Adding to a story that hasn’t been updated in nearly 40 years, West Bountiful residents Debbie McKean and Gary Edmonds are currently finishing a book about the city’s development since 1988.

“It preserves history,” McKean said about the project. “It gives people – new people – a knowledge and a sense of belonging to what our community was and where it came from and how it developed.”

A work that’s five years in the making, McKean and Edmonds book will be a sequel to one written by LaRue Hugoe and Edith Deppe – which is titled West Bountiful – A Pictorial History and records the city’s development from 1848 to 1988.  

While the first book primarily focused on the individuals that were instrumental to West Bountiful’s growth, the newest edition will discuss more recent landmark events that have made the city what it is today.

“We got thinking ‘you know, our city’s not 500 people anymore. It’s over 5,000 people, and then you get to the point where [you question] what if you leave somebody out,” McKean said. “It will be more of a history of how the process of where we were with the open fields and farms and all that to the present day.”

McKean – a former city council member – was approached about the project by West Bountiful mayor Kenneth Romney. After hearing about the book, Edmonds, who had served on the council himself as well, approached McKean and asked if he could get involved. 

Concerns from Edmonds about his age have expedited the project, as he seeks to ensure it’s finished before he’s no longer able to contribute. The team is working to have copies of the first book republished within the next two months and made available for $65. McKean says that the goal is to have the second book completed by the beginning of next year. 

While McKean and Edmonds are organizing the material, the city will provide financial backing for both publications – with each designed to be a coffee table book.

“If it’s in your home, [it] can physically be picked up and pages can be turned to see individuals and individual things where, you know, I don’t know that anybody would really want to Google,” McKean said. “There’s just a difference in being able to sit down in the pages of a book and flip through them.” 

A resident of West Bountiful for several years, McKean hopes that the book will showcase the pioneering spirit of the city’s people, and inspire those across the area to get involved in their community.

“I really do think it’s valuable, and will be valuable for people to see. There’s still people growing gardens in West Bountiful. They have horses, and they have goats and they have chickens. Bountiful doesn't have all of that, you know? So that all is kind of preserved,” McKean said. “Even if you can read a story about the farmers working, milking the cows at four o’clock in the morning, maybe you can catch a glimpse of what it’s like to go out and get eggs from your chicken and being able to have that experience.”