This episode first aired in November 2013.
Generations of Ogdenites have grown up absorbing 25th Street’s legends of corruption, menace, and depravity. The rest of Utah has tended to judge Ogden — known in its first century as a “gambling hell” and tenderloin, and in recent years as a degraded skid row — by the street’s gaudy reputation. Present-day Ogden embraces the afterglow of 25th Street’s decadence and successfully promotes it to tourists.
In "25th Street Confidential," Val Holley traces Ogden’s transformation from quiet hamlet to chaotic transcontinental railroad junction as waves of non-Mormon fortune seekers swelled the city’s population. The street’s outsized role in Ogden annals illuminates larger themes in Utah and U.S. history. Most significantly, 25th Street was a crucible of Mormon-Gentile conflict.
Val Holley is an independent historian living in New York City. His "25th Street Confidential: Drama, Decadence, and Dissipation along Ogden’s Rowdiest Road" won the Utah Book Award in Nonfiction. His books also include: "James Dean: The Biography;" "Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip;" and "Frank J. Cannon: Saint, Senator, Scoundrel."
