OGDEN, TEXAS (Cottle County). Ogden is on Farm Road 2532, two miles north of U.S. Highway 70 and twelve miles northeast of Paducah in east central Cottle County. The area was first settled in the 1880s. A post office, with John M. Wilson as postmaster, was established on April 17, 1894, and named Blanche for Blanche McAdams. About 1909 the community's name was changed to Ogden, for newcomer Alfred Ogden, a wealthy landowner from Massachusetts. The post office assumed the new name on January 28, 1911, and served the area until it was discontinued and moved to Swearingen on January 31, 1917. By 1915 the town reported a population of 300. Although a school had existed for several years previously, a new building was erected in 1911 and by 1917 housed some 100 students. The school was expanded in 1917 and in 1929 but was consolidated with the Paducah school in 1936. The absence of a railroad or main highway brought about a decline, and by 1940 Ogden was reduced to one operating store and a population of twenty. County maps of 1980 indicate the community's presence, although no businesses are evident.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ed Ellsworth Bartholomew, The Encyclopedia of Texas Ghost Towns (Fort Davis, Texas, 1982). Carmen Taylor Bennett, Our Roots Grow Deep: A History of Cottle County (Floydada, Texas: Blanco Offset Printing, 1970).

Charles G. Davis