Union Station became a lasting symbol of the railroad's importance to Ogden's development, but the present building is the city's third rail passenger station. The first station, built in 1872, was a small red wooden structure that served as a ticket office, baggage room, and stationmaster's office in an unattractive slough setting connected to 24th Street by a boardwalk. Public dissatisfaction with such crude facilities helped spur construction of a new brick and stone Victoria-style depot, begun in 1886 and completed on July 31, 1889, at the west end of 25th Street. That station included ticket and baggage offices, a waiting area, 33 hotel rooms, a kitchen, dining room, telegraph office, and news stand for travelers, and it stood until fire destroyed it on February 13, 1923, nearly 34 years after opening. After citizens lobbied for something new rather than a reconstruction of the burned depot, the current Union Station opened on November 22, 1924, at a cost of $400,000. At its peak, as many as 120 trains a day passed through, with 17 passenger tracks in use, and Ogden was served by three transcontinental trains a day as early as 1878, when a fare from New York to San Francisco was $150 first class and $70 for lesser accommodations. For almost a century, the eastward view up 25th Street was many travelers' first sight of Ogden, including presidents, celebrities, immigrants, coast-to-coast passengers, and thousands of World War II soldiers bound for the Pacific Theater. Because so many people paused there, 25th Street developed into the city's entertainment district, with a dense concentration of saloons, pool halls, hotels, boarding and lodging houses, restaurants, groceries, and bakeries in the early 1900s. Among the street's historic buildings were the Murphy Block Building, built in 1887 by Civil War veteran George Murphy, and the Healy Hotel, built in 1901 by Patrick Healy; the Healy Hotel was demolished in 1967, while the Murphy Block Building still stands in this National Historic District.