Davenport Saloon

Read the date pressed into its parapet — 1901 — and note the fine basketweave brickwork: the Davenport was built to look respectable, and it housed a restaurant and the J.E. Davenport saloon. But it too belonged to Belle London, and it kept a secret. A private corridor just three feet wide ran from here to the neighboring London Ice Cream Parlor, giving discreet passage from 25th Street through to Electric Alley and the cribs behind. The building survives intact — one of the street's best-preserved fronts, hidden hallway and all.

What the plaque says

Built in 1901, this unaltered two-story brick building housed the Joseph Rogerson Restaurant and the J.E. Davenport and Co. Saloon. It was one of scores of buildings built to accommodate the crowds of travelers brought to Ogden by the Railroad. The design is Classical Revival in detail. The brick facade remains intact with its unique basketweave bond above the second story windows, garlands in pressed tin friezes, pediment parapet, and an inscription atop reads “1901.” Owned originally by the infamous Belle Topham, when the restaurant was built, a special arrangement was made with the London Ice Cream Parlor’s owner, whereby an independent three-foot wide corridor was built between the two buildings to permit direct access from 25th Street to Electric Alley.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ogden Union Station — steps away
  A grand 1924 train depot turned museum complex
• Snowbasin — 6.1 mi
  One of the country's oldest ski areas and a 2002 Olympic downhill venue — world-class terrain that somehow still skis uncrowded.
• Hill Aerospace Museum — 7.2 mi
  Over 90 military aircraft displayed indoors and on the tarmac
• Powder Mountain — 15 mi
  The largest ski resort in the United States by acreage — a famously uncrowded "PowMow" now remaking itself under Netflix's Reed Hastings.

More markers nearby

• London Ice Cream Parlor — steps away
• The Union Restaurant & Switch Euro. Lodgings — steps away
• The Solomon C. Stephens Building — steps away
• Porter Block — steps away