Box Elder County · County profile
Box Elder County, Utah.
Box Elder County is the big north-end county: orchard bench under the Wellsville Mountains at Brigham City, wheat and dairy ground up the Bear River Valley, and the wide Promontory country where the transcontinental railroad met, with the Great Salt Lake filling the west. 65,320 people live across ~5,746 sq mi, nearly all of them in the strip of towns on I-15 and I-84. I am Scott Buehler, a Utah resident of more than twenty years and licensed in real estate and lending, and this is the county read a local would give: the cost, the commute, and the things to do in each of its towns.
Box Elder County is one of the largest counties in the state by land and one of the emptiest by people, and it sits on the Wasatch Front's doorstep. From the freeway it reads small: Willard, Perry, Brigham City, then Tremonton and Garland, a string of towns between Ogden and the Idaho line. The county behind them is enormous, ~5,746 sq mi of ground running west across the Promontory range and the Bear River bay to the desert beyond the lake, and 65,320 people live in all of it. The towns line the eastern edge under the Wellsville Mountains, where the springs and the irrigation made orchard and farm ground of the bench; the rest is pasture, refuge, and the lake itself. The map runs about 44% private and 34% federal, with most of the private ground farm and range a person could actually own and the federal share sitting in the refuge, the range, and the open country west of the bay.
The fact that explains the county is the hinge it sits on. I-15 runs north through it toward Idaho, and I-84 shares the corridor from Ogden to Tremonton, where it splits off west, which sets the towns at the edge of the Wasatch Front economy rather than out in it. The biggest payrolls are not on Main Street: the aerospace and defense plants out on the Promontory road, the steel mill, and the distribution center along the corridor pay like front-county work while the housing sits a step behind, and that gap is why the county keeps adding people, +13.3% since the 2020 count, 7,652 people. It shows on the ground as new streets on the bench at Perry and the south end of Brigham City and out on the farm ground around Tremonton, with a median household income of ~$84,600 sitting under the county's housing costs in a way most of the Wasatch Front no longer offers.
This page is the county in one place: the at-a-glance table, the towns largest first, what a budget buys on the bench and out in the Bear River Valley, the commute and the roads, the ranked things-to-do lists for all 5 towns, and the county set against its neighbors. It is written in my voice, but I am the connector here, not the local agent: I have lived in Utah for more than twenty years and I know the market, and when you are ready to tour I introduce you to a partner agent who works this part of northern Utah every week.
In one line
Peach bench and Bear River farms, at prices the counties to the south left behind
At a glance
Box Elder County at a glance.
The same thirty rows every county page on this site carries, so any two counties can be set side by side without the numbers changing between pages.
| Category | Box Elder County |
|---|---|
| Size and growth | |
| County seat | Brigham City |
| Population | 65,320 |
| Rank among Utah counties | #9 of 29 |
| Growth since 2020 | +13.3% (7,652 people) |
| 2026 outlook | 66,850 |
| Land area | ~5,746 sq mi |
| People per square mile | ~11 per sq mi |
| Climate and land | |
| Elevation at the seat | ~4,300 ft, valley floor below the Wellsville range |
| Climate | Four seasons, valley snow, winter inversions |
| Typical July high | ~89 °F |
| Typical January low | ~19 °F |
| Federal land | 34% federal |
| Private land | 44% private |
| Cost | |
| Median home value | ~$403,600 |
| Median household income | ~$84,600 |
| Property tax | ~0.6% effective on a primary home |
| Combined sales tax at the seat | ~6.95% |
| Getting around | |
| Interstates | I-15, I-84 |
| Transit | UTA bus to Ogden FrontRunner; no rail in the county |
| Nearest commercial airport | Ogden-Hinckley Airport (OGD) ~30 min, limited service; SLC ~55 min |
| Drive to Salt Lake City airport | ~55 min from Brigham City |
| Schools and services | |
| School districts | Box Elder School District |
| Colleges and universities | Bridgerland Technical College (Brigham City campus); nearest university Utah State (Logan) ~30 min |
| Hospitals | Brigham City Community Hospital, Bear River Valley Hospital (Tremonton) |
| Largest employers | Northrop Grumman (Promontory), Autoliv (Promontory), Nucor Steel (Plymouth), Walmart distribution center (Corinne), Box Elder School District |
| Outdoors | |
| National parks and monuments | Golden Spike National Historical Park, in the county |
| State parks | Willard Bay State Park |
| Ski areas | None |
| On MovingUtah | |
| City guides | 5 city guides |
| Ranked things-to-do lists | 5 ranked lists across 5 towns |
Population: Census Bureau county population estimates, Vintage 2025 (July 1, 2025). Growth measured from the April 1, 2020 estimates base in the same Census table. 2026 outlook: a straight-line outlook from the 2020 to 2025 Census trend (the Census Bureau does not project county totals). Home values and income: American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year, county medians. Sales tax: Utah State Tax Commission, combined rate at the county seat, first quarter 2026. Federal and private land: Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, Utah Land Ownership, July 2025. Figures checked September 2026 and rounded; the population figures are exact.
Where the people are
Five towns along the freeway, and a county of open ground behind them.
The seat and the biggest towns
Brigham City is the seat and the largest town, and the county is organized around it. It sits where the Wellsville Mountains come down to the valley floor, the historic center of the peach and cherry country, with the county's oldest neighborhoods, its widest mix of housing, and the hospital and shopping the rest of the county drives to. Main Street holds the civic life, the bench above town holds the orchards, and the newer subdivisions are climbing the foothills on the town's edges.
South of the seat, on the ground between the mountain and the bay, Perry and Willard are the freeway bench towns, with Willard Bay out in the water off their west side and much of the county's newest foothill building going in around Perry. North of the seat, near the crossing where I-84 splits off toward Idaho, Tremonton is the county's second town and the market center of the Bear River Valley, the newer of the county's two growth areas alongside the bench at Brigham City and Perry.
Farther into the farm country, Garland is the smallest of the five, a valley farming town a short drive off the freeway whose guide covers the landmarks the whole area shares. Between the five towns lives nearly all of the county's population; the rest of the map, from the bird refuge west through the Promontory country to the desert beyond, is farms, range, and empty ground.
Every city guide in the county
Each of the 5 towns has a full guide on this site: what the town is like, what it costs, its listings, and its price and feature pages. Largest first.
How the county grows now
- On the bench. New streets climbing the foothills above Perry and the south end of Brigham City, the county's ground closest to the Wasatch Front.
- In the Bear River Valley. Subdivisions filling former farm fields around Tremonton, where the land is flat and the freeway is at the door.
- Out the Promontory road. The aerospace and defense plants anchor a job base that does not swing with a season, and the building follows that payroll.
- The number. A straight line through the 2020 count and the 2025 estimate puts the county near 66,850 in 2026, steady edge-of-the-front growth rather than a boom.
New homes, where they still exist
What a budget buys
Ogden's economy, at prices the valley left behind.
Home values
The county median is ~$403,600, and the number matters most for what it is not: it sits well under the Wasatch Front counties a short drive south, which is the whole point of the county for a buyer who wants the north-end job base without the north-end price tag. Inside Box Elder the spread is smaller than the map suggests, because the prices run with the towns, not the acreage. The foothill bench around Brigham City and Perry sits at or above the county line; the Bear River Valley towns, Tremonton and Garland, sit below it. You are not paying for land here, of which the county has a surplus; you are paying for the freeway corridor and the towns on it.
The price pages sort it street by street. The county's most approachable ground is Brigham City under $400K and Tremonton under $400K, where a first purchase in the county actually lands, with Perry under $500K and Brigham City under $600K a step up onto the bench. The top of this market is modest by Wasatch Front standards, luxury homes in Brigham City and Willard over $700K, and it is still a different conversation from the counties to the south.
What you buy is usually a single-story home on more ground than the Wasatch Front allows. The bench towns hold older brick houses and ramblers on shaded lots, the valley towns hold newer two-stories on wider lots where the fields were, and acreage with room for a shop or animals is an ordinary listing rather than a rarity. The Brigham City single-story page gets at the county's native house, acreage in Tremonton shows the ground that comes with it, and Garland single-story shows the same home out in the farm country.
Taxes in this county
Property tax at the seat runs ~0.6% effective on a primary home, with a primary residence taxed at 55 percent of its market value, and the countywide school district keeps the stack steadier than in counties split among several systems. A fresh bond in a single town can still move one address, so check the county assessor's parcel record before you write an offer.
Sales tax at the register is ~6.95%, with little swing from one town to the next. For the full picture of what the county costs to live in beyond the house, the cost-of-living guide lays the state out by region, and the affordability calculator turns any of these medians into a number you can plan around.
Listings, largest markets first
Run the numbers
- Affordability calculator
- Conventional mortgage calculator
- Rent vs buyWorth running here, where the commute south is part of the plan for many buyers.
- All eleven calculators
Getting around
Two interstates cross the county, and the commute points south.
Interstates and transit
I-15 is the county's main street, running up from Ogden through Willard, Perry, and Brigham City to Tremonton and the Idaho line, and I-84 shares the pavement from Ogden as far as Tremonton, where it splits west toward Boise. Two corridors, then: the Wasatch Front to the south and Idaho to the north and west, and the county's daily traffic points south, because that is where the jobs and the airport are. The morning load builds heading down toward Ogden and the evening load comes back up the bench, and on the still days of winter an inversion settles over the valleys the same as anywhere along the front.
The county has no passenger rail of its own. UTA buses link Brigham City to the FrontRunner station in Ogden, which is the car-free option for the run south: bus or drive to Ogden, then the train on to Salt Lake. For most households the car is the plan, because the freeway is right there and the drive stays light until you reach Ogden, which is more than the front counties can say for their own commutes.
The airport and the drive
Box Elder County has no commercial airport. The nearest jet service is Ogden-Hinckley, about half an hour down I-15 with a short list of flights, and for almost any real trip the airport is Salt Lake City International, ~55 min from Brigham City. A frequent flyer in Brigham City has a shorter airport drive than most of the Wasatch Back, which is one more way this county reads as a Wasatch Front address at a discount.
Drive times, off-peak
- Brigham City to Ogden
- About 30 minutes south on I-15, off-peak.
- Brigham City to Tremonton
- About 15 minutes north on I-15, where I-84 splits off toward Idaho.
- Brigham City to Salt Lake City International
- About 55 minutes down I-15, off-peak.
- Brigham City to Utah State, Logan
- About 30 minutes up US-89/91 through Sardine Canyon.
- Brigham City to Willard Bay State Park
- About 15 minutes south on I-15 to the park entrance.
Things to do
Between the bay and the orchards, five towns, five ranked lists.
Every town in Box Elder County has its own ranked things-to-do list on The Local, researched and written for that place and sized honestly to what the town actually holds. The lists below run town by town, and they are the county's Saturday answer: what to do when you live here, not when you are passing through. A Box Elder weekend runs to water and open ground, a morning on the bird refuge, an afternoon at the bay, a peach stand on the fruit road, and the long quiet drive out to where the railroad met.
Region reads
The county-wide pages that no single town owns.
- Golden Spike, Promontory, and the empty country where the railroad met
- The Fruit Way, peaches and cherries on Old Highway 89
- Crystal Hot Springs, Honeyville's year-round soak
The honest read
The honest read is that this is the valley-and-lake county, not the mountain county. There is no ski area in Box Elder, so a Saturday that needs alpine snow is a drive over into Weber or Cache, and the mountain canyons behind the bench towns are quiet for a reason. What the county has instead is a shoreline and a sky: the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in the low light, the sun going down across the water from the Spiral Jetty road, and the Golden Spike site at Promontory, where the whole country once watched a single track get joined. If your weekend wants a chairlift, this is not the county for it. If it wants room, water, and history, it is hard to beat.
Schools and services
One district for the whole county, and hospitals at both ends of the valley.
School districts
Every public school in the county sits in Box Elder School District. One district covering every town, from the bench out to the west desert, removes the boundary worry buyers bring from split-district counties: the whole county is in it, and the city guide for any town names its district. I do not rate schools, here or anywhere on this site: I state the district, point to the facts it publishes, and leave the judgment to you.
Colleges and hospitals
Higher education is a short drive rather than a college town. Bridgerland Technical College (Brigham City campus); nearest university Utah State (Logan) ~30 min. The technical campus feeds trained workers straight into the county's plants, and a four-year university means a run up US-89/91 to Logan or down I-15 to the Wasatch Front. Hospitals sit at the two ends of the settled strip: Brigham City Community Hospital, Bear River Valley Hospital (Tremonton), so no town on the corridor is far from a community hospital, and the bigger regional centers are roughly half an hour down the freeway in Ogden.
The county's largest employers, by the state's list, are Northrop Grumman (Promontory), Autoliv (Promontory), Nucor Steel (Plymouth), Walmart distribution center (Corinne), Box Elder School District. The aerospace and defense work out on the Promontory road and the steel mill and the distribution center along the corridor pay like front-county jobs, which is the quiet reason median household income here, ~$84,600, sits where it does while home values stay a step behind the counties to the south. The payroll does not depend on a season or a single company, and the school district and the towns ride on the steadiness of it.
Guides for this move
- Relocating to Utah, an orientation
- First-time buyers in UtahWhere the county's lower medians are the draw.
- Rural living in UtahWhat farm-country and small-town living actually ask of a newcomer.
- Moving up to your next homeThe classic Box Elder step is out of the older towns onto a newer or bigger lot.
- Retiring to the Wasatch Front
Compare it
Box Elder County against its neighbors.
The full side-by-side pages built so far for this county. The matchup tool on the county hub builds any other pair, and routes you here if the pair is not built yet.
Any two counties
The county matchup tool
Pick Box Elder County and any of the other nineteen, and see the same table side by side.
Build a matchupCity vs city
Compare the county's cities
Brigham City vs Ogden, Tremonton vs Brigham City, and every other pairing that crosses the county line.
Compare citiesAlready own here?
What a home in Box Elder County is worth
A value built by hand from real northern-Utah sales, not an algorithm, and a path to get featured where buyers are already looking.
Start the valuationCommon questions
Box Elder County, answered.
What cities are in Box Elder County?
5 towns have full guides on this site, largest first: Brigham City, Tremonton, Perry, Willard, and Garland. Brigham City is the county seat and the largest town, anchoring the fruit-country bench under the Wellsville Mountains, and the rest spread north through the Bear River Valley. Together the five hold nearly all of the county's 65,320 people; the rest of the map is farm ground, refuge, and the open country west of the Great Salt Lake.
How long is the commute from Box Elder County to Salt Lake City?
The drive runs south on I-15, and for a county this far north it is shorter than most people expect. Salt Lake City International is ~55 min from Brigham City, Ogden is about half an hour from the seat, and Tremonton adds a few minutes before the drive even begins. There is no passenger rail inside the county; a UTA bus links Brigham City to the FrontRunner station in Ogden, which is the car-free option for the run south. Rush hour is real at the Ogden end of the trip, but the freeway inside Box Elder stays light.
Where are the least expensive homes in Box Elder County?
The Bear River Valley towns run below the county median, with Tremonton and Garland carrying the county's most approachable listings, while the foothill bench around Brigham City and Perry sits at or above it. The county median is ~$403,600, far under the Wasatch Front counties a short drive south, and acreage with room is an ordinary purchase here. The price pages for each town show what is actually listed today.
Is Box Elder County still growing?
Yes, at a steady edge-of-the-front pace. The Census Bureau puts the county at 65,320 in July 2025, +13.3% above the 2020 count, which is 7,652 people. New streets are climbing the bench around Perry and the south end of Brigham City and filling former farm fields near Tremonton, carried by the aerospace and manufacturing payroll and the freeway link to Ogden and Salt Lake. A straight line through the two census counts points the county near 66,850 in 2026.
What is there to do in Box Elder County on a weekend?
The county's Saturdays run to water, orchards, and open country. Willard Bay State Park is the boat and beach stop, the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge is the quiet morning, the fruit road is the peach and cherry drive in season, and Golden Spike National Historical Park out at Promontory is where the transcontinental railroad met. There is no ski area in the county, so a mountain Saturday is a drive into Weber or Cache, and every town also carries its own ranked things-to-do list on The Local.
Next step
Thinking about the north end? Let's narrow it to a town.
Tell me where the work is, how far a commute you will tolerate, and what the budget looks like. I will give you the honest read on which part of Box Elder County fits, and when you are ready I introduce you to the partner agent who works that part of northern Utah every week.
If you buy or sell outside Southern Utah, I connect you with a trusted local partner agent and stay involved through your move. If you work with that agent, their brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. It comes out of the agent's compensation, not as an added cost to you, and you are always free to choose your own agent.