The view and the name Pleasant View
A thousand feet of climb inside seven square miles, a 9,712 foot mountain above it, and no mapped water anywhere in the city
The Ben Lomond vantage, and the remark that named a city.
No public body publishes an elevation for Pleasant View, and the federal elevation service shows why: the ground inside these city limits runs from about 4,267 feet on the western edge to about 5,317 where the shoreline trail crosses out, roughly a thousand feet inside 6.98 square miles. Above it stands Ben Lomond at 9,712 feet on the Forest Service's records, not the 9,716 in general circulation. And the name came from Wilford Cragun in 1882, who looked out over the settlement and remarked that it had a pleasant view.
My own ground is Iron and Washington counties at the bottom of the state, a long way south of this bench, so these pages are researched rather than lived. What is on them came from the bodies that issue it: Pleasant View City's own history, events, facilities and police pages, its adopted Ordinance 2025-25 as published by the Utah Division of Water Resources, the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Committee's region pages and its 2023 status report, the Trails Foundation of Northern Utah, the Utah Geological Survey's geothermal record, the Forest Service's Ogden Ranger District trail records, the transportation department's own route file, the Census Bureau's boundary and survey tables, the state population committee, the state board of education through the state school layer, the Weber County parcel extract, the North View Fire District and the Weber County Library System. Every figure carries the day it was read, and where four bodies name one place four ways, all four are printed. A Weber and Morgan partner agent takes the ground level work.
The short answer
The mountain filling Pleasant View's eastern sky is Ben Lomond, 9,712 feet on the Forest Service's own trail records, and the whole city is the vantage: there is nothing to drive to and nothing to pay. What is worth knowing is how much ground the city covers vertically. Sampled from the federal elevation point service at one metre resolution on 21 August 2026, the west side of the city reads about 4,267 feet and the trail alignment where it crosses the city limits reads about 5,317, with the city offices at about 4,363 in between. That is roughly a thousand feet of climb inside 6.98 square miles, and it is why no public body publishes a single elevation for this place. The name came from the view, in 1882.
The live question
How high is Pleasant View, and what exactly are you looking at from it?
There is no single answer to the first question and any page printing one is guessing. No public body publishes an official elevation for this city. What can be measured is the range, and the range turns out to be the story. Sampled from the federal elevation point service at one metre resolution on 21 August 2026, the ground reads about 4,267 feet on the west side of the city, about 4,363 near the city offices, about 4,522 at the high school site, about 5,089 on the upper bench inside the city limits, and about 5,317 where the trail alignment crosses those limits. Roughly a thousand feet of spread, inside a city measuring 6.98 square miles.
That matters for reasons that have nothing to do with trivia. A thousand feet of elevation across one small city changes what the snow does, what the wind does, what the runoff does and what an ordinary February morning looks like from the window. It also changes what the figure in circulation means. A single elevation of about 4,502 feet is printed widely for this city, including on this site's own practical city guide; it describes a point somewhere in the middle rather than the ground under any particular address.
As for what you are looking at: Ben Lomond, and the Forest Service gives it 9,712 feet on both the trail record for the route from the county park and the record for the ridge route. The trail foundation gives 9,711, a difference of one foot not worth a note. An encyclopedia gives 9,716 and that is the number in general circulation, including on the practical city guide here, in several places. The issuing body is the Forest Service, and 9,712 is what this companion prints.
One naming note before anybody quotes the city. Pleasant View's own About page writes the mountain as Mount Ben Lomond, three words, and describes the city as nestled at the base of it. The Forest Service, the trail foundation and the trail committee all write Ben Lomond. Quote the city as the city writes it and use the agency form everywhere else, which is what happens on this page.
Do not price a bench view off a single elevation figure, because this city does not have one. The ground inside these city limits ranges from about 4,267 feet to above 5,300 on the federal elevation service's own readings, and the widely printed figure of about 4,502 feet describes one point in the middle of that. Anybody weighing an upper bench parcel against a valley floor one is weighing roughly eight hundred feet of difference in what the property sits on, which touches slope, drainage, runoff off the mountain and what a February morning looks like out of the window. That is a question for the parcel and for Weber County's own hazard mapping, not for a city wide number. This companion prints the range and its source and refuses to average it into one figure.
The ladder
Five points inside one small city, and about a thousand feet between the lowest and the highest.
Every reading below came from the federal elevation point service at one metre resolution, queried on 21 August 2026. The coordinates are approximate positions chosen to sample the city end to end rather than surveyed points, so read the ladder as a shape rather than as five certified benchmarks. What it demonstrates is not in dispute: this is a city with a genuine vertical range in it.
| Where in the city | Ground elevation | What that end of town is like |
|---|---|---|
| The western edge, near 41.306 north and 112.027 west | About 4,267 feet | Valley floor, the flattest ground in the city, closest to the freeway corridor and the rail line, with Farr West beyond it |
| Near the city offices, 41.318 north and 112.002 west | About 4,363 feet | The civic middle of the city, where the offices, the police department and Barker Park share one parcel at 520 W Elberta Drive |
| The high school site, 41.3215 north and 111.9865 west | About 4,522 feet | Already 255 feet above the western edge, on the ground the transportation department's route file calls Weber High Drive, or 3500 North |
| The upper bench inside city limits, 41.335 north and 111.980 west | About 5,089 feet | The residential bench, where the streets climb toward the mountain and the slope and drainage questions on a parcel start to matter |
| The trail alignment at the city limit, 41.3412 north and 111.9767 west | About 5,317 feet | The top of the city, where the built shoreline trail crosses out of it and the power line corridor runs north |
Sampled from the U.S. Geological Survey's 3D Elevation Program point query service on 21 August 2026. Confidence is high for each reading and moderate for the labels, which are approximate positions rather than surveyed locations. No public body publishes an official elevation for Pleasant View, which is why this ladder exists instead of a number.
The second measured fact about the city's shape is the one that settles a marketing question. The Census Bureau's 2024 boundary file, for place 4961150, gives Pleasant View 18,079,779 square metres of land, which is 6.98 square miles, and zero square metres of water. Not a little water. None. So the city touches no mapped watercourse, pond or lake anywhere inside its limits, which is why no page in this companion carries a river subject and why the region page on the two river trails has no address here.
That also disposes of the lake. Pleasant View does not reach the Great Salt Lake and does not claim to on its own pages. Its western limit sits at about longitude 112.035 west, and Farr West City lies between this city and the freeway corridor at that latitude on the state municipal boundary layer. No public body publishes a distance from Pleasant View to the lake shoreline, and the shoreline itself moves, so no figure is offered here. The honest description of the western view is a lake plain, and the honest description of the eastern one is a mountain.
The northern and eastern edges are the interesting ones on the map. Measured against the state municipal boundary layer on 21 August 2026: along the US-89 and Interstate 15 corridor, at about longitude 112.029 west, the city runs north to about latitude 41.3364, within about fifty feet of the Box Elder County line at that longitude. Mid city, at about 112.010 west, it reaches about 41.343. On the east bench, at about 111.980 west, it reaches about 41.350, its northernmost point. And further east still, at about 111.975 west, a narrow finger of city runs up the bench between about 41.3396 and 41.343. That layer states in its own metadata that it does not represent exact legal boundaries but rather a set used for administrative purposes, with data current through 30 June 2023 and later annexations added through the year, so anything at parcel scale belongs at Weber County.
The details
Getting there
There is nothing to navigate to. What changes the view is where in the city an address sits: the western edge looks across a lake plain with the mountain further off, the upper bench sits about eight hundred feet higher with the mountain directly above it, and the streets in between climb steadily east. Weber County's own hazard mapping is the place to take a specific parcel, and the city's zoning map, dated 12 August 2025, is one of only four documents it publishes.
Before you go
- The mountain's elevation is 9,712 feet on the Forest Service's records. The 9,716 in general circulation traces to an encyclopedia and appears in five places on this site's own practical city guide.
- The city writes the mountain as Mount Ben Lomond on its About page; every agency writes Ben Lomond. Both forms are correct in their own context.
- Willard Peak, two miles north along the same ridge, is beyond the Box Elder County line and is a different county's subject. This page names the line and stops.
- The city holds zero mapped water on the Census Bureau's boundary file, so the view west is a lake plain rather than a lake.
The name
Somebody stood here in 1882, said the view was pleasant, and the remark became the city.
Pleasant View City's own history page, read 21 August 2026, is short and unusually specific, and it is the only body publishing any of this. The area was first settled in 1851, with the earliest settlers given as the Simeon Cragun family. Before it had its current name it was called, in order, the West End, the West District and Stringtown. It was named in 1882 by Wilford Cragun, whom the city describes as the first of the pioneer's children born in the settlement, who looked over the community and remarked that it had a pleasant view. And Pleasant View City became incorporated on August 27, 1945, with Odell Kirk as its first town president.
Three details in that paragraph correct things in wide circulation. The settlement year commonly printed is around 1850 and the settler commonly credited is John Mower; the city says 1851 and the Cragun family and does not mention Mower anywhere. The list of earlier names commonly printed runs to five, adding Hot Springs and out West to the city's three; the city prints three. And a date of 1939 circulates for incorporation, while both the city's history page and its About page print 27 August 1945 and agree with each other.
The phrase most often quoted about this city is not from any of that. A treasure in Ben Lomond's shadow is the title of a longer history document, The History of Pleasant View Utah, hosted on the city's retired web server rather than on its current site. It is a document title. No adoption of it as a municipal motto was found anywhere on the city's own pages, and this site's practical city guide currently calls it one. It is a good phrase and it belongs to a book rather than to a council resolution.
What the city does say about itself, on its About page, is that it was founded in 1851 and incorporated on August 27, 1945, that it is nestled at the base of Mount Ben Lomond in northern Weber County, and that it is best known for its beautiful mountain views. The city also records that it holds several hundred acres of undeveloped land positioned in ideal locations for commercial and industrial expansion, which is a planning statement rather than a scenic one and is worth reading alongside the page on the water plan.
What a hundred and forty four years did to the view
The remark that named this place was made looking out over a settlement of a few families on a bench above farmland. What is in the frame now is a city of eleven thousand, a freeway corridor, a mainline railway, a state highway and two neighbouring cities, with the same mountain behind it. That is not a lament and it is not a selling point; it is simply what the view is, and a household deciding whether an address here is worth its price should look out of the actual window rather than at the sentence.
The one part of the 1882 view that has not changed is the direction it faced. The mountain still fills the eastern sky, it still holds snow into early summer, and the ground still falls away west toward the plain. The city grew up and down that slope rather than along it, which is why the elevation ladder above runs east to west and why every practical question about an address here starts with how high up the bench it sits.
The mountain
What belongs to this city is the view of it, and everything else belongs to the region page.
The split matters and it is deliberate. Ben Lomond is reached from two Weber County sides and from a third in the county north, it carries two named Forest Service trails, a county park sits under its east face and the region's trail foundation runs a four summit season across it. All of that is written once, for every city in this region, on the region page on the peak and the bench. Not one of those facts is repeated here, because repeating them would produce the same page twice under two different city names.
What genuinely belongs to Pleasant View is the vantage, and it is not a small thing. This is the city the mountain stands directly above, on ground that climbs about a thousand feet toward it inside seven square miles. The city's own About page leads with its mountain views, its name came out of a remark about the view, and the practical consequence for a household is that the eastern window is the amenity: it is free, it is permanent, it needs no drive and no season, and what it looks like depends entirely on where on the bench the address sits.
The one number worth getting right is the summit elevation, and it is worth getting right precisely because the wrong one is everywhere. The Forest Service prints 9,712 feet on two separate trail records. The trail foundation prints 9,711. An encyclopedia prints 9,716, and that is the figure this site's own practical city guide carries in five places, including inside its question and answer schema. The issuing body is the Forest Service.
The vantage, measured
9,712 ft
Ben Lomond's summit on the Forest Service's own trail records
~4,267 ft
the lowest ground sampled inside the city limits, on the west side
~5,317 ft
the highest, where the shoreline trail crosses out of the city
0 sq m
of water inside the city, on the Census Bureau's 2024 boundary file
Living with it
The amenity is the window, and what it is worth depends on eight hundred feet of bench.
Of all the things a household can buy near in northern Utah, a view is the one that is genuinely permanent and genuinely free, and it is also the one most likely to be sold to you in a sentence rather than shown to you at the window. In this city the sentence is unusually well founded, because the city is named after the view and the mountain really does stand directly above it. The caution is that the view is not the same thing across seven square miles, and neither is anything else that comes with elevation.
The practical version runs like this. On the valley floor edge, at about 4,267 feet, the ground is flat, the mountain is further off and the freeway and rail corridors are closer. Around the city offices, at about 4,363, the city is at its most ordinary suburban. At the high school, about 4,522. On the residential upper bench, about 5,089, the mountain is directly overhead, the view west opens across the plain, and the questions on a parcel become slope, cut and fill, stormwater and what comes off the mountain in the melt. Those are inspection and geotechnical questions and they belong in a contract.
The other thing eight hundred feet buys is weather that is not quite the city's weather. This city has no published weather station of its own; the readings in circulation come from a station downhill in the county seat. A bench address sits above that station and can run marginally cooler and snowier, and on some winter days above the worst of the valley air. That is a tendency rather than a promise, and the state's own air quality data is where to check it on any given day rather than a guide.
The rest of this city is the ordinary business of a small municipality, and it is covered properly elsewhere: the four parks and the six free events, the roads and the rail line, and what an address here asks of a household. But the reason people look at this city first is out of the east window, and it is fair to say so once, plainly, and then get on with the paperwork.
Somebody stood on this bench in 1882, said the view was pleasant, and the remark outlasted the settlement, the farms and the name of the street he said it on.
Keep reading
The rest of Pleasant View on The Local.
The trail's north end
The shoreline trailhead
Four bodies, four names, three lengths, and nobody at all publishing directions.
Read the guideOn the county line
Utah Hot Springs
Springs on a county line, a resort gone since 1970, a junction still named for it.
Read the guideParks and the calendar
The parks and Founders Day
Four parks, six free city events, and a June parade with no published route.
Read the guideThe corridor
The US-89 corridor
A freeway exit signed for the neighbour, and a mainline with no train that stops.
Read the guideThe 2050 question
The water and the build out
The city's own ordinance projects 21,282 people and says the supply falls short.
Read the guideMoving here
Moving to Pleasant View
Five schools inside the limits and not one with a Pleasant View postal city.
Read the guideThe whole set
Pleasant View, in full
A city of 11,214 that climbs from about 4,270 feet to above 5,300 in seven square miles.
Open the companionQuick answers
The vantage, answered.
There is no single answer, and no public body publishes one. Sampled from the U.S. Geological Survey's 3D Elevation Program point query service at one metre resolution on 21 August 2026, the ground reads about 4,267 feet on the west side of the city, about 4,363 near the city offices, about 4,522 at the high school site, about 5,089 on the upper bench inside the city limits, and about 5,317 where the shoreline trail alignment crosses those limits. That is roughly a thousand feet of spread inside 6.98 square miles, so the honest answer is a range rather than a number.
9,712 feet, on the U.S. Forest Service's own records, which print that figure on both the trail record for the route from the county park and the record for the ridge route. The Trails Foundation of Northern Utah gives 9,711, a one foot difference not worth a note. An encyclopedia gives 9,716 and that is the figure in general circulation, including in five places on this site's own practical city guide. The issuing body here is the Forest Service, and everything about the trails up the mountain belongs to the region page on the peak and the bench rather than to this city's pages.
Because somebody said so in 1882. Pleasant View City's own history page records that the settlement was named that year by Wilford Cragun, described by the city as the first of the pioneer's children born in the settlement, who looked over the community and remarked that it had a pleasant view. Before that the place was called, in order, the West End, the West District and Stringtown. The city was first settled in 1851 by the Simeon Cragun family and was incorporated on August 27, 1945, with Odell Kirk as first town president.
No adoption of it as a motto was found on the city's own site. The phrase is the title of a longer history document, The History of Pleasant View Utah, hosted on the city's retired web server rather than on its current pages. It is a document title, and this site's own practical city guide currently describes it as a motto. What Pleasant View City does say about itself on its About page is that it was founded in 1851, incorporated on August 27, 1945, is nestled at the base of Mount Ben Lomond in northern Weber County, and is best known for its beautiful mountain views.
6.98 square miles of land and no water at all. The Census Bureau's 2024 boundary file for place 4961150 gives 18,079,779 square metres of land and zero square metres of water, retrieved on 21 August 2026. The zero is the interesting half: the city touches no mapped watercourse, pond or lake anywhere inside its limits, which is why this companion carries no river subject and why the region page on the two river trails has no address here. The commonly printed about seven square miles is correct.
No, and the city makes no such claim on its own pages. Its western limit sits at about longitude 112.035 west, with Farr West City lying between Pleasant View and the freeway corridor at that latitude on the state municipal boundary layer. No public body publishes a distance from this city to the lake shoreline, and the shoreline itself moves, so no figure is offered here. The accurate description of the western view is a lake plain rather than a lake, and the Census Bureau's zero water figure for the city is the cleanest confirmation of it.
Irregular, and the north and east edges are the interesting ones. Measured against the state municipal boundary layer on 21 August 2026: along the US-89 and Interstate 15 corridor at about longitude 112.029 west the city runs north to about latitude 41.3364, within about fifty feet of the Box Elder County line there. Mid city at about 112.010 west it reaches about 41.343. On the east bench at about 111.980 west it reaches about 41.350, its northernmost point. That layer states in its own metadata that it does not represent exact legal boundaries, so anything at parcel scale belongs at Weber County.
Both, depending on who is writing. Pleasant View City writes Mount Ben Lomond on its own About page, describing the city as nestled at the base of it. The Forest Service, the Trails Foundation of Northern Utah and the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Committee all write Ben Lomond. Neither is a mistake; a page quoting the city should quote it as the city writes it and use the agency form everywhere else, which is the rule this companion follows. The mountain is named after Ben Lomond in Scotland.
Sometimes, and it is a tendency rather than a promise. Pleasant View has no published weather station of its own, so the readings in circulation come from a station downhill in the county seat, and the upper bench inside these city limits sits roughly eight hundred feet above the city's own western edge. On some winter days a bench address can sit at or above the worst of the trapped valley air, and on others it cannot. The place to check on any given day is the state's own air quality data rather than any guide, including this one.
The window is the amenity here, and it is not the same window across seven square miles.
A view is the rarest kind of thing to buy near, because nobody can build it, charge for it or close it for the season. In this city it is also the thing most likely to be sold to you in a sentence, so the useful advice is unglamorous: go and stand at the actual address, at the actual time of day, in the season you will spend most of your time in. Eight hundred feet of bench separates the two ends of this city and it changes the mountain, the plain, the snow and the slope questions on the parcel. Tell me which streets you are weighing and I will introduce you to a Weber and Morgan partner agent who can meet you at the window, and stay on the file for 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.