The Goosenest, and the town it turned into

A cattle ranch of 1,726 acres on the bench at the foot of Loafer Mountain in southern Utah County, held by the family of James Fayette Shuler. It occupied the ground that is now the city of Elk Ridge. In 1968 the developer James Winterton purchased a portion of it, and the subdivision that followed became the town. Some accounts give the ranch as 1,800 acres; the city's own figure is 1,726.

It depends which moment you count, and there are four. Utah County approved the Salem Hills subdivision plat over the old ranch ground in the autumn of 1971. The first home on it was completed in 1973. The community incorporated as the Town of Salem Hills on 22 December 1976. And it took the name Elk Ridge by special election about a year and a half later, in 1978. City status followed at the turn of the century. As foundings go, it is a paperwork trail rather than a settlement date.

Yes. Salem Hills was the name of the subdivision plat Utah County approved in the autumn of 1971, and when the community incorporated on 22 December 1976 it took that name as the Town of Salem Hills. A special election about eighteen months later changed it to Elk Ridge. The old name is still in everyday use nearby, because Salem Hills High School, which opened in 2008 and stands in Salem, serves students from Elk Ridge along with Salem, Woodland Hills and parts of Payson.

For the elk. The name honors the elk herds that historically wintered in this area, and it was adopted by special election in 1978 to replace the original name of Salem Hills. It is an unusually literal Utah place name. Most towns in this state carry the names of people, of scripture or of somewhere the settlers had left behind, and this one carries the animals that used the ground, on a bench where a resident deer herd still winters among the houses.

The Shulers were the ranching family who held the Goosenest Ranch before it was subdivided, and the name descends from James Fayette Shuler. Shuler Park at 80 East Park Drive is the city's main public space and carries their name. It has a pavilion available for reservation, a playground, tennis, basketball and sand volleyball, along with a large grassy area and open views of the mountains behind the city. In a city with no commercial center and no civic square, it functions as the middle of the place.

It is the western end of the city, the ground that falls away toward Payson, and it still carries the ranch's name half a century after the ranch stopped operating. Goosenest Drive is the road that leaves the city from that end, dropping northwest past Gladstan Golf Course into east Payson, and it is one of the two alternates the city names whenever the main road is closed. The area also draws on its own water source, separate from the wells supplying the rest of Elk Ridge.

At the turn of the century, and the records split by a year. Elk Ridge was reclassified as a fifth class city in either November 2000 or 2001, and both dates are in use. Either way the change was a legal classification rather than a transformation: the place had grown from a few hundred residents in 1980 to a few thousand without ever acquiring a commercial center, and it has not acquired one since.

By roughly an order of magnitude. In 1980 the community held 99 homes and 381 residents. The 2020 census counted 4,687 people, a 2022 estimate put it at 4,658 residents in 1,229 homes, and the 2025 Census estimate is about 4,970. The city's plan caps its eventual size between 6,500 and 7,500 residents, because slope and a shortage of developable ground limit what can still be added.

No. Elk Ridge is a separate incorporated city with its own government, its own water system and its own fire department, and it has been a distinct municipality since 22 December 1976. The confusion is understandable, since the town was originally named Salem Hills after the subdivision plat, it sits directly above Salem on the bench, its main road runs down into Salem, and the high school that serves it stands in Salem and carries the old name. They remain two cities.