Skip to content

The Local

City Bluffdale, Salt Lake County

The southern boundary city that sits in two counties at once

Bluffdale, where the county runs out and the river comes in.

This is the last city in Salt Lake County going south, and part of it is not in Salt Lake County at all. The Jordan River enters this valley through a gap in the Traverse Mountains at the bottom of the city, a National Guard training site holds the southern flank, four miles of new freeway opened through the western edge in December 2025, and the main east to west street has been shut since November while a Victorian rail underpass is replaced. Here is the researched version of all of it.

By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah Updated August 2026

Southern Utah is my home turf. Bluffdale is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Salt Lake County partner agent.

Start here


The county runs out here, and the city carries on over the line.

Bluffdale is the last city in Salt Lake County going south, and it does not stop at the county line. Part of the municipality lies in Utah County, which makes it one of very few places in the state where a single set of street signs spans two county governments. South of it is Camp Williams, a Utah National Guard training site that is closed to casual public recreation, so the city's southern edge is not a suburb tapering off into farmland. It is a hard institutional boundary with a river gap punched through it.

That gap is the Jordan Narrows, the break in the Traverse Mountains below the Point of the Mountain, and it is the only way the Jordan River gets out of Utah Lake and into this valley. Every mile of green trail, every canal, every water right and half the industrial history of the south end of the county traces back through it. There is exactly one place where the river enters this county and it is here.

The rest of the city is newer than almost anything around it. Bluffdale chose to incorporate in October 1978 rather than merge into Riverton, spent thirty years as a large lot horse valley, and has spent the last fifteen adding streets faster than the roads under them could be rebuilt. Two of those road jobs are the story of the moment: four miles of brand new freeway opened in December 2025, and the city's main east to west street has been shut since November 2025 while a Victorian era rail underpass is replaced.

Bluffdale at a glance

Two counties

one city, split across the Salt Lake and Utah line

4 miles

of new freeway open since 19 December 2025

40 acres

developed inside the county park on the old Wardle farm

1899

the year the power plant by the river started up

What is actually here


Four different owners hold the ground people come here for.

This is a small city with an unusually crowded set of landlords. The city runs its own parks, the county runs the biggest one, the state highway department has just finished building a freeway through the western edge, and the National Guard holds the whole southern flank. Working out who owns a thing is the fastest way to find out who can actually answer a question about it.

The groundWho holds itWhat that means in practice
Wardle Fields Regional Park, 14148 South 2700 WestSalt Lake CountyCounty opening hours, county pavilion bookings and a county splash pad schedule; the city cannot change or confirm any of it
Bluffdale City Main Park and the Equestrian Park at its west endThe City of BluffdaleOne address, 2400 West 14400 South, covering a public park and the arena that holds the July rodeo
Day Ranch Park, 1156 Rochelle Day DriveThe City of BluffdaleOpened 12 August 2023 and city run, including the skate park, the pump track, the bike skills course and the dog park
The Mountain View Corridor and its twelve foot trailUDOTA state facility. Closures, trail surfacing and the next construction phase are all UDOT decisions rather than city ones
Camp Williams, along the southern boundaryThe Utah National GuardA training site closed to casual public recreation. It is a neighbour and a boundary, not an amenity

Ownership and addresses as published by the City of Bluffdale, Salt Lake County and UDOT, checked 7 August 2026. Verify anything you plan to build a day around: Bluffdale City Hall is on 801-254-2200, Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation runs its own reservation system for Wardle Fields, and the 14600 South project team answers on 385-247-0775 or [email protected].

The single most useful thing to know before you drive here is that the middle of the city is cut in half. 14600 South has been closed between Spring View Parkway and 1010 West since 17 November 2025, while the old single lane one way rail underpass is replaced with a four lane two way one carrying multiuse trails. The city expects the closure to hold through winter 2026. The published detours are north on Redwood Road then east on Bangerter Highway to reach I-15 from the west side, and south on Porter Rockwell Boulevard to reach Redwood Road from the east side. That is a real detour, not a diversion of two streets, and it is the reason a fifteen minute crossing can take twice that. Confirm the current status before you travel, because the project team publishes changes as they happen.

The rhythm


One celebration, and in 2026 it happened in two separate pieces.

Old West Days is the city's week, and the 2026 edition was not a week. The rodeo, sanctioned through the Rocky Mountain Professional Rodeo Association, ran 16 to 18 July at the Equestrian Park on 14400 South. The parade, the car show, the concert, the fireworks, the pickleball tournament and the theatre production ran from 30 July to 8 August. Anyone who assumed one block of dates and booked accordingly missed half of it. The park page sets out the arena, the site and how the two halves fit together.

Outside those two blocks the calendar is seasonal rather than dated. Splash pads run Memorial Day to Labor Day, which covers the city's own pads at Vintage Park and Independence Park and, on a separate county schedule, the one at Wardle Fields. Parry Farms has a sledding hill that works for as long as the valley floor holds snow. The skate park, the pump track and the bike skills course at Day Ranch run all year and are busiest on long summer evenings.

What runs in every month is the walking and the riding, and the network got materially bigger in December 2025 when four miles of twelve foot paved trail opened along the new stretch of the Mountain View Corridor, with five pedestrian bridges over it. Add the Jordan River Parkway on the eastern edge, the ten foot path across the Porter Rockwell bridge and roughly sixteen miles of city paths, and this is a better city to move through on foot than its size suggests. The ranked list sorts what earns a trip from what is simply useful nearby.

A city this size normally has one celebration and one calendar. Bluffdale spent 2026 running its rodeo and its parade almost a fortnight apart, and both were well attended.

The wider valley


The county's famous ground is a long way north of this line.

This is the far southern end of the valley floor, which puts almost everything visitors come to Salt Lake County for at the end of a substantial drive. None of it belongs to Bluffdale and all of it is reachable. Four county pages carry those subjects properly, so here is where each one lives.

Two neighbours own subjects that get filed under Bluffdale, and both have their own pages. The Point, the 600 acre redevelopment of the old state prison site, is in Draper rather than here, and Draper's page carries it. The Mountain View Corridor north of Porter Rockwell Boulevard, including the freeway conversion announced for that section, is Herriman's ground and the Herriman page covers it. What belongs to Bluffdale is the doorstep relationship with the first and the four miles of new road that opened through the city in December 2025.

The Bluffdale companion


Seven pages, and two of them are about things that arrived in the last year.

Everything The Local has written about Bluffdale: the ranked list of what is genuinely here, the four miles of freeway and trail that opened in December 2025, the planned community at the north end and the build going up over the Draper boundary, the gap the Jordan River uses to enter this county, the twenty two acre park with an arena at its western end, and what a southern boundary address asks of a household.

Quick answers


Bluffdale, answered.

At the southern end of the Salt Lake Valley, with Riverton to the north, Herriman to the west, Draper to the east and Lehi to the south. It is the last city in Salt Lake County going south and part of the municipality lies across the line in Utah County. Camp Williams, a Utah National Guard training site, occupies much of the ground on the southern flank, and the Jordan River enters the county through the Jordan Narrows at the bottom of the city.

Both, and that is not a technicality. The city is predominantly in Salt Lake County, where its city hall and the great majority of its addresses sit, but a portion of the municipality extends south across the county line into Utah County. It is one of a small number of Utah cities that spans two county governments, which affects which sheriff, which recorder and which county services apply to a given parcel. Check the county on any specific address rather than assuming.

Old West Days and its professional rodeo at the Equestrian Park on 14400 South, for the Jordan Narrows where the river cuts through the Traverse Mountains into this county, and for being the southern boundary city of Salt Lake County. It is also known for large lot horse property in its older core, for Camp Williams and the federal data centre built there between 2011 and 2013, and more recently for the four miles of Mountain View Corridor freeway that opened through the city in December 2025.

The city publishes nearly 60 acres of parkland across nine park sites, plus about 16 miles of trails. The largest and best equipped park inside the city boundary is not the city's at all: Wardle Fields Regional Park at 14148 South 2700 West is Salt Lake County's, with about 40 of its 80 acres developed. The city's own flagship sites are Bluffdale City Main Park on 14400 South and Day Ranch Park, which opened on 12 August 2023.

In 2026 it ran in two separate blocks. The rodeo was 16 to 18 July at the Equestrian Park, 2400 West 14400 South, and the rest of the celebration ran 30 July to 8 August, taking in a theatre production, a pickleball tournament, a car show, a senior dinner, a family concert with fireworks on 7 August and the parade and family festival on 8 August. Dates move year to year and 2026 was an unusual arrangement, so take the current calendar from the city.

Yes, as of 7 August 2026. The city closed 14600 South between Spring View Parkway and 1010 West on 17 November 2025 so that the single lane one way rail underpass could be replaced with a four lane two way underpass carrying multiuse trails, at a published cost of about 78.6 million dollars. The closure is expected to hold through winter 2026. Detour north on Redwood Road and east on Bangerter Highway for I-15 from the west side, or south on Porter Rockwell Boulevard for Redwood Road from the east side.

At the north end of Utah Lake, between Lehi and Saratoga Springs, and it is the lake's only outlet. It then runs north through the Jordan Narrows, a gap in the Traverse Mountains below the Point of the Mountain, and that gap is where it enters Salt Lake County at Bluffdale. Turner Dam, the first of two dams on the river, sits in that reach and diverts water into the East Jordan and the Utah and Salt Lake canals.

The four mile section that opened at 7pm on 19 December 2025 is open and carries two lanes each way, along with four miles of twelve foot multiuse trail and five pedestrian bridges. It finished four months ahead of schedule and connects Herriman and Riverton to Saratoga Springs and Lehi. The corridor as a whole is not finished. A further phase has been announced for the section north of Porter Rockwell Boulevard, which is a separate project on Herriman's ground and is covered on the Herriman companion.

For a visitor, yes. The city is compact, nothing on the ranked list is more than about fifteen minutes from anything else in normal traffic, and there is no canyon drive to budget for. A morning at the Narrows, a couple of hours at Wardle Fields, an afternoon at the park and the arena and an evening on the new corridor trail fills a day. What one day cannot do is Old West Days, because the rodeo and the parade sat almost a fortnight apart in 2026.

Scott Buehler, Moving Utah

Thinking about Bluffdale? Start with which side of the rail line you mean.

This city reads as one place and behaves as several: a large lot horse core on the older ground, a dense planned north end off the 14600 South exit, a western edge that has just had a freeway laid beside it, and a southern boundary that is a military reservation. Which of those a street belongs to changes the drive, the noise, the paperwork and the price. Tell me what you are weighing and I will put you with a Salt Lake County partner agent who works the south end of the valley, and stay on the file for the homework and the financing side.

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.