Union Station time capsule gives glimpse at Ogden in the 1920s, 1880s
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- Hope Eggett, curator of the Museums at Union Station, center, is assisted by Dave Tingey, grand master of masons in Utah, left, in removing the time capsule from the 1924 Union Station cornerstone Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- Attendees look over Union Station time capsule artifacts Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- Historian Charlie Trentelman, left, Hope Eggett, curator of the Museums at Union Station, center, and Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski, right, inspect an item from the Union Station time capsule Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- The time capsule from the Union Station cornerstone is displayed prior to being opened Friday May 31, 2024.
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- The time capsule in the Union Station cornerstone is visible for the first time in 100 years Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- A sampling of artifacts found in the Union Station time capsule are displayed Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- Hope Eggett, curator of the Museums at Union Station, addresses attendees at the Union Station cornerstone ceremony Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- Coppersmith Tim Nimtz, center, opens the Union Station time capsule Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- The cornerstone of the 1924 iteration of Ogden’s Union Station, pictured Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- From left, historian Charlie Trentelman; Hope Eggett, curator of the Museums at Union Station; Lorenzo Tibbitts, grand secretary of the Utah Masons Grand Lodge; and Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski study an artifact from the Union Station time capsule Friday, May 31, 2024.
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- Workers from Abstract Masonry Restoration remove bricks from above the Union Station cornerstone to access the entombed time capsule Friday, May 31, 2024.
OGDEN — Ogden opened a portal to the region’s past Friday evening.
One hundred years to the day that it was set into the cornerstone of what was to become the new Union Station, officials carefully extracted a time capsule during a special cornerstone ceremony Friday evening that brought together hundreds of dignitaries and other curious onlookers.
During a ceremony preceding the removal of the time capsule, master of ceremonies Shane Osguthorpe noted the significance of this year in the life of Union Station.
“Throughout this centennial year, we’re honoring and celebrating the impact of this amazing building behind me and its impact on our community over the past 100 years,” he said. “In its crudest definition, a building is a bunch of brick and mortar, right? … But we can go deeper and we can appreciate the utility of this space and what it’s contributed to our community over the last century. We can go even deeper and appreciate the aesthetics of its architecture and whatnot, but everything that I just mentioned are either things like brick and mortar or concepts like utility or economic impact.”
The time capsule was entombed in the cornerstone during a special cornerstone ceremony May 31, 1924. In addition to continuing items from the 1920s, the time capsule also included items that were placed in it from the 1889 iteration of Union Station, which had its cornerstone placed in the fall of 1888. The 1889 station was destroyed in a fire in 1923, but some of the contents of its time capsule were still salvageable.
“This evening, we have a unique experience to get a look at the people who inhabited this amazing community exactly 100 years ago today — the people who demanded this building be constructed in the wake of a huge community tragedy,” Osguthorpe said. “We’ll see lists of important political leaders of the time, key business leaders, we’ll have lists of stone masons and rail workers who were working in this building. But more importantly and more revealing than just names, we’ll get a glimpse what life was like 100 years ago today, and we’ll come away with a greater understanding of what the city of Ogden valued a century ago today.”
Hope Eggett, curator of the Museums at Union Station, said the station has carried on the spirit of those who made it come to fruition before giving a history of station construction in Ogden.
“This station is not just a building, but a symbol of our city’s growth and its heritage and, most importantly for this cornerstone, it is a symbol of the hope and the opportunity that leaders in 1924 saw in this station and the hope and the opportunity that is still surrounding the station today,” she said.
Following Eggett, Angelika Brewer — Ogden poet laureate — read a poem that was recited at the 1888 cornerstone ceremony along with a new piece celebrating the 2024 ceremony.
Dave Tingey, grand master of masons in Utah, also spoke on the importance of cornerstones and how Free Masons have helped celebrate their laying.
“The cornerstones that Free Masons set today are done symbolically,” he said. “Because of their heritage building cathedrals and other public structures, the Free Masons have, upon request, performed a special ceremony at the laying of cornerstones for buildings. They have done it to memorialize the purpose in which the structure was built and so that future generations could be reminded that this was important enough to spend a bit more time to celebrate the accomplishment.”
Just prior to the cornerstone ceremony Friday, workers with Abstract Masonry Restoration had removed several bricks from just above the cornerstone to reveal the copper box that had been used as a time capsule. With some effort, Eggett and Tingey were able to remove the box and take it to the Browning Theater for the next part of the program.
In the theater, Osguthorpe and Eggett were joined onstage by Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski, historian Charlie Trentelman and Lorenzo Tibbitts, grand secretary of the Utah Masons Grand Lodge, for the opening of the time capsule and to act as a panel of experts explaining and discussing each artifact removed from the time capsule.
Nadolski told attendees that Friday was a time for reflection.
“This is a moment of history to be proud of, and we have a long history and past to be proud of,” he said. “We may not be perfect, but we are Ogden, and Ogden is exactly what we want to be. It’s exactly where we want to be.”
Following this introduction, coppersmith Tim Nimtz and his assistant from TnT Copper Fabrication went about opening the time capsule. Unlike many time capsule reveals that have ended in disappointment because they’d become water-logged over the years due to bad sealing, it was quickly revealed the contents of the 1924 Union Station time capsule were dry and in very good shape for the time that had passed.
For nearly two hours, the panel of experts went through several items — both those that had been catalogued as being a part of the contents and a few surprises. Before getting into the time capsule itself, Eggett showed off a set of trowels and gavels that were used in the setting of the 1924 cornerstone and the remains of documents from the Veterans Fireman’s Association of Ogden laid alongside the cornerstone.
Artifacts included but were not limited to:
- A letter from the Union Pacific Railroad detailing the design of the 1924 station.
- 1924 timetables from the Union Pacific Railroad, Southern Pacific Railroad, the Ogden Union Railway & Depot Co., and the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.
- Several pieces of Free Mason memorabilia, including invitations to the 1924 and 1888 cornerstone ceremonies, lodge rosters and summons.
- Editions of the Ogden Standard-Examiner, Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake Telegram and Deseret News from the days preceding the 1924 cornerstone ceremony. An edition of the Park Record from just before the 1888 cornerstone ceremony also was pulled from the time capsule.
- A Monroe Doctrine centennial half-dollar coin.
- Tourism pamphlets for both Ogden and Salt Lake City.
- Books of city ordinances from 1881.
- Financial records for Ogden City from 1924.
- A copy of the building permit for the 1924 Union Station.
- Photos of the 1889 Union Station and the surrounding property.
- A petition to consider construction of a permanent rail depot in Ogden at a public meeting to be held at the Union Opera House dated Aug. 31, 1883.
Artifacts were laid out on tables in front of the stage for attendees to view after everything had been removed from the time capsule.
Eggett told the Standard-Examiner afterward that the evening was a huge success.
“It’s been such an honor to be able to see the amount of hope and what they were hoping to convey with what they wanted to tell the future about life in Ogden in 1924,” she said. “To be able to handle these artifacts and be where these people were was just incredible.”
She said there are plans to display the artifacts from the time capsule after a thorough cataloging process.
“We are going to be taking them in for some care and cataloging what we have,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll be doing some research on what exactly we have in our possession now that we can see what condition it is in and see all the surprises they added in there for us. After that, it will be on display, hopefully, in November at the big 100-year event on Nov. 22. Then we hope to do an exhibit on them in the future as well.”
As the people of Ogden in 1924 left a message for the people who would follow in 2024, Eggett says the city once again will have a chance to send their own message to the future.
“Right now, our cornerstone has been emptied of its original time capsule that lasted 100 years,” she said. “We’d like to leave a statement for the next 100 years about what we think about Ogden and Union Station today. We’ll be doing a series of public feedback engagement opportunities and really see what the community wants to put back in this box.”
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