Fairfield is several miles south of Cedar Fort. It was the home of Johnson's Army after the Utah war in 1857. While the army was in residence, it was known as Frogtown. The name was changed to Fairfield in 1861, which I believe was a great improvement. The army left with the beginning of the Civil War. Now it is the home of the Camp Floyd state park. They have pony express reenactments there every year.
Cedar Fort lies west of Lehi. I couldn't find very much information about Cedar Fort except that it was named for the local cedar trees. I also know that you have to keep your eye out for deer around this small community.
Lehi is the northernmost town in Utah County and the 6th oldest town in Utah. In its earliest days it was called Sulphur Springs, Dry Creek and Evansville. The settlers finally settled on the name of Lehi, named after the Book of Mormon prophet. Lehi's biggest industry for several decades was sugar beets. One of my favorite restaurants, Porter's Place, is in Lehi. They play turn of the century piano music there. Lehi also has some of the worst traffic in Utah.
The town of Lindon is located north of Orem. It was originally called Stringtown and was an outgrowth of Pleasant Grove just to the north. When the town applied for a post office, the town name was changed to Lindon. It was named after the linden tree where the mail used to be dropped off.
Orem, west of Provo, was originally known as the "Provo bench". It was incorporated in 1919, in order to secure water rights for the farms that dotted the area. Orem was named after Walter Orem who owned the interurban railroad between Salt Lake City and Provo at the time. Orem is now more urban than rural now, and it is the home of Utah Valley University. I found their sign to be slightly more interesting than Provo's. At least it was more substantial.
North of Mapleton is the city of Provo. Provo was the first city settled outside of the Salt Lake valley. It was named after the trapper, Etienne Provost. My grandfather was born and raised here. Provo is the home of Brigham Young University. I enjoyed going to school here, but their town sign is really boring. They should use all that university talent to come up with a better town sign.
I'm sorry that I haven't posted any pictures for months. I am now nearly a year behind again. I think I intimidated myself by starting out with trying to write a little bit of history for each town. I think that I will have to cut back on that for now just so that I can catch up. I kept wanting to do a post, and then the thought of all the time it would take to look up something on the town and then write about it would stop me from doing anything. So from now on, the posts will probably have less history and be more pictures and personal observation.
