Written by Susan Snyder
“Good good morning, at the Ogden Nature Center.
Good, good morning on this brand-new day.
Good, good morning at the Ogden Nature Center.
Good, good morning. We’re glad you came to play!”
If you are 4 years old, your Nature Center class likely starts with this song, written by former teacher-naturalist Cheyenne Herlandstein. Your naturalist teacher asks what you saw, heard, smelled, or felt when you walked in. You tell them, and then everyone sings about it.
A deer in the field. The musty smell of rain. The crunch, crunch of fallen leaves under your feet. The cold wind on your face. All.... Those.... Birdhouses! These are the things that memories are made of, and Ogden Nature Center has been making memories for 50 years.
What started as farmland-turned-military-surplus acreage became a nature center – at least in concept – during a January 1974 meeting of locals in the basement of Elim Lutheran Church in Ogden. James Dolph, a Weber State history professor, had previously lived in a city that had a nature center and he thought Ogden needed one. About 15 people attended, including Jack Greene who later would be ONC’s executive director. Dolph served as board chairman. Greene also had experience spending time in a nature center in Michigan, which he says influenced his decision to be involved.
“We both became infected with the nature center bug, which we later learned is terminal, leading to the ONC concept that we delivered to Ogden City with their newly acquired DDO property,” Greene said.
A little more than a year later, on May 19, 1975, the “Greater Ogden Community Nature Center” articles of incorporation were approved, creating a place “for the purpose of providing a center where man and nature can be reunited for education, scientific, cultural, recreational, and spiritual pursuit.”
“The result was the first community nature center in the Intermountain West,” Greene said. “Today, I conjecture it is one of the top nature centers in the USA. So I am far more than pleased, beyond our wildest dreams!”
Wild West Past
Even before ONC was created, so much had already happened on those wild 132 acres. The once-indigenous land, like much of what became the American West, had been colonized by the Spanish empire as far back as the mid-1500s.
In 1841, fur-trapper and explorer Miles Goodyear acquired a vast area that includes present-day ONC property as part of a Spanish land grant from Mexico. His acquisition ran from the mouth of Weber Canyon, 16 miles north along the base of Wasatch Mountains, then west to the Great Salt Lake, then south along the lake’s shore to a point opposite Weber Canyon, then east to the mouth of Weber Canyon.
In 1848, settler James Brown bought a parcel that included the present-day ONC property, and in 1872, William Hodson purchased the land, where he built a house for his wife and growing family. That house is the Nature Center farmhouse that stands today near the front of the center and is used as intern and employee housing.
William Hodson deeded the home and its acreage to his son, Delbert, who remodeled the house in 1912. Carl Hodson was born to Delbert and Elizabeth Hodson in 1921. He was the last generation of the Hodson clan to live in that farmhouse. In a 2007 oral history, the late Carl Hodson gave to Weber State University Special Collections, he recalled what it was like growing up along 12th Street in the first half of the 20th Century.
“When I was young, 12th Street was practically a one-lane road, and it was dirt, and hardly a car ever went up or down it. Once in a while, I used to drive a herd of milk cows up and down 12th Street to the pasture every night and morning,” Hodson said.
World at War and Change
The family was forced to move out of the farmhouse in 1941 when the U.S. government condemned and took possession of the Hodson land and that of the surrounding area to build a military supply depot. Some 52 families were displaced. When Carl Hodson married that year, his father moved the “wash house” from the old homestead to land on the other side of 12th Street and divided it into two rooms.
“My wife Louise and I moved into it in 1941, and we lived there in the two rooms until we had three children,” Hodson said in the oral history. “No running water. We heated our water on a coal stove, and the bathroom was out in the backyard. Once a week was what we bathed at that time. We had a wash tub that we put our heated water in.”
From 1943 to 1946, part of the now-military depot land was used as an internment camp for Italian and German officers who were prisoners of war.
Two guard shacks from ONC’s military past still stand along the fenceline - one of them facing 12th Street and the other near Picnic Grove facing 1200 West. A concrete military bunker, which now serves as dry, secure storage for ONC event equipment and historical files, stands near the center’s northeast corner.
WSU Special Collections contains numerous photos of the camp and its activities, including artwork the prisoners created, a soccer game between the Italian and German prisoners, and choir performances by local students. The prisoners provided agricultural and other labor needed at the time.
The Making of a Nature Preserve
The military continued use of the land until 1973, when it disposed of 307 acres as surplus and divided it into several parcels. Some of the uses the Defense Department proposed included a U.S. Army Reserve training center, an 18-hole golf course, or a Weber County multi-recreational facility. It was decided that Parcel F’s 132.3 acres would be deeded to Ogden City and used as a wildlife preserve and drainage retention basin for Ogden City. This parcel did not include the old Hodson home and the 2 acres on which it sits.
Greene recalled those early days when they were working through what kinds of activities or focus the center would offer. Greene said one concept was to build a small urban farm with a petting zoo – a concept he had seen at Minnesota’s Dodge Nature Center.
“Thus, rounding up some farm animals was high on the list of priorities,” Greene said. “We had animals donated by a lovely ranch near Eden in Ogden Valley. All we had to do was catch them!”
So Greene, accompanied by five teens Weber County had assigned to do community service for “various sorts of mischief,” went up to the ranch and caught the animals by hand. “I’m confident these five boys have never forgotten the wild goose chase that ensued,” Greene said. In addition to actual geese, they captured a sheep, two goats, a burro, ducks, chickens, rabbits, and peacocks. They transported the animals to the center in several trips using an old Ford pickup and a handful of cages.
In The Early Days...
Yae Bryner is a longtime ONC supporter and was one of the first people to bring students to the center for field trips. In the years immediately following ONC’s opening, members of the Junior League donated money and time toward creating the center’s first school field experiences.
“We needed to pilot an education program so we could get the school district to buy in,” she said. “For me, I grew up on a farm. And to have the kids know more about the land, well, I just thought that was really important. At the time she taught second grade at Gramercy Elementary and took her students to the center monthly for field trips. Times were a bit more lenient in the safety department. Bryner and a trusted classroom volunteer, Joan Douglas, transported the children in a converted Eddy’s Bread truck. Douglas’ husband had converted it into a vehicle he used for hunting, so it was mainly an empty compartment with just the driver and passenger seats up front. They piled the kids inside and drove the 3 miles to ONC. Field trips in those days started in the area that is now Picnic Grove. There was a ropes course with a rope for swinging across the canal. Bryner recalled a field trip in early spring 1979 when she demonstrated the feat for her students - while she was five months pregnant. “I forgot that your center of gravity changes when you’re five months pregnant,” she said. “I didn’t go quite far enough to get to the other side. So I thought I would just swing back and try again. But I didn’t swing back far enough, either. So there I was dangling above the water. There was nothing I could do but drop in. It was so cold!” She laughed, recalling how the only dry clothing available was a set of long johns that Douglas’ husband had left in the truck. So she sported those for the rest of the field trip.
Decades of Growth
The center finally acquired the Hodson farmhouse around 1980 and opened its first visitor center. By 1995, the current visitor center had been built. And nine years later, the L.S. Peery Education Building was completed. That project included a weekend of community volunteers building the straw bale wall on the north side. Dan Dailey, founder of the Grounds for Coffee brand and company, was among the volunteers who built the wall. He said it was where he learned about straw bale design.
“Working alongside architect Wayne Bingham, who specialized in this construction method, I was inspired to build a small experimental shed of my own together with my 15-year-old son,” Dailey said. “Years later, when my son was getting married and in need of a home, we turned to Bingham to design a straw bale house that is now his family residence,” he said. “This is just one example of the positive influence the Ogden Nature Center has on its community, and I am grateful for their presence and always happy to support their mission.”
The first two decades of the 2000s have been a time of immense program and facility growth, with field trips filling in nearly all months of the school year, a professional, paid education staff, an Americorps internship program, expanded community programs, and a full schedule of summer camps for children ages 2 to 17.
Stefanie Zwygart, ONC education director from 2009-2022, said helping the education experiences grow was both a challenge and a joy. Field trip students now receive free binoculars and bird guides, or plant presses, or aquatic bug boxes to continue learning at home, she said. And securing state education funding for the Informal Science Education Enhancement (iSEE) program has resulted in ONC educators being sent to teach first graders statewide.
“With iSEE, that was a year of lobbying, and that was way out of my comfort zone,” Zwygart said. “It allowed us to double the size of our education staff, double our education operating budget, purchase vehicles, and expand the nature center’s reach across Utah. In the middle of nowhere, kids didn’t have those experiences. Now they do.”
Zwygart recalled a few funny times - like the summer camp when it was so incredibly hot that naturalists didn’t put rain flys on any of the campers’ tents. Of course, sometime after midnight, an unforecasted rainstorm hit.
“We were pushing sleeping kids aside, digging around for rain flys and trying to get them on the tents,” she said. “The kids were the best part of the job. You’d tell them something like, ‘turtles breathe out of their butts,’ and their eyes would light up. That's what I miss. I miss that every day. Those funny stories.”
Mary McKinley, who served as executive director from 2003 to 2022, was first hired in 1997 as the center’s marketing and development person. McKinley saw some of the biggest growth and change at the center.
“I became the executive director of the Ogden Nature Center at a pivotal time in its history. By 2003 a solid foundation had been established, and a clearly laid out strategic plan had been created,” McKinley said. “Education programs, community events, and land enhancements grew greatly, thanks to passionate, dedicated, and creative staff and volunteers.” McKinley said it was impossible to choose just one project or program that stood out during her tenure. “There were many of significance,” she said. “The LS Peery Education Center building, the Susie Hulet solar array, eagle enclosures, a new huge storm water detention pond and other water projects, a robust noxious weed and habitat restoration program, the LS Peery Nature Nook Playscape, and more, including getting into motion the renovation of the Picnic Grove."
Members of ONC staff also recall some of McKinley’s other talents, such as chasing the experimental herd of weed-control goats away from the buffet at BASH – wearing a dress. And no one will forget her wearing her mushroom hat every Earth Day. There are still children in Ogden who remember McKinley as “the mushroom hat lady."
“I loved seeing community events and involvement grow, and watching the next generation fall in love with this wonderful place,” McKinley said.
Today...
Laura Western, who just celebrated her first year as executive director, said there are so many things she has already grown to love at the Nature Center.
“I love the calm that nature brings into my life. It creates introspection and growth as I reflect on the beauty of the world," Western said. “I also love to see the children who come here for field trips or with their families. Their sweet smiles and enthusiasm to be at ONC is so much fun to see.”
Brandi Bosworth, who has held several volunteer, board of directors, and staff positions at ONC since 1995 and now is the center’s communications manager, said ONC has been a huge part of her family’s life. Her daughter Lily grew up on the center’s trails.
Lily spent countless hours at ‘mom's work’ chasing frogs, building forts, snowshoeing, and wandering free-range on the trails,” Bosworth said. “Her pack always had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, rocks, twigs, leaves, bugs, and other treasures. Lily knew the nature center's trails so well, she helped lead media tours, telling writers about the best spots on the preserve."
Bosworth said even after nearly 30 years of involvement, she never tires of the place. "My office window overlooks a meadow, a gorgeous vista of tall grasses which catch the light of day, and the colors are constantly changing,” she said. “Watching this vista morph through the seasons is my favorite part of the nature center.”
"There are also volunteers who have been around the Nature Center way longer than me! Like Linda Babcock, who worked at ONC for many years, and then kept her love of the Nature Center alive by volunteering to coordinate the Birdhouses Competition for the past 30 plus years," said Bosworth.
Sarah Lambson, education director, said she was smitten from her first day.
“Working for a non-profit like Ogden Nature Center was a dream of mine for nearly a decade before it was realized,” Lambson said. “Walking down Birdhouse Trail for the first time was a magical experience as I anticipated the fulfilling years ahead.” She said she values the sense of community, dedicated staff, and “infectious passion” the staff has for advancing the center’s mission and preservation.
“As we celebrate 50 years and look towards the future, my hope is that Ogden Nature Center and its staff unflinchingly embrace the possibilities of growth, innovation, and inclusion as we seek to connect even more members of our community to the natural world around them,” Lambson said. “There is so much untapped potential for a place like this.”
