land area. It is a narrow strip of land only 223 square miles but is the third largest county in population. An estimated 248,000 residents live in the County's fifteen communities. Frequented by Shoshone Indians during historic times, the area was among the first settled by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847. The lush lake-bottom pastures, fertile soils of the bench lands, and streams flowing out of the high Wasatch Mountains on the east attracted early settlers, who established small farms and close-knit communities. These early settlers established schools, built homes and churches, and created productive farms and shops.
Named after the early pioneer leader, Daniel C. Davis, the County was established as a territory in 1850. The territorial legislature created Davis County in 1852 and designated its County seat at Farmington, midway between boundaries at the Weber River on the north and the mouth of the Jordan River on the south. Westward, the County includes a portion of the Great Salt Lake and its largest island, on which Antelope Island State Park is now located. During its first half-century, Davis County grew slowly. It supported a hardy pioneer people engaged in irrigation agriculture and stock raising. The Utah Central Railroad (now the Union Pacific) crossed the County from Ogden on the north to Salt Lake City on the south in 1870 and offered welcome transportation links to bring in manufactured products. This was the beginning of a transition in the County's history that led to mechanized agriculture and a surge of commerce, banking, and local business, along with improved roads, new water systems, and the electrification of homes and businesses. After the turn of the century, the County's 8,000 residents joined in a chorus of boosterism that encouraged growth, but by 1940 the population was barely 16,000. The small family farms and local businesses could support no greater increase. Consequently, many of the younger generation left for new settlements in northern Utah and nearby Idaho and Wyoming. As the age of the automobile and interurban railways created greater mobility, many County citizens looked to Ogden and Salt Lake City for employment and cultural enrichment. Market gardens, dairy farms, beef cattle, orchards, and fields of grain and sugar beets continued to sustain local farmers. World War II then introduced a new way of life in Davis County. The establishment of Hill Air Force Base in northern Davis County and other defense installations nearby created a surge of civilian employment. Hill AFB quickly became and remains the state's largest employer. Diversification brought rapid post-war growth. The County doubled in population between 1940 and 1950, and doubled again in the next decade. Between 1960 and 1980, the population doubled again, from 65,000 to 147,000. By 1990 the population had reached 188,000 and the 2000 census recorded 238,994. Being the fastest growing of the four major urban communities along the Wasatch Front, Davis County is projected to build out with a population of about 360,000 by the year 2030.
Accompanying this growth has been a diversification of population and a new prosperity. Davis County now enjoys a wide mix of people representing many ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. The County has moved from its traditional agricultural dependency to an interlocking network of suburban communities around a core of original towns with a closeness in proximity to downtown Salt Lake City. The communications age has tied Davis County to the world. Its citizens today are part of an economic and social pattern that reaches far beyond the County's tiny geographical limits.
Today, many nationally known commercial, industrial, recreational, and service companies provide diversified employment opportunities for residents of Northern Utah. The Freeport Center is the largest distribution center in the United States with more than nine million square feet of covered storage and five million square feet of open storage occupied by more than 125 nationally renowned companies.
Source: http://www.daviscountyutah.gov
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WEBER COUNTY
Area: 644 square miles; population: 158,330 (in 1990); county seat: Ogden; origin of county name: from early trapper John Weber; principal cities/towns: Ogden (63,909), Roy (24,603), South Ogden (12,105), North Ogden (11,668), Washington Terrace (8,189); economy: defense, transportation, warehousing, distribution, retailing, tourism, recreation, health care, printing; points of interest: Ogden Union Station (Browning Firearms Museum, Browning Kimball Vintage Car Collection), Fort Buenaventura State Park, Pineview Reservoir, Willard Bay State Park, Snow Basin, Powder Mountain, Nordic Valley, Ogden's Historic 25th Street, Ogden Nature Center, Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville, Weber State College, Eccles Community Art Center.
Weber County has long been the crossroads of Utah and the Intermountain West. Its eastern boundary is the spine of the Wasatch Mountains with their towering peaks and sharp valleys. It extends west into Great Salt Lake. Both mountains and flatlands are laced by the Ogden and Weber rivers and their tributaries.
Nomadic Shoshone, Ute, and prehistoric Indians favored the area for centuries, hunting in the mountains and foothills and fishing in the streams. Mounds near the confluence of the Weber and Ogden rivers contain remains of their camps.
American and British mountain men entered the area in the early 1800s, trapping beaver and trading with the Indians. In 1824 Jim Bridger became the first white man to report sighting Great Salt Lake. Peter Skene Ogden traversed the high valley just behind the Wasatch Front in 1825 and is remembered in the name of the area's largest city--although he never visited the actual site. The first accurate maps of the area were drawn by John C. Fremont, after he visited the mouth of the Weber River in 1843.
Permanent settlement began in 1843 when horse trader/trapper Miles Goodyear built a fort and trading post on the banks of the Weber River, near where it meets the Ogden River. Late in 1847 he sold his claim to James Brown, a veteran of the Mormon Battalion, for $1,950 in gold coins, and the property became Brown's Fort, also known as Brownsville. Within three years the community had 1,141 residents and its name was changed permanently to Ogden and the surrounding area designated as Weber County.Growth accelerated in 1869 when the nation's first transcontinental railroad was completed on 10 May at Promontory Summit, sixty miles northwest of Ogden; the junction for transfer of rolling stock, passengers, and freight was quickly moved to more conveniently located Ogden, nicknamed "Junction City." Other industries established included woolen mills, canneries, livestock yards, flour mills, breweries, iron works, banks, hotels, and telephone, telegraph, and power companies. Ogden inventor John M. Browning patented in 1879 a new, single-shot rifle--the first of more than 100 firearms developed by the Brownings and sold all over the world.
Weber County's next sizeable population explosion came just before and during World War II when the military built Defense Depot Ogden in northern Weber County and Hill Air Force Base and the Naval Supply Depot in nearby Davis County. DDO and Hill continue to provide many jobs for Weber County residents. The war also placed increased demands on the transportation network, and as many as 150 regular and special trains moved through Ogden's Union Station on many days in 1944.
Weber County has definitely entered the space age. A number of aerospace industries have offices and other facilities here, and manufacturing plants produce powerful, miniature, jet engines for aircraft and missiles and Jetway loading bridges for airports worldwide. Weber State University (with some 13,000 students), the U.S. Forest Service regional headquarters, the IRS Service Center, and the McKay-Dee and St. Benedict's hospitals are among the county's major employers in the 1990s.
Murray M. Moler |
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