The city had planned to demolish the candy factory and did so the morning after the fire. (Ogden City Landmarks Department)

On the night of Mar. 11, residents of Ogden, Utah, watched as one of their city landmarks burned to the ground. The next morning, a wrecking ball demolished what was left of the century-old Shupe-Williams Candy Factory, located downtown. No one was hurt in the blaze, which also damaged several rail cars stored behind the factory. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

Designed by local architect Leslie Hodgson in 1906, the National Register-listed building had been vacant since the factory closed in 1968. Last fall the city, which owned the building, announced its plans to demolish it.

"The city has been trying all that time to find someone interested in buying and restoring the building," says Dave Hermer, the director of community and economic development. "Even though it was a factory, it added to the charm of the city." Yet many potential buyers were put off by the cost of rehabilitating the factory, Hermer says.

The condition of the long-vacant building had been a growing concern in the city. Don Heartly, a historical architect for the Utah Division of State History, inspected the building last fall and found that though there was some neglect, there was no evidence of vandalism. "The city had done a pretty good job of keeping it boarded securely," he says. Although an addition the building had some structural damage, overall, Heartly says the Shupe-Williams building was in no worse condition than other warehouses in the Ogden that had been successfully rehabilitated.

The city was negotiating with the newly formed Ogden-Weber Museum, Inc., which was interested in using the factory as a museum dedicated to local history.

"It was probably one of the last examples of Ogden's heyday," says Jason Rusch, who helped form the group, adding that several other historic buildings in Ogden have been lost in recent years. "It's an incredibly devastating loss, not just to our organizations, but to the community," he says, pointing out that there were many former employees of the factory still living in the Ogden area. Rusch hopes that the group will be able raise funds, possibly by selling bricks from the factory, to buy the land from the city and to build a new museum on the same site.

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