Lehi, Utah: A Book of Mormon Name for a Town on the Move

The first settlers of Lehi, Utah, moved around so much that the town ended up with a Book of Mormon name. Its 1913 history says the name was suggested “because the people had moved so frequently,” and in less than two years they’d lived by a spring, along a dry creek and in a spot named after their bishop.

Sulphur Springs and Dry Creek

The History of Lehi, written by Hamilton Gardner for the Lehi Pioneer Committee in 1913, starts the story in July 1850. A party of explorers set out for Utah Valley, argued with men who already claimed the land on American Fork Creek, and moved on to another stream about three miles west. It was hard to find enough water there for their horses, so they named it Dry Creek, “an appellation much more truthful than poetic.”

The same party found a spring north of Utah Lake and called it Sulphur Springs “on account of the peculiar taste of the water.” Gardner says it “later became the center around which the first settlers located.” Others spread out along the creek.

Bishop Evans and Evansville

On February 15, 1851, David Evans arrived on Dry Creek, sent by Brigham Young to preside over the settlers there. Gardner calls him “plain and outspoken, but always just and fair.” His land west of the creek “was called Evansville in honor of the bishop,” and because it sat on higher ground with good well water, the families at Sulphur Springs moved up to it that spring. Soon after, the church organized the Dry Creek Ward with Evans as bishop.

So in less than two years, the same small group of families had lived at Sulphur Springs, on Dry Creek and in Evansville.

Why Lehi

Early in 1852, Evans petitioned the territorial legislature, on behalf of the people of Dry Creek, to incorporate the town. Gardner tells you what happened next: “the city incorporated under the name of Lehi, this Book of Mormon appellation being suggested because the people had moved so frequently.” He doesn’t say who suggested it. The act, approved on February 5, 1852, created the “City of Lehi,” and Gardner says it was the sixth city incorporated in the territory, after Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo, Manti and Parowan.

The reason makes sense once you know the story. In the Book of Mormon, Lehi’s family leaves Jerusalem for a new land. George Q. Cannon spelled out the whole trip in the title of his 1888 book about Lehi’s son: The Life of Nephi, the Son of Lehi, Who Emigrated from Jerusalem, in Judea, to the Land Which Is Now Known as South America. Henry Gannett’s 1905 list of American place names keeps it shorter. The city, he says, is “named for a character in the book of Mormon.”

Lehi has company. Gannett also lists Nephi, in Juab County, “named for the youngest son of Lehi.”

Sources & further reading

• Hamilton Gardner, History of Lehi (1913), pp. 12-13, 30-33, 42, 50. The naming of Dry Creek and Sulphur Springs in 1850, David Evans and Evansville in 1851, the incorporation “under the name of Lehi” because “the people had moved so frequently,” and the act approved February 5, 1852.
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), pp. 184, 221. Lehi “named for a character in the book of Mormon,” and Nephi named for Lehi’s youngest son.
• George Q. Cannon, The Life of Nephi, the Son of Lehi (1888). The title’s summary of the family’s journey from Jerusalem.
• GNIS feature 1442553 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record for Lehi.