Tooele County Lake Point
The county's front door, where the valley meets the interstate
Lake Point, Utah, the front door on Interstate 80 with a vanished lake resort in its past.
Tooele County's front door, a small city of about 2,335 people where State Route 36 meets Interstate 80 at the north end of the valley. From here Salt Lake City and its airport are closer than from any other town in the county, and buried in the town's past is a three-story lakeside resort from the 1870s. Three pages go deeper, and this hub maps them.
The short answer
Lake Point is the northern gateway to Tooele County, a city of about 2,335 people at the junction where State Route 36 comes up the valley and ties into Interstate 80. From here Salt Lake City and its airport are closer than from anywhere else in the county, which is the honest headline. The catch is that the town is mostly homes wrapped around a busy freeway junction: there is no supermarket in Lake Point, so a full grocery run means Stansbury Park just south or Tooele down the valley. What it does have that nobody expects is history, a Gilded-Age lake resort with a steamboat landing that stood here in the 1870s and is almost entirely gone. Three pages carry the detail, and this hub is the map.
The shape of it
A junction with houses behind it, and a deeper past than the freeway lets on.
Lake Point sits at the northeast corner of Tooele Valley, in the gap between the north tip of the Oquirrh Mountains and the south shore of the Great Salt Lake. State Route 36, the valley's Main Street, runs up through town and meets Interstate 80 right here, which makes Lake Point the first Tooele County address a driver reaches coming out of the Salt Lake Valley. That position, more than any single sight in town, is the whole point of the place.
The settlement is older than it looks. It began in 1854 as E.T. City, named for the pioneer leader Ezra T. Benson, and took the name Lake Point in 1923. Its strangest chapter came in the 1870s, when a Salt Lake physician named Jeter Clinton built a lakeside resort here with a pier, bathhouses, and eventually a three-story stone hotel, and a Great Salt Lake steamer called the City of Corinne moored at the landing. Nearly all of it is gone. Just north of town, three boulders known as Adobe Rock hold a quieter surprise: they are named for a small adobe shack that Captain Howard Stansbury built beside them for his herders in 1849, the same Stansbury the range to the west carries. Adobe Rock and the lost resort tells both stories in full.
The town those chapters left behind is now a commuter gateway. Newer housing, including the Saddleback area on the east side, has filled in around the junction, and most of Lake Point works over the hill in the Salt Lake Valley, closer to downtown and the airport than any other town in Tooele County. The wind that funnels through the lake gap and the fact that a grocery run still means driving to the next town over are both part of the honest picture. The Lake Point city guide handles the buyer side, what homes cost near the junction, which schools serve which streets, and the homes on the market right now.
A freeway junction at the head of the valley, the county's shortest drive into Salt Lake, and a vanished lake resort in its past. That is Lake Point in one line.
Nearby, county-level
The lake, the island, and the salt flats belong to the whole county, and sit just up the road.
Lake Point's best-known attractions are a short drive rather than in town, and the biggest of them are written once at the county level so no single town page has to retell them. Three sit right on the doorstep.
The next town south
Stansbury Park
The planned lake community minutes south, with a golf course, an old grist mill, and star parties.
ReadWest off the interstate
Stansbury Island
The lake's second-largest island, a dirt-causeway drive to solitary desert hiking and biking.
ReadAn hour west
Bonneville Salt Flats
The blinding white speed flats out toward Wendover, firm enough to drive only when dry.
ReadEvery county-level page lives under the Tooele County region hub, the single way into the whole county.
The Lake Point companion
Three pages on the town itself, the short list, the lost resort, and the daily trade.
Lake Point is a small town, and its shelf is honest about that. Three pages sit under this hub: what there actually is to do around the junction, the buried resort history that makes the place worth a second look, and the plain math of living at the county's front door. Pick the one that matches your question.
Things to do
Top things to do
The honest short list, with the lake, the island, and the marina marked as the drives they are.
ReadThe buried history
Adobe Rock and the lost resort
A three-story hotel and a lake steamboat landing stood here in the 1870s, and all but vanished.
ReadLiving and moving
Living in Lake Point
The county's shortest commute, the no-grocery reality, and the wind at the lake gap.
ReadWeighing a move, not a visit?
If you are comparing places to live rather than places to see, the city guide is the better door. That is where a move gets answered, from what homes run near the junction to which schools serve which streets, beside the current listings.
Quick answers
Lake Point, answered.
Lake Point sits at the northeast corner of Tooele Valley, where State Route 36 meets Interstate 80 at the south edge of the Great Salt Lake, in the gap between the north end of the Oquirrh Mountains and the water. It is the first town in Tooele County you reach driving west out of the Salt Lake Valley, about 25 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City.
About 25 minutes to downtown Salt Lake City, east on Interstate 80 over one low rise, and the Salt Lake City International Airport is closer still. That is the shortest drive to the capital from any town in Tooele County, and it is the town's main draw. Traffic and weather move the number, so check a live map before you count on it.
The town was settled in 1854 as E.T. City, named for the pioneer leader Ezra T. Benson, and took the name Lake Point in 1923 for its spot on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake. In the 1870s the same place briefly went by Clinton's Landing, after the man who built a lake resort here.
A cluster of three boulders just north of town along State Route 36, a landmark travelers have noted since the wagon days. The name comes from Captain Howard Stansbury, who in 1849 built a small adobe shelter beside the rock for the herders watching his survey's stock. It shares its namesake with the Stansbury Mountains across the valley.
Yes. In the early 1870s a Salt Lake physician named Jeter Clinton built a Great Salt Lake resort here, with a pier, bathhouses, and by 1874 a three-story stone hotel, and a lake steamer called the City of Corinne moored at the landing on a summer schedule. Almost nothing of it survives, which is why so few people know it existed.
No. Lake Point has fuel and convenience stops at the freeway junction, but no supermarket. A full grocery run means Stansbury Park, the next community south, or the larger stores in Tooele down the valley. That short drive for staples is part of living at the gateway.
Lake Point residents voted to incorporate in November 2021, and the town became a city in 2022 with its own five-member council. It went straight to city status rather than starting as a town, which makes it one of Utah's newest municipalities.
That comes down to one trade. You get the shortest commute in the county, with quick access to Interstate 80, the airport, and downtown Salt Lake, in exchange for a town that is mostly homes: the nearest supermarket is a few minutes south, and the lake gap can funnel a real wind. If closeness to Salt Lake while staying in Tooele County's space is the priority, Lake Point is the literal answer.
It is a hub and three pages. This page is the overview and the map: the short list of things to do near the junction, the story of Adobe Rock and the vanished 1870s lake resort, and the plain reality of living and moving here. Countywide subjects, from the salt flats to the Stansbury Park lake community, sit at the Tooele County level and are linked here rather than retold.
The county's front door, worth getting right.
Lake Point poses a short, pointed set of questions to a household: is the county's quickest run into Salt Lake worth a town that sends you south for groceries, does the wind off the lake gap sit right with you, and does life at a freeway junction match what you are picturing? Say what matters most, and I will hand you to a Tooele County partner agent who works this corner of the valley, then keep helping with the research and the loan side myself.
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.