City names are history

Davis County contains 15 cities, but how did these communities receive their names?

Bountiful wasn't always called Bountiful, and Layton — today the county's largest city — was originally a part of Kaysville. Fruit Heights was an outgrowth of Kaysville.

Centerville wasn't always named that, and Clinton, Woods Cross, North Salt Lake and West Point also had earlier names.

However, the strangest name of all in the county may be South Weber. Why this name for a town that's geographically in north Davis County?

According to historian Glen M. Leonard in "A History of Davis County," the odd name came as the result of an ecclesiastical disagreement.

Brigham Young visited the South Weber area in October 1853 and encouraged that a fort be established there, Kingston Fort, named after the area's first bishop, Thomas Kingston.

Kingston and Lorin Farr, Weber Stake president in Ogden, had some sort of serious disagreement, though what it was about was never recorded. (Leonard suspects it might have been a boundary-related issue.)

Territorial legislators in 1855 redefined the Davis-Weber county line — likely because of prompting from Kingston. The county line moved south to the Weber River.

This meant that the Weber town of Uintah (previously called East Weber) was created to define what settlement remained on the north side of the Weber River. Kingston was retained as bishop, though his area was now aligned with other stakes in Davis County — not with Weber County and Farr.

(One other effect of this boundary change was that the community of Hooper lost one-third of its territory to Davis County as the boundary line there moved north. Thus, portions that were in South Hooper are now parts of Clinton and West Point.)

— Here's a look at city name origins in Davis County:

Bountiful — It was was settled in 1847 by the families of Perrigrine Sessions, Jezreel Shoemaker and John Perry. This was the Utah territory's second settlement.

Calls Settlement was the city's first name, for Anson Call, a visitor to the area. Sessions Settlement was its next title, followed by Mill Creek Canyon Ward and North Canyon Ward.