The Sycamore district is Farmington's old Main Street, under a canopy of trees

It is the old core of Farmington, the stretch of Main Street that was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 20 October 2011 as the Farmington Main Street Historic District. The listing carries a second official name, the Farmington Sycamore Historic District, taken from the sycamore trees that line the street. It is a residential and civic street with a small commercial corner, not a new subdivision and not a shopping center.

It runs along both sides of Main Street from 200 South to 600 North, then along 600 North over to Park Lane, plus the block of 100 North just west of Main. That is about 75 acres. City Hall at 160 South Main sits inside it and is the easiest place to leave the car and start walking.

No. The Sycamore district is the historic core on Main Street, on the east side of town. Station Park and the Park Lane area are the newer shopping, dining and commuter rail district on the west side of the freeway, next to the Farmington FrontRunner station. They are about a mile apart and they are two different places. The shops and the train are on the Park Lane side; the old trees and the older houses are on the Sycamore side.

The oldest go back to the early 1850s, and most of the historic buildings were up by the middle of the last century. About 66 of the older buildings still stand, and most of them are single story houses. The native stone buildings the town is known for are the minority; brick is more common. What holds the street together to the eye is less the buildings than the tree canopy over them.

Older than it looks, because there is a courthouse inside the courthouse. The brick Davis County Memorial Courthouse was built in 1890. In 1932 it was clad in limestone and given new wings, its tower removed, and it was enlarged again in 1958 and 1979. The 1890 building is still physically inside the newer stone. An even earlier adobe courthouse was built in 1854 and 1855 and served both civic and church use at first.

A fieldstone church at 272 North Main Street, built in 1862 and 1863 by the community, who put it up over two years in time taken from their fields, and later enlarged in 1941 and 1980. It is where Aurelia Spencer Rogers began the Primary children's organization in 1878. It is not the same building as the rock chapel inside Lagoon's Pioneer Village, which was built in Coalville and moved to the park.

Yes. The Farmington City Historic Museum is in the old Tithing Office at 110 North Main Street, a building from 1907 that also served as the city hall from 1917. It holds artifacts donated by the community. It is open Wednesdays from 1 to 4 p.m., and the city also takes visits by appointment at 801-529-2052.

Being on the National Register does not, by itself, limit what an owner can change on a private home paid for with private money. That listing is a federal honor, not a rulebook. Any real limit would have to come from a Farmington City ordinance, so if that matters to a purchase, ask the city for its rules in writing before you go under contract. This page is general information, not legal advice.

Because the traffic left. Main Street was the old highway between Salt Lake City and Ogden, so it carried everything. When Interstate 15 opened to the west in the 1960s the through traffic moved off Main, and later commercial growth went north and west toward the freeway. The old core was simply left alone, and being left alone for decades is what kept so many early buildings standing.