FRUIT HEIGHTS—Of all the cities and towns in what would become Davis County, Fruit Heights is probably the most aptly, and literally named. Though other names were tossed around, the settlement that began in 1850 remains Fruit Heights, but it wasn’t until 1939 that it gained that moniker.

For decades, until the town was incorporated, the area that became Fruit Heights was actually known as the “Old Mountain Road,” this, from the local road that connected Salt Lake and Ogden, was also very literal, but very appropriate as well. 

Since the 1850s, settlements sprang up on either side of the Old Mountain Road, as the road itself proved to be an important artery in bringing goods, services and people from Salt Lake to Ogden, and farther up north. It only stood to reason, therefore, that a settlement would spring up in this specific area. 

One of the many early settlers was a man named Grandison Raymond Sr. and his wife Celia Hall. As opposed to the dugouts, or small cabins of earlier settlers, the Raymond family constructed a solid rock home. Together, they became the first in the area to grow many different types of fruit trees, as well as the first to keep bees and process molasses. 

Like the many other settlements around it, the town growing around the Old Mountain Road grew incrementally, complete with first a sawmill for wooden homes, then a brickyard for more steady brick homes, and so on. 

More industry arrived, and more amenities like a school, more farms, and even electricity before the town itself was incorporated. Despite the massive agricultural enterprise in the area, one of the biggest motivations to incorporate the town was: water.

Until 1939 all the water being brought to the area was done the old-fashioned way, either by irrigation or literally carrying it by hand. It seems that in 1939 citizens had finally had enough, and lobbied to be incorporated as a town, to receive the needed funding to be able to put in modern plumbing.

Since barely scraping by with the minimum population of 100 people in 1939, the population of the town has grown by leaps and bounds to 6,091 at the last census, and while not a booming metropolis, the majority of people living there would agree that Fruit Heights is still a great place to live. More information on the history of Fruit Heights can be found at https://www.fruitheightscity.com/106/History.