Twenty six acres, and who runs them
2450 A Avenue A Weber County park Printed in the county record as FT. BUENAVENTURA
Fort Buenaventura is a Weber County park inside the Ogden city limits, at 2450 A Avenue, and the county's own parks index prints it in capitals as FT. BUENAVENTURA. The acreage the county publishes is 26, in a sentence that leads with the recreation rather than the history: a 26 acre fort offering a wide range of amenities for outdoor recreation, including an 18 hole disc golf course, fishing and the historic fort.
Twenty six is the number that matters because a much larger one circulates. Campground directories describe an 84 acre river tract at this address, and the county, which owns the ground, says 26. The county wins, and the other figure is worth knowing only so it can be recognised and set aside. Weber County Parks and Recreation runs the site out of an office at 1181 N Fairgrounds Drive in Ogden, on 801-399-8230.
What is actually on those acres, in the county's own list: two large pavilions, group camp sites, limited electricity with a fee, potable water, restrooms, showers with a fee, fires allowed in designated areas, a picnic area, a pond and a community fishery, alongside the reconstructed fort and the disc golf course. That is a full day use park by any measure, and it appears on no Ogden City list because Ogden City does not own it.
The three owners problem, seen from here
This site is the clearest single example of a pattern that runs through the whole city. Ogden City publishes an index of 38 parks and neither this nor Observatory Park up the road is on it, because both belong to Weber County. The Ogden Nature Center is missing for a third reason, being a private charity. And the Dinosaur Park is missing for a fourth, being city owned but managed under contract. Four different explanations for four absences from one list, and 104 acres of county park inside the city limits is the largest of them.
School programmes, and the one date the county publishes
Weber County runs hands on history lessons here on the second Friday of May each year, and its own wording is worth quoting: there is no cost, but you must have a reservation. Registration goes through 801-399-8230. That is one of very few dates the county commits to in print anywhere on this site, which makes it more useful than its size suggests for anybody planning a school year rather than a weekend.
The details
Getting there
A Avenue runs south off 24th Street west of the rail yards, into the bottomland where the two rivers meet, and the county's entrance and lot are at the end of it. Weber County Parks and Recreation answers on 801-399-8230, which is the number to use because the hours are not published anywhere.
Before you go
- Twenty six acres, per the county. The 84 acre figure comes from campground directories and is not the owner's.
- It is a county park inside a city, which is why no Ogden City parks map shows it.
- Showers and electricity both carry fees on the county's schedule; the picnic ground and the fort do not.
- The second Friday of May is the school programme date, free, by reservation only.
Two founding dates, and two issuing bodies
1846 or 1843 County against state Neither says what is original
The whole of Weber County's history text for this site is one sentence: Fort Buenaventura was built in 1846 by Miles Goodyear on the Weber River. That is all the county publishes, and it is the date almost everything about Ogden repeats, including the practical city guide on this site.
The Utah Division of State History tells it differently on its own Weber County page. There, Miles Goodyear established a trading post in 1843, and James Brown bought the property in 1847 for 1,950 dollars in gold, creating Brown's Fort, which became Ogden. A trading post established in 1843 and a fort built in 1846 are not the same claim, and both come from bodies with standing to make one.
This page prints both, attributed, and merges neither. What is genuinely useful about the disagreement is that it is visible at all: two public bodies with a stake in the same ground publish two different starting dates for it, three miles apart, and anyone writing about early Ogden has to pick one or say so. Saying so is the honest option.
What is original and what is reconstructed is not published
Neither Weber County nor the Utah Division of State History says, on the pages read on 21 August 2026, which structures on this site are original and which are reconstruction. The practical city guide on this site calls it a replica fort and living history site on or near the spot, without a source. This page asserts neither that any structure is original nor that none is, because no issuing body supports either statement. It is a real gap in the public record about a site that predates the state.
The river half of the story lives elsewhere
The fort sits at the confluence of the Ogden and the Weber, and the trail organisation of record describes canoe access from it. That relationship, the confluence itself, the trail counter at that end of the corridor and the two state community fisheries that sit one on each river are on the parkways page. This page takes the fort as a park and leaves the water to the water page.
The details
Getting there
Weber County's Fort Buenaventura page carries the 1846 sentence. The Utah Division of State History's Weber County page carries the 1843 trading post and the 1847 purchase. Read both and you have the whole of the public record on this point.
Before you go
- Weber County: built in 1846 by Miles Goodyear on the Weber River.
- Utah Division of State History: a trading post established in 1843, bought by James Brown in 1847 for 1,950 dollars in gold.
- Neither body says what on the site today is original and what is reconstruction.
- Print both dates or print neither. Merging them into one is the mistake almost every page here makes.
The disc golf course, and the world championship it held
18 holes 4 dollars a player Host of the 2021 world championships
Weber County calls it a world class, professional 18 hole disc golf course, and that phrase has an event behind it: the course hosted the 2021 PDGA Disc Golf World Championships. Individual play is four dollars a player for the eighteen, which is the cheapest round of anything in this city that is not a pool.
There is a pro shop on site and it is called Disctracted, which is the sort of detail that only ever comes from the operator's own page and never from a listings site. The course also carries a tournament structure in the county's fee schedule: four dollars a player for a tournament entry, and a hundred dollars a day to close the course for one. A county that prices course closure by the day is a county that gets asked.
The Black Powder Shooting Range appears on the same fee schedule at 40 dollars an hour, which is the fort's other bookable facility and is listed here as a fact about what the county rents rather than as a recommendation of any kind.
What four dollars actually buys
An eighteen hole round on a course a national body chose for a world championship, inside the city limits, six minutes from the middle of town, on ground that also holds a fishing pond and a reconstructed fort. Set against the city's own golf schedule, where nine holes on a municipal course runs 17 dollars on a weekday, the arithmetic is stark. For a household that wants an outdoor afternoon on a budget, this is the best value gate in Ogden after the three dollar swim.
The fee schedule carries no effective date
Every price on Weber County's fee page, including the four dollar round, is published without any effective date, confirmed again on 21 August 2026. That means a figure quoted from it is a reading rather than a rate, and the only responsible way to print one is with the date it was read. This page does that throughout, and anybody planning a tournament budget around these numbers should ring the county rather than trust a page, including this one.
The details
Getting there
Park in the county lot at the end of A Avenue. The pro shop on site is called Disctracted and is the practical place to ask about course conditions, because the county publishes none.
Before you go
- Four dollars a player, on a course that held the 2021 PDGA world championships.
- The county's fee page has no effective date on it. Every price is a reading, not a rate.
- A hundred dollars a day closes the course, which is how tournaments book it.
- The Black Powder Shooting Range is a separate bookable facility at 40 dollars an hour on the same schedule.
Group camping only, and the whole fee schedule
1 May to mid October No individual sites Twelve published lines
Weber County states it flatly: there are no individual sites at Fort Buenaventura. Camping here is group camping, booked through the county's reservation platform, and it runs between 1 May and mid October, weather depending. Directories claiming the park is closed from Thanksgiving to Easter imply a far longer season than the county's own and should be set aside.
The fee schedule is unusually complete for a county park and worth reading in full before booking anything. The Traders and Trappers group sites take up to 50 people at 140 dollars a night, with each additional person a dollar fifty. There is an hourly option for up to 50 people, Monday to Thursday excluding holidays, at 15 dollars an hour with a three hour maximum. The Shores Area, for up to 100 people, is 200 dollars a day. Showers are 5 dollars each. The Education Center is 100 dollars a day or 15 dollars an hour with a three hour cap. The activities area is 40 dollars an hour with a two hour minimum and a three hour maximum for up to 150 people. Racing events inside the park are 2 dollars a participant a day or a dollar a spectator.
One line on that schedule the county prices and never explains: the Shores Area. It appears with a price and a capacity and nothing else, no description, no map, no photograph, and the fort's own page does not use the word at all. This page names it and declines to describe it, because inference dressed as fact is how bad pages get written.
The reservation timing, printed as the county wrote it
The county's own front page carries a line about when group site reservations open, and it reads, in the county's wording, that 2026 group site reservations open on Monday, November 3, 2026, with online booking at 6 in the morning, phone at 8 and in person at 8. The year pairing in that sentence is internally odd, since a November 2026 opening for 2026 sites has already passed its own season, and it is reproduced here exactly as the county published it rather than corrected into something the county did not say.
Canoes: access, not rental
The county's Fort Buenaventura page shows canoe use in photographs and states no rental. The fee schedule carries no canoe line. What the Trails Foundation of Northern Utah publishes is that the fort offers canoe access, which is a different claim and the only one supported. Bring a boat rather than expecting to hire one, and treat the circulating figure of five dollars an hour for a canoe as unsourced, because it appears nowhere on the county's fee page.
The details
Getting there
Booking runs through the county's reservation platform rather than through the park itself, and Weber County Parks and Recreation on 801-399-8230 is the number for anything the platform does not answer.
Before you go
- No individual campsites. Group only, which rules out a casual overnight for two.
- Every price on the schedule is undated. Confirm before budgeting.
- The Shores Area is priced at 200 dollars a day and described nowhere by the county.
- Canoe access is published by the trail organisation; canoe rental is published by nobody.
The pond, and the second state fishery on this ground
Same address A Utah community fishery Two bodies on one pond
The pond at Fort Buenaventura is a Utah Division of Wildlife Resources community fishery, listed at the same 2450 A Avenue address as the county park. That is two issuing bodies on one piece of water: Weber County runs the park around it and the state runs the fishery in it, with the state's own guidebook governing licences and limits rather than anything the county publishes.
The county names fishing in its headline description of the site, alongside the disc golf and the fort, which puts it among the three things the owner thinks the park is for. For anyone with a rod and an afternoon, that combination of a stocked community fishery, a free walkable park and a four dollar disc golf course inside the city limits is a genuinely unusual set of options in one lot.
The other fishery, and which river each sits on
There are two community fisheries on this corridor and they sit one to a river. The one at the fort is on the Weber side. The other, 21st Street Pond, is on the Ogden side and is listed by the state under a different name entirely, which is a trap for anybody searching. Both, and the confluence between them, belong to the parkways page rather than to this one; what belongs here is simply that the fort's pond is one of them.
Licences are a state matter
Nothing about fishing here is set by Weber County. The Division of Wildlife Resources publishes the season, the limits and the licence requirement in its own guidebook, it changes them from year to year, and it has issued emergency rule changes elsewhere in this county within the last twelve months. Check the state's current guidebook rather than any page describing the park, this one included.
The details
Getting there
The pond sits inside the park grounds and is reached from the same lot at the end of A Avenue. The state's community fisheries index is where it is listed; the county's park page is where the park around it is.
Before you go
- Two bodies, one pond: a county park and a state fishery at the same address.
- Licences, seasons and limits come from the Division of Wildlife Resources, not from Weber County.
- Fishing is one of three things the county names in its own headline description of this park.
- The corridor's other community fishery is on the Ogden river and is filed by the state under a different name.
The two festivals this park holds every year
Late May A rendezvous and a music festival Both named by the county
Weber County names two recurring events on its own Fort Buenaventura page: the Mountain Man Rendezvous and the Ogden Music Festival. Between them they account for most of the noise this park makes in a year, and both fall in the same corner of the calendar, which is the practical thing to know if quiet is what you came for.
The Ogden Music Festival is organised by OFOAM, the Ogden Friends of Acoustic Music, whose own page is headed Ogden Music Fest 2026 and prints 29 to 31 May 2026 at Fort Buenaventura, 2450 A Avenue. Ticket prices are not on the organiser's page, which routes to an external platform. No 2027 dates were published as of 21 August 2026. OFOAM describes itself as bringing together friends and fans of acoustic music from Ogden and beyond, with a mission to promote arts, culture and natural beauty.
The Mountain Man Rendezvous is organised by the Fort Buenaventura Mountain Men, who publish a four day schedule: a Friday opening ceremony at 1 in the afternoon, a Saturday flag raising and Dutch oven cook off, Sunday canoe races and an evening dance, and Monday closing ceremonies and awards. Their schedule page carries a trader break camp deadline of Tuesday May 26th at 10AM and no year anywhere on it, with a 2026 copyright in the footer.
Why no month is printed for the rendezvous
Because the organiser does not print one. A travel aggregator gives 22 to 25 May 2026, which is consistent with the organiser's own 26 May break camp deadline and with a Memorial Day weekend, and which is still not the organiser publishing a date. A second, older claim in circulation says the fort opens Easter weekend for a rendezvous, which is a different month entirely. Two rendezvous timings circulate, the organiser commits to neither in print, and no 2027 dates exist as of 21 August 2026.
One ordinal that is not the organiser's
The Ogden Weber Chamber describes the 2026 Ogden Music Festival as the eighteenth. That ordinal is not on OFOAM's own page, and a chamber of commerce is not the organiser of record for somebody else's festival. It is printed here attributed and nowhere else on this companion, which is the treatment any second hand ordinal deserves.
The details
Getting there
One lot at the end of A Avenue serves the whole park, festivals included. Dates come from the organisers themselves, OFOAM for the acoustic music weekend and the Fort Buenaventura Mountain Men for the rendezvous, and from nowhere else worth relying on.
Before you go
- Neither event has published 2027 dates as of 21 August 2026.
- The rendezvous organiser publishes a schedule with no year on it. Treat aggregator dates as unconfirmed.
- Music festival ticket prices are not on the organiser's own page; the link goes to a ticketing platform.
- Late May is the busy fortnight at this park. Any other week is quiet.
Observatory Park, the 78 acres up the street
2599 A Avenue 78 county acres A biofilter and a cyclocross course
A hundred and fifty addresses up the same street from the 26 acre fort sits a 78 acre county park that almost nobody outside Ogden can name. Weber County's description of it is one sentence: the 78 acre Observatory Park is home to the King Fisher Biofilter and a cyclocross course, right in the heart of Ogden City. That is the whole published record.
Three times the size of the fort, on the same street, with a stormwater treatment installation and a cyclocross course on it. The county publishes no hours, no fee and no trail description, and it does not present the park as a parkway trailhead, so this page does not claim it as one. Between the two of them, the county holds 104 acres inside the Ogden city limits and Ogden City's own parks index shows neither.
One thing the name does not tell you: no observatory is mentioned anywhere in the county's text. Whether there is or ever was one on this ground is an open question, and until Weber County says so, the name is just a name.
A cyclocross course is a specific thing
It is a closed loop over mixed surfaces with obstacles that force riders off the bike, and it means this park was built for a discipline rather than for general use. That is a rare thing for a county to fund, and combined with the two city bike parks, which run to 37.7 acres between them, it puts Ogden's cycling infrastructure well ahead of what a city of 87,000 usually carries. None of it appears on any of this region's six topic pages.
What the biofilter is doing there
A biofilter treats stormwater by running it through engineered soil and vegetation before it reaches the river, which is the sort of thing that ends up on 78 acres of low ground near a confluence. The county names it, gives it a name of its own, the King Fisher Biofilter, and says nothing else about it. That is a piece of public works infrastructure occupying a county park, and it is the reason a lot of this ground is not lawn.
The details
Getting there
A Avenue again, a hundred and fifty addresses north of the fort. There is no published trailhead and no published gate, so treat it as county open ground rather than as a facility with an entrance.
Before you go
- Seventy eight acres, which makes it three times the size of the fort next door.
- No hours, no fee, no trail description published by the county.
- No observatory is mentioned by Weber County. Do not assume the name describes a building.
- It is not published as a parkway trailhead, so do not navigate to it expecting trail access.
The record
What the county publishes, against what is in circulation.
This park attracts more unsourced description than anything else in Ogden, which is a direct consequence of the owner publishing so little. Here is the two column version, with Weber County on the right and everything else on the left, so it is obvious which figures have standing and which are simply repeated.
| The question | In circulation | What Weber County actually publishes |
|---|---|---|
| Acreage | An 84 acre river tract, from campground directories | 26 acres, in the county's own parks index |
| Opening hours | 7am to 9pm daily, or Easter to end of October | Nothing. No hours line on either county page, checked 21 August 2026 |
| General admission | A dollar a person, or a 100 dollar family season pass | No gate price and no season pass anywhere on the fee schedule |
| Camping season | Closed Thanksgiving to Easter | Group camping 1 May to mid October, weather depending |
| Individual campsites | Bookable, per several directories | There are no individual sites at Fort Buenaventura |
| Canoes | Rental at five dollars an hour | No canoe line at all; the trail foundation publishes canoe access, not rental |
| The founding | Built 1846, stated flatly | Built 1846 by the county; a trading post established 1843 by the state |
Weber County owns the ground and runs the park, so its own pages are the record this page follows. Where the county publishes nothing, this page prints nothing rather than borrowing a figure from somebody with no standing to issue one.
Living with it
A county park in the middle of somebody else's city.
For a household in Ogden the practical value of this site is that it is cheap, close and bookable. A disc golf round is four dollars. A group site for up to fifty people is 140 dollars a night in season, and the hourly weekday option at 15 dollars an hour with a three hour cap is one of the least known bookings in the county. The Education Center at 100 dollars a day or 15 dollars an hour sits alongside it. A family that wants a large outdoor gathering without a private venue's price list has a real option here, and it is six minutes from the middle of the city.
What that household has to absorb is the county's publishing habits. No hours, no gate price, no effective date on any fee, one line on the schedule that is priced and never described, a reservation sentence with an internally odd year pairing in it, and a park up the street three times the size with no published information at all. None of that makes the park worse. It does mean the phone number is part of the plan rather than a fallback, and 801-399-8230 is the number.
And the wider lesson is the one this whole companion keeps returning to: an address inside a city does not tell you who runs the ground under it. Two county parks totalling 104 acres, a city owned dinosaur park managed by a foundation and a 152 acre private preserve all sit inside the Ogden city limits and none of them is on Ogden City's own parks index. The parks page works through what the city does run, which is a different and equally long list.
