Ogden resident recounts Prohibition-era lore, ghost stories on 20 Fifth Street
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Summary
Rick Proffer, a local resident, described Prohibition-era legends — including an Al Capone tunnel story — and a personal haunting experience at the Ben Lomond Hotel while noting the street's contemporary mix of galleries, restaurants and markets.
Rick Proffer, a local resident, described local lore tying Ogden's 20 Fifth Street to Prohibition-era criminal activity and ghost stories during a brief on-street interview.
The account included a long-standing legend that Al Capone once used an underground route linking the train station, the Bigelow Hotel and the block now known as 20 Fifth Street. "Al Capone comes through here during prohibition, gets off the train at the station, in the middle of night, heads down to the Bigelow Hotel, knocks off the vault in the basement, takes a tunnel the length of 20 Fifth Street without being seen all the way back to the station, makes off with the cash without being caught," Proffer said. He qualified those details as part of local storytelling rather than documentary fact.
Proffer also recounted a personal experience at the Ben Lomond Hotel in the 1990s. "My wife and I were staying at the Ben Lomond Hotel sometime in the nineties. I didn't know anything about its haunted history, which is extensive. And I'm usually a sound sleeper, but I woke up all night long looking at the foot of the bed thinking that somebody was watching me," he said.
The interview noted that the block carries historic nicknames, including "Notorious 2 Bit Street," and that older accounts refer to a past concentration of brothels; Proffer said, "There used to be 50 brothels between the station and the hotel." He framed that detail as part of the area's colorful past.
Speakers in the short exchange pointed out that 20 Fifth Street today houses businesses such as barbershops, restaurants, boutiques and art galleries and hosts farmers markets, giving the block an active community presence alongside its lore. The conversation emphasized both the street's seedy reputations in earlier eras and its present-day role as a neighborhood commercial and cultural corridor.
The remarks were anecdotal and presented as local memory and legend; no documentary evidence or formal historical records were cited during the interview. The account combines oral history, personal experience and popular storytelling about Ogden's 20 Fifth Street.
