The first name Farmington
The courthouse town spent its first five years under a different name
North Cottonwood, the name Farmington answered to first
North Cottonwood is what Farmington was called for its first five years, after the creek above town where Hector Haight wintered cattle in 1847. In 1852 the territory created Davis County, seated it here, and renamed the place Farmington. The town was surveyed the next fall onto a bench only two blocks wide, then walled in an L shape that was never finished. The city itself did not incorporate until December 1892, with 1,180 residents.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
North Cottonwood is what Farmington was called for its first five years. The name came from the creek that runs out of the canyon above town, where Hector Haight was sent to winter cattle in 1847. In 1852 the territorial legislature created Davis County, put the county offices here, and renamed the settlement Farmington. The old name never fully disappeared, and it is back today on the city's newest park, North Cottonwood Commons on the far west side. So if you have found North Cottonwood on an old map, a plat, or a family record and wondered whether it is a separate town, it is not. It is Farmington, before 1852.
The name
How North Cottonwood became Farmington
The story starts with cattle, not a townsite. Hector Haight, the settler Farmington treats as its founder, was sent to winter cattle herds on North Cottonwood Creek in 1847 and 1848. He came to keep animals alive through a hard season, and the families who followed him built log cabins along the creek and the other streams coming down off the mountains. For its first years the little settlement simply went by the name of the water it sat on: North Cottonwood.
The name changed in 1852. That year the Utah territorial legislature created Davis County, placed the county offices at North Cottonwood, and renamed it Farmington. It is worth being clear about what 1852 was and was not. It was a naming and a home for the county offices, not a city charter. Farmington did not actually incorporate as a city until December 1892, when the count stood at 1,180 residents. Those two dates sit forty years apart, and 1852 is the one most often mistaken for the founding.
Everything after that is unusually well recorded for a town this size. There is a surveyed plat with a lot count and a street width. There is a fortification wall with a footprint you can still drive and a height set in feet. And there is a population line that starts at 1,180 and can be followed all the way to a commuter city. The rest of this page walks each of those in turn.
The founding, in four dates
1847
Hector Haight is sent to winter cattle on North Cottonwood Creek
1852
Davis County is created, seated here, and the settlement renamed Farmington
1,180
the population when the city finally incorporated, in December 1892
1,951
still the count at the 1960 census, before the town changed
The wall
The mud wall that set the shape of the old town
In the mid 1850s, following Brigham Young's call to fortify the settlements, the people of Farmington began a mud wall around the town. They started in 1854 and 1855, and the plan was ambitious: an L shaped wall two blocks wide, running along Main Street and 100 East from near 100 South up to 500 North, with an arm reaching west along what is now State Street. As drawn it was to stand ten feet high, four feet thick at the base, with seven entrances.
It never got there. The wall reached about six feet before the work stopped, the seven gates were never hung, and by the end of the 1860s residents had leveled the dirt back into their own lots. Nothing of it remains above ground today. And yet the unfinished wall is still the most accurate outline of the original town anyone has, because the streets it was drawn around are the streets that are still there.
The survey underneath it is just as specific. The town was laid out in the fall of 1853 on a bench that was wide enough, east to west, for only two city blocks, with the main street run parallel to the mountains. The surveyors measured six lots into every block and separated the blocks with streets six rods wide, which is ninety nine feet. That width is why Main Street still feels open under its trees, and the two block limit is why old Farmington is such a narrow strip of a grid.
The wall, in brief
There is nothing to visit in the sense of a ruin. What you can do is trace the outline: start on Main Street in the old core, follow it north toward 500 North, then pick up State Street heading west. That path is the L, roughly, and what you are really looking at is the street pattern the wall was drawn around, which has outlasted the wall by more than a century and a half.
The courthouse town
Why the county offices sit in a small old town
Having the county offices here is the quiet reason Farmington's old core still matters day to day. Davis County's civic offices are not spread across a big city here; they are packed into a few blocks of a small one. The county offices are at 61 South Main Street, about a three minute walk from Farmington City Hall at 160 South Main. The Davis County Memorial Courthouse stands at 28 East State Street, and the Davis School District is headquartered in the city at 45 East State Street. Local bus service ties the civic core to the Farmington FrontRunner station, so several of those errands are doable on foot or a short ride from one spot.
The county and the school district have been steady sources of work in this town for generations, which is part of why the old commercial corner at State and Main exists at all. That corner grew up around the county offices, and it is the kind of small downtown a farming village on its own would not have built.
One thing to keep straight: the adobe courthouse of the 1850s is long gone, and it is not the building people mean by the old courthouse. That is the 1890 Davis County Memorial Courthouse, which is still standing, wrapped inside the limestone that was built around it in 1932. Both buildings, and the difference between them, are on the Sycamore district page.
The growth
From 1,180 people to a commuter city
For most of its history Farmington was tiny. It incorporated with 1,180 people in 1892 and was still under two thousand at the 1960 census. Then Interstate 15 went in a mile to the west, the town's center of gravity shifted toward the freeway, and it has grown steadily ever since, to roughly 26,000 today. The striking part is how recent almost all of that is. The town was smaller sixty five years ago than a single modern subdivision, and the old two block core is the part that changed the least.
The population, over time
Living with it
What the founding still decides about Farmington today
The oldest thing the first settlers did was build along the creeks, and it still shows. The earliest street lines in the city follow water rather than a compass, which is why the old core has a few bends and junctions a purely gridded town would not. The 1853 survey laid a two block grid on top of that, and the two patterns do not always agree.
The canyon above town supplied both the water and the stone. Native fieldstone from those drainages went into a number of the early buildings, and the city is still known for them. The canyons themselves are a county subject of their own, and Farmington's own canyon mouth, the pond and the trails above it, are a separate page here.
The last thing the founding set is the position. The 1853 plat sat astride the road between Salt Lake City and Ogden, which Main Street still carries as State Route 106. When Interstate 15 replaced that road a mile west in the 1960s, the town's growth followed the freeway and never came back. The FrontRunner station, the retail center and the newest park are all on the west side now, and the two block bench the surveyors were boxed into in 1853 is the quiet half of the city.
For anyone weighing a move, that is the useful part. Farmington has two ends with opposite characters inside one set of city limits, and an address here is best described by which one it sits nearer. The old core is trees, two lanes and houses from the 1850s. The west end is a rail platform and ground that was farmland within living memory. Neither is better, and they ask different questions. What each end is actually like sits on the old core page, the west end page, and, if the amusement park is next door, the page on living next to Lagoon.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
The founding, answered
North Cottonwood, after the creek that comes down the canyon above town. The name lasted from the first cattle camp in 1847 until 1852, when the territorial legislature created Davis County, seated it here, and renamed the settlement Farmington. The old name is back today on the city's newest park, North Cottonwood Commons on the west side.
Hector Haight is the settler the record treats as the founder, and he is often called the father of Farmington. He was sent to winter cattle herds on North Cottonwood Creek in 1847 and 1848, so he came to keep animals alive through a winter rather than to lay out a town. Other families followed and built log cabins along the streams coming down from the mountains.
In December 1892, with a population of 1,180. That is the date to use for incorporation. The 1852 date many sources give is the year the territory created Davis County, put the county offices here, and renamed North Cottonwood as Farmington, which is a naming and a home for the county offices rather than a city charter. The two events are forty years apart.
There was a mud wall, and it was never finished. Settlers began it in 1854 and 1855, enclosing the town in an L shape two blocks wide along Main Street and 100 East, from near 100 South to 500 North, with an arm running west along what is now State Street. It was planned at ten feet high with seven entrances, but it only reached about six feet, the gates were never hung, and by the end of the 1860s it was gone. No part of it remains.
Because that is all the level ground there was. The town was surveyed in the fall of 1853 on a bench wide enough from east to west for only two city blocks, with the main street run parallel to the mountains. The surveyors laid out six lots in every block and separated them with streets six rods wide, which is ninety nine feet, and that narrow two block core is still the shape of old Farmington today.
From North Cottonwood Creek, which runs out of the canyon above town and gave the first settlement its name. The creek fed the early farms, and the families who arrived after 1847 built their cabins along it and the other streams coming off the mountains. The oldest street lines in the city still follow the water rather than the compass.
Yes, and it has been since Davis County was created in 1852. The county offices are at 61 South Main Street, about a three minute walk from Farmington City Hall at 160 South Main. The Davis County Memorial Courthouse is at 28 East State Street, and the Davis School District is headquartered in the city at 45 East State Street.
From 1,180 people at incorporation in 1892 to roughly 26,000 today. It stayed small for a long time, about 1,450 in the early 1920s and 1,951 at the 1960 census, and the 2020 census counted 24,531. Most of the growth came after Interstate 15 was built west of town in the 1960s, and the old core is the part that changed the least.
Because the highway moved. Main Street carried the old road between Salt Lake City and Ogden, which it still holds as State Route 106. When Interstate 15 was built a mile west in the 1960s it pulled the through traffic off Main, and the newer stores, the FrontRunner station and the newest park all grew on the freeway side. The two block historic core stayed quiet, so the city now has an old center and a west end with very different characters.
A founding this well documented still does not price a house
None of this answers the question a buyer actually has, but it does give you a way to read Farmington: the creek lines under the oldest streets, the two block bench that shaped the old core, and the reason the city grew on the far side of a freeway instead of around its own center. That is context for a decision, not the decision. Tell me what you are weighing, and I will connect you with a Davis County partner agent who works Farmington every week, and stay on for the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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