800 West West Bountiful
The street name is not local folklore. It is in the property record of the United States government
Onion Street, and the mile of 800 West on the National Register.
The West Bountiful Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 18 June 2004, and the register's own location line reads 800 West (Onion Street) from 400 North to roughly 1350 North, both sides. Sixty eight buildings, thirty seven of them contributing, a period of significance running from the 1860s to 1954, and a collection of two storey brick carriage houses the nomination calls unique in the state. None of it is on the practical city guide.
Southern Utah is the ground I actually work, several hours south of Davis County, so these pages are researched rather than lived. What is on them was read at the body that publishes it: the National Park Service nomination file for this city's historic district, the city's own General Plan and parks master plan, the state air quality permits, the federal enforcement dockets, the regional planning council's award papers, and the operator's own filings. Every figure carries the date it was checked. A Davis County partner agent takes the ground level work.
The live question
Is 800 West really called Onion Street, and is any of it actually on the National Register?
Both, and the same federal document settles both at once. The National Register nomination file for the West Bountiful Historic District, read in full on 15 August 2026, gives the district's location on its first page as 800 West (Onion Street) from 400 North to roughly 1350 North, both sides, and the register lists it under reference 03000158 with a listing date of 18 June 2004. The verbal boundary description in section 10 uses the same parenthesis. So the street name is not a local nickname somebody put on a blog; it is in the property record of the United States government.
Where the name came from is in the same file, in one sentence in the significance section: West Bountiful became a major producer of sweet Spanish onions in the 1920s and 1930s, and 800 West became known as Onion Street. The crop is gone and the name has outlived it by roughly ninety years. It survives in the register, in the Onion Parkway Trail the city built along a canal in 2010, in Christmas on Onion Street at City Hall, and in an adopted city policy that directs West Bountiful to erect historic or vintage street signs with the original street names and numbering system along Onion Street, Howard Street and the rest.
What is on the ground is a mile of it. The district takes in 42 primary buildings and 26 outbuildings, 68 in all, of which 37 are contributing and 31 are not, across roughly 30 acres. Twenty one of the contributing buildings are the houses themselves; sixteen are outbuildings, and that ratio is the point. West Bountiful's distinguishing feature, in the nomination's own assessment, is a collection of large two storey brick carriage houses standing behind Victorian houses, which it says makes the district unique in the entire state.
The district, in numbers
18 Jun 2004
listed on the National Register, reference 03000158
1860s to 1954
the period of significance the nomination sets
37 of 68
buildings that contribute, or 54 per cent
30 acres
of a street the register calls Onion Street
The walk
Eleven buildings the nomination names, in the order you pass them going north.
The nomination photographs and describes specific houses, with addresses and dates, and that list is what turns a drive down 800 West into something worth doing on foot. Everything in this table is from the federal file. Contributing and noncontributing are technical terms about integrity rather than judgments about a building or its owner, and one house here is the earliest verified in the district and noncontributing at the same time.
| Address on 800 West | What the nomination calls it | Date | Type and style | Status in the district |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 647 North | Horace and Hannah Adams Eldredge house | 1882 | Cross wing plan, Picturesque Italianate, built by Horace Sunderlin Eldredge for his third wife | Contributing, and one of only two Italianate houses left in the district |
| 666 North | The Pack and Newton house | 1923 | A larger foursquare with Prairie School influence, a port cochere and a wide spanning porch | Contributing |
| 675 North | The Adelbert and Edith Eldredge home | 1898 | Central block with projecting bays, Victorian Eclectic, with numerous gabled bays and a conical tower | Contributing, and the nomination calls it an excellent example |
| 729 and 739 North | The Horton and Lilly Eldredge house and the Clarence and Effie Eldredge house | 1894 and 1904 | Two Victorian houses, each with the two storey brick carriage house behind it that makes this district unusual | Contributing, houses and carriage houses both |
| 771 North | The Jedediah and Susan Grant house | About 1870 | Vernacular Classical central passage, partly obscured by a later bungalow porch addition | An early example, described in the settlement era context |
| 860 North | The Telford House | 1939 | English Cottage, brick mixed with stucco, steeply pitched asymmetrical gables | Contributing, and it was moved here in the 1950s to save it from demolition for the building of Interstate 15 |
| 859 North | Not individually named | About 1940 to 1950 | A World War Two era cottage in the Minimal Traditional style, which the nomination uses as its type example | Contributing |
| 1057 North | The Theodore and Elizabeth Emery McKean House | 1865 | Temple Form, a Greek Revival associated type of which few remain in the state, and the earliest verified house in the district | Noncontributing, because of vinyl siding and replaced sashes, and the nomination says it could be returned to contributing status |
| 1165 North | The Argyle and Smith House | About 1870 or earlier | Brick vernacular classical single cell with a later Italianate cross wing addition | Contributing, and the only settlement era house in the district that still holds its integrity |
| 1301 North | The Richard and Nell Parrish Pelton house | 1910 | A late pyramidal central block with a small projecting bay, built of rock faced concrete block | Contributing, and the last of the Victorian era types here |
| 830 North | The Latter-day Saint Second and Third Ward chapel | Dedicated 1974 | The only religious building inside the boundary | Noncontributing, being outside the period of significance |
From the National Register nomination for the West Bountiful Historic District, reference 03000158, prepared January 2003 and listed 18 June 2004, read at the National Park Service on 15 August 2026. Every building above is private property except the chapel; this is a street to walk, not a set of places to visit. The nomination itself flags a doubt about the Argyle and Smith date, noting that an intensive survey gives about 1860 while the fired brick and the stylistic detail suggest later, so treat that one date as contested at the source.
The details
Getting there
Park at City Hall or at the elementary school end of the block and walk north, which puts the 1880s and 1890s Eldredge houses in the first few hundred yards and the earliest buildings at the far end. Coming off the freeway, exit 317 at 400 North puts you at the south end of the district; exit 316 at 500 South is the industrial end of 800 West and not the one you want for this. The carriage houses sit behind the houses, so the ones at 729 and 739 North are glimpses from the street rather than set pieces.
Before you go
- Stay on the sidewalk and do not enter driveways or yards. Every contributing building in the district is somebody's home.
- The National Register boundary and the city's local overlay zone are different, so an address can sit in one and not the other. Check both before assuming which rules reach a parcel.
- Listing on the National Register does not restrict what a private owner may do with a building unless federal money or a federal permit is involved. The local overlay is the tool with the design expectations in it.
- The nomination is public and it is the best free research a buyer on this street can do. It runs to twenty five pages including the photographs.
The shape
West Bountiful never got the grid that almost every other Utah town was laid out on.
This is the finding in the nomination that explains the most and is quoted the least. Almost every early Utah settlement was platted on the Plat of the City of Zion, the square village grid of equal blocks with a religious and civic core, small in town farmsteads and larger farms outside the village. West Bountiful was not. The nomination records that the settlers here homesteaded on their own farmland rather than commuting out from a village, that the town was originally laid out as five large unequal blocks of agricultural tracts about a mile and a half long by three quarters of a mile wide, and that it grew as a line village at the crossroads of two routes, 800 West and 400 North. It calls that pattern somewhat unique for Utah.
The consequence is still visible on a map today. The nomination cites a local history recording that the early survey here was so irregular that some streets are not straight and the survey lines do not match the later government survey. A city whose founding survey did not line up with anybody else's is a city that will produce odd boundaries later, and West Bountiful duly has them: a municipal line that crosses 1600 North between two addresses, a landfill whose permitted address is in one jurisdiction and whose ground may be in another, and two postal codes inside three and a bit square miles.
The eras are worth knowing because they are what the walk shows. The settlement and early farming era of the 1860s and 1870s gives one contributing house. The prosperous farming era from 1880 to 1909 gives the Italianate and Victorian houses and the carriage houses, built when farmers were driving wagon loads of produce into Salt Lake City and coming home with cash. The farming and industry era from 1910 to 1954 gives the bungalows, the foursquares, the English cottages and the wartime cottages that fill the gaps between them. Of the twenty one contributing primary buildings, one is from the first era, eight from the second and twelve from the third.
And then it stops, in 1954, which is where the period of significance ends. What happened next is in the file too: the automobile made 500 West into U.S. Highway 91, businesses moved there, farmers drove to the growers' market in trucks instead of taking wagons on dirt roads, and after the war the large Victorian houses were divided into apartments while owners sold off their side yards for one or two infill houses at a time. About thirty per cent of the buildings inside the district are not of the historic period, and the nomination says the boundaries are much reduced from what they could have been because of that infill.
The city grew as a line of farms along one road rather than as a village around a square, which is why 800 West is not just the main street here. For a century it was very nearly the whole town.
Two designations
A national listing and a local overlay cover the same street and do not cover the same ground.
The city is explicit about the distinction and it is the single most practical thing on this page. The West Bountiful General Plan states that enough historic homes exist along the 800 West corridor that the area was officially designated by the National Register of Historic Places as the West Bountiful Historic District in 2004, and then describes a separate tool, the Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, whose boundary includes all of the national district plus additional historic properties along 1000 North. Two boundaries, one bigger than the other, doing two different jobs.
The national listing is honorific and documentary. It records what is there and why it matters, and on privately owned property it does not by itself restrict what an owner may do unless federal money or a federal permit is in play. The local overlay is the zoning instrument, and the plan's adopted policy is to maintain it with performance criteria and design guideline language so that new development and the redevelopment of existing historic properties inside the district respect and enhance the district's integrity. The plan also directs that planning inside the district be coordinated with the West Bountiful City Historic Preservation Commission, so there is a standing body with a view.
The city wants more of both. The adopted objectives include encouraging the nomination of historic homes outside the official district to the National Register, exploring additional nationally recognised districts such as one along 1100 West or expanding the current boundary, and considering the development of demolition and alteration restrictions for contributing structures. That last one is worth reading carefully: as written, the plan asks the city to consider such restrictions, which means they are a policy intention rather than an adopted rule. Announced is not adopted, and a buyer should confirm which of the three is actually in the code today.
There is one more thread and it is the sign policy. Goal 5 of the plan, objective 1, policy 3, directs the city to erect historic or vintage street signs carrying the original street names and numbering system along Onion Street, Howard Street and the like. That is an adopted goal rather than a completed project, so do not go looking for a green sign reading Onion Street and be disappointed. The name lives in the register file, in the city's own policy language and in the name of a trail and a Christmas party.
The district boundary is narrower than people assume, and the overlay is wider, so neither one tells you what applies to a specific address. The national boundary runs along the rear property lines of the buildings facing east on the west side of 800 West from 400 North up to the north property line of 1347 North 800 West, then back south along the east side, crossing to take in the building at 790 West 1000 North and the property at 790 West 400 North. That is a deliberately tight line drawn around the highest concentration of surviving historic buildings, and the nomination says other contributing buildings sit outside it. The city's Historic Preservation Overlay Zone covers all of that plus properties on 1000 North. So a house can be historic and outside the district, inside the overlay and outside the national listing, or inside both, and the answer for any given parcel comes from the city planning counter on 801-292-4486 rather than from a map on a listing.
Living with it
A historic street with a working city hall on it, and a federal correction to prove nobody is above a typo.
The most human detail in the whole file is at the very front of it. When the National Park Service listed the district it issued a supplementary listing record amending the nomination, and one of the two amendments was that the town or city hall building is located at 550 North 800 West, not at 450 North 800 West as the narrative said, a clarification the service noted it had confirmed with the Utah State Historic Preservation Office. A federal listing document, on a district in a town of five thousand people, opens by fixing a street number. The other amendment corrected the category of the property to district.
The building itself has a small mystery attached, and this page prints it rather than smoothing it over. The nomination's photograph list describes the West Bountiful Town Hall at 450 North 800 West as dedicated in December 1961, while the narrative a few pages later says the city hall was constructed in 1965. The two statements are in the same document and they disagree. What is not in doubt is that the city's General Plan records the current City Hall as constructed in 2006, which means the building the nomination describes as a noncontributing example of mid twentieth century public architecture has since been replaced by the one standing at 550 North 800 West today.
What a household actually gets from all this is a street with a legible history and a set of live constraints attached to it. City Hall sits inside the district and so does West Bountiful Elementary, so the civic core, the school run and the historic core are the same few blocks. The mature trees the nomination praises are genuinely there. So is 800 West as a major collector carrying the city's north to south traffic, which is a different thing from a quiet lane, and half a mile to the south the same street runs into a refinery, which is its own page.
If you are buying on or near 800 West, the sequence is short. Ask the city which of the two boundaries the parcel sits in and what the overlay actually requires today. Read the nomination, which is free, public and specific about the buildings. Ask whether any demolition or alteration restriction has since been adopted, because the plan asks the city to consider one rather than recording that it has one. And take the practical layer, the prices and the providers and the tax picture, from the practical city guide, which is where that belongs.
West along Pages Lane
West Bountiful City Park
The city's only community park, the resident head start on bowery bookings, and a cabin the city lists and does not explain.
Read the guideSouth along 800 West
The refinery in the wrong city
The same street, half a mile on, running into a 45,000 barrel a day plant the city has written about in its own plan.
Read the guideMoving here
West Bountiful or Bountiful
What this address gives a household and what it quietly buys in from the much larger neighbour next door.
The mover pageNorthwest of here
Lakeside Golf Course
A hundred and fourteen acres the city owns and staffs, and the reason its park numbers read the way they do.
Read the guideThe wider county
Davis County on The Local
The seven county subjects and the other fourteen Davis towns, indexed in one place.
The region hubThe practical side
The West Bountiful city guide
What a house on this street costs to buy and to run, and what is on the market this week.
Open the guideKeep reading
More of West Bountiful on The Local.
The plant
The refinery in the wrong city
The operator says West Bountiful on a page headed Woods Cross, and both are true.
Read the guideThe department
Lakeside Golf Course
A city department on 114 acres, which is 88 per cent of the park land there is.
Read the guideThe only one
West Bountiful City Park
Fourteen and a half acres doing all the work, and a cabin the city never explains.
Read the guideThe west door
Birnam Woods
Four trail doors that exist because a highway turned four streets into dead ends.
Read the guideMoving here
West Bountiful or Bountiful
One city runs its own power, water and tip. The other one buys nearly all of it in.
Read the guideThe companion
West Bountiful, in full
A plant, a golf course, an onion street and the last open ground on the west side.
Read the pageQuick answers
Onion Street, answered.
Yes, and the National Register of Historic Places says so. The nomination for the West Bountiful Historic District gives the property's location as 800 West (Onion Street) from 400 North to roughly 1350 North, both sides, and repeats the parenthesis in its verbal boundary description. The nomination explains the name in its significance section: West Bountiful became a major producer of sweet Spanish onions in the 1920s and 1930s, and 800 West became known as Onion Street. The city's General Plan carries an adopted policy to put vintage street signs with the original names back along Onion Street and Howard Street.
On 18 June 2004, under National Register reference number 03000158. The nomination itself was prepared in January 2003 by a consultant working with the Utah State Historic Preservation Office and the West Bountiful certified local government, which is why the reference number carries an 03 prefix and the listing date falls in 2004. The National Park Service also issued a supplementary listing record at the time, amending the nomination to correct the category of property to district and to fix the address of the town hall building.
Sixty eight buildings on roughly 30 acres: 42 primary buildings, all but two of them residential, and 26 outbuildings. Thirty seven of the sixty eight contribute to the district and thirty one do not, a split of 54 to 46 per cent. The period of significance runs from the 1860s to 1954, and the styles named in the file include vernacular Classical Revival, Picturesque Italianate, Victorian Eclectic, Prairie School influenced foursquares and bungalows, English Cottage period cottages and Minimal Traditional wartime cottages. The distinguishing feature is a set of large two storey brick carriage houses.
They are the reason this district is on the register rather than simply on a survey. The nomination states that West Bountiful is known for distinctive two storey carriage houses built behind large Victorian houses, and that the collection here makes the district unique in the entire state. Two of the surviving examples stand behind the Horton and Lilly Eldredge house at 729 North 800 West, built in 1894, and the Clarence and Effie Eldredge house at 739 North 800 West, built in 1904. The brothers who built them held cattle ranches on land parcelled from their parents' holdings.
The earliest verified house in the district is the Theodore and Elizabeth Emery McKean House at 1057 North 800 West, built in 1865. It is a Temple Form house, a type associated with the Greek Revival style of which the nomination says only a few remain in the whole state, and it is classified as noncontributing because of vinyl siding and replaced window sashes, though the file notes it could be returned to contributing status with a little effort. The Argyle and Smith House at 1165 North is dated to about 1870 or possibly earlier and is the only settlement era house in the district that retains its integrity.
The Telford House at 860 North 800 West, an English Cottage built in 1939 with brick mixed with stucco and steeply pitched asymmetrical gables. The nomination records that it was moved in the 1950s to its current location to prevent demolition during the construction of nearby Interstate 15. It is a contributing building in the district today, which is worth noting because a relocated building often loses its standing; here the move is part of the recorded history rather than a disqualification.
The two designations do different things and only one of them carries expectations. Listing on the National Register is honorific and documentary, and on privately owned property it does not by itself restrict what an owner may do unless federal money or a federal permit is involved. The city's own Historic Preservation Overlay Zone is the zoning tool, and the General Plan directs the city to maintain it with performance criteria and design guideline language and to coordinate planning inside the district with the Historic Preservation Commission. Confirm what the code actually requires today at the city planning counter on 801-292-4486.
No, and this is the practical trap. The city's General Plan states that the Historic Preservation Overlay Zone boundary includes all of the nationally designated district plus additional historic properties along 1000 North. The national boundary is deliberately tight, running along the rear property lines either side of 800 West from 400 North up to 1347 North and taking in two properties off the street, and the nomination notes that other contributing buildings sit outside it because of infill. So a parcel can be in one and not the other, and only the city can tell you which applies to a specific address.
Because it was never platted as a village. The National Register nomination records that West Bountiful did not follow the Plat of the City of Zion that shaped most Utah settlements. The settlers homesteaded on their own farmland rather than commuting out from a village centre, the town was laid out as five large unequal agricultural tracts about a mile and a half by three quarters of a mile, and it grew as a crossroads and line community at the meeting of 800 West and 400 North. The nomination calls that one of only a few such settlements in the state, and cites a local history saying the early survey was irregular enough that some streets are not straight.
A mile of documented street, and a public file that beats any listing description.
The best free research anybody can do before buying on this part of West Bountiful is to read the nomination itself. It runs to twenty five pages, it names the houses and dates them, it explains why the street bends the way it does, and it is the reason this page can tell you that the town never got the standard Utah grid. What it cannot tell you is which boundary a specific parcel falls in or what the local overlay requires this year, and those are a call to the city. Tell me which block you are looking at and I will introduce you to a Davis County partner agent who can walk it with you.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.