But however fabulous that may be, we know of a surety that on July 29, 1776, two Franciscan friars set out from Santa Fé to find a direct route to the Pacific Ocean. In their wanderings they strayed far to the north, where they came across many representatives of the Utes, who proved to be a loving, faithful, hospitable people. From their lips the Spaniards heard the first description ever listened to by white men of the region of country containing the present site of Ogden. "The lake," the Utes said, "occupies many leagues. Its waters are injurious and extremely salt. He that wets any part of his body in this water immediately feels an itching in the wet parts. In the circuit of this lake live a numerous and quiet nation called Puaguampe. They feed on herbs, and drink from various fountains or springs of good water which are about the lake, and they have their little houses of grass and earth, which latter forms the roof." So the Great Salt Lake makes its entrance into comparatively modern American history. In 1825, Peter Skeen Ogden, accompanied by his party of Hudson Bay Company trappers, pursued his brilliant adventures, and left behind a record which induced the naming of the city after him. In 1841, the country around the spot where the city now lies was held, on a Spanish grant, by Miles M. Goodyear, who built a fort and a few log-houses near the confluence of the Weber and Ogden rivers. On June 6, 1848, a man named James Brown came from California with his pockets stuffed with gold dust; nearly five thousand dollars' worth of the precious thing had he. With part of it he bought this tract of land from Goodyear. It proved to be a most fertile spot. Brethren came to it from Salt Lake City. Gentiles came from everywhere. The settlement grew and prospered. In 1849, people began to talk of locating a city right there at the junction of the two rivers. In 1850, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and others, laid out the settlement and called it Ogden, after Peter Skeen Ogden, the explorer, long since dead, but whose dashing, daring, brilliant adventures were still charming to the men of that wild land. Every time the city's name is mentioned it is another proof that although, "The man might die, his memory lives." Before a year was over a school house was built in the city. Then came that un-American sight, a wall of protection built around a city. It cost $40,000, which amount was raised by taxation. About this time several suburban settlements were formed, but bears, wolves, and Indians soon drove the venturesome suburbanites within city limits.