A History of Davis County

Planning for the future-1

CHAPTER 1 0 PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE D, avis County's history in the twentieth century was clearly part of a larger story. In all corners of the American West, the Second World War left its impact. Defense industries and military installa­tions created an economy increasingly dependent on the federal gov­ernment. After the war, politicians worked to keep the jobs for their hometown voters. At the same time, businessmen sought to diversify the economy in the federally impacted areas. The New Deal's "alpha­bet agencies" changed the way local governments worked. A pent-up demand for consumer goods fueled an economic boom, and increas­ing prosperity and population growth sustained it. Sprawling subur­ban developments in the Los Angeles area spawned a new limited-access local highway system. It was much imitated in western and southwestern metropolises and elsewhere. In many respects, it was the western urban revolution that set the pattern for a new American way of life. The West also gained new political clout. Hollywood rolled out a glitzy pop culture. California ranch homes and backyard pools became the standard for leisure living. In these and other ways, west- 357 358 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY ern ways began to dominate American lifestyles in the late twentieth century Although influenced by national events-such as the civil rights movement, a restructured national economy, the international energy crisis, and foreign wars-the West (and Davis County as one component of the West) developed its own identity That identity was centered around the rapid growth of metropolitan areas and defined by suburbs and freeways.1 Creating Suburbia on the Land In-between Without question, one of the major stories in Davis County's late twentieth-century history was that of growth. The county experi­enced a phenomenal burst of population in the years during and after the Second World War. The increase continued through the remainder of the century, and with it came ribbons of asphalt, dozens of new schools and churches, a flowering of local businesses, and a landscape blanketed with homes. The migration of new workers to the county's defense depots started the upward swing of population. Then war veterans returned home to marry and establish families. Soon a new generation of postwar babies contributed to the county's growth. Davis County's population grew from 11,450 in 1920 to 15,784 in 1940. Then, in the next ten years, it doubled to 30,867. The county doubled in size again to 64,750 residents by 1960. At that point, given the large population base and the increasingly limited amount of buildable land, it would seem unlikely that the county would ever again see another doubling in a single decade. Statisticians ranked Davis County's explosive swelling during the 1950s as the second-fastest growth rate for any county in the nation.2 Beginning in 1960 the county added more than 40,000 people each ten years, with the larger numbers in the earlier decades. These numerically similar increases meant that the growth rate, or percent­age of increase, was slowing, as was true in other counties along the Wasatch Front as their land was gradually built upon. Nevertheless, 40,000 new people every decade made a significant difference in Davis County. Sustained growth was made possible due to people moving into the county as well as a high birth rate. During the 1960s, for example, there was a net in-migration of 15,855 people, who pur­chased the new housing available in the county's suburban develop- PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 359 In 1931, one thousand people lived in a still rural Kaysville. The commu­nity doubled in population during the next twenty years, and by 1990 counted nearly fifteen thousand residents. (Utah State Historical Society) ments. Natural increase d u r i n g this same decade ( b i r t h s minus deaths) accounted for the remaining 18,413 new residents.3 Davis County's population grew to 99,028 in 1970, to 146,540 in the 1980 census, and to 187,941 by 1990. At that time, state planners projected 229,264 people in the county by t h e year 2000, a number that was reached by the beginning of 1999. New estimates anticipated around 235,000 residents by the dawn of the new millennium. With only 149 acres of habitable land, the state's smallest county faced build-out with a projected population of 382,000 about the year 2030-that is, if the 2 percent annual growth rate of the 1990s continues.4 If viewed from the perspective of someone living in the county at mid-century, the growth has b e e n almost unimaginable. From 1900, with a base population of some 8,000 people, it h a d taken forty years to achieve a net increase of 7,000. Then, beginning in 1950, the county added more t h a n the entire population of that year in each succeeding decade. In the 1980 census, Davis County had 2,000 more people than its neighboring county to the north, and the difference has widened since then. Since 1980, Davis has been ranked third in population among Utah's counties-after Salt Lake and Utah. Because in land area Davis is Utah's smallest county, it is not sur­prising that in population density it has ranked second behind Salt 360 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Lake County since 1960. Davis County's population density grew from 242 people per square mile in 1960 to 333 ten years later. During that same time, Salt Lake County's density moved from 501 to 600 per square mile. By 1995, Davis County had become as densely populated as Salt Lake County was in 1970; Salt Lake was nearing 1,000 per square mile.5 The county's growth moved it from a rural to a suburban desig­nation, or, as defined by federal measurements, into the realm of the urban. The 1920 census revealed the beginnings of an urban metro­politan area along the Wasatch Front in Utah, Salt Lake, Davis, and Weber Counties. In Davis County at that time no towns had the min­imum population of 2,500 people needed to qualify as urban; the largest cities in 1920 were Bountiful, with 2,063 people, Farmington with 1,170, Layton with 1,150, and Kaysville with 809. Bountiful crossed the line to become an urban city in the next census, Layton and Clearfield during the wartime boom of the 1940s, and Sunset and Kaysville in the early 1950s. Centerville followed in the early 1960s and Woods Cross later in that decade. Farmington qualified in 1970, followed within a few years by Syracuse and North Salt Lake. Clinton, Fruit Heights, and West Bountiful also became urban dur­ing that decade. The last of Davis County's cities to reach urban sta­tus were West Point, during the early 1980s, and South Weber, later in that decade. The growth in individual towns and cities was influenced by economic incentives that fed the growth. In south Davis County, growth during the 1950s and 1960s followed a suburbanizing pat­tern. The greater Bountiful area reflected the expansion of Salt Lake City northward. Orchards disappeared and subdivisions blossomed as new suburban bedroom communities for workers in Salt Lake. Northern Davis County included some suburban growth because of its proximity to Ogden. More important was the presence of the defense installations. These government employers and buyers of goods and services caused phenomenal growth along the transporta­tion corridor defined by U.S. Highway 91 and the Union Pacific Railroad line.6 It was military-oriented employment that pushed Layton's population during the 1940s from 646 to 3,456, and in the next decade to 9,027. Unprecedented growth in the 1980s made PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 361 From a population of thirty-four hundred in 1940, when a Salt Lake Tribune photographer made this picture, Bountiful doubled in the next ten years, then nearly tripled by 1960 as subdivisions expanded the city's boundaries south and east toward the mountains. (Utah State Historical Society) Layton the county's fastest-growing and largest city, with 41,784 peo­ple. Bountiful had peaked in the late 1970s and counted 36,659 in 1990. Other cities exceeding 10,000 people in the 1990 census were Clearfield, 21,435; Kaysville, 13,961; and Centerville, 11,500. Farmington counted 9,028 in 1990 and Clinton 7,945. Most of the other cities had populations ranging between 4,000 and 5,500. The conversion of farmland into homesites did not win universal acceptance in Davis County. Governor George D. Clyde echoed the sentiment of those who favored a retention of the county's agrarian base. During remarks at a dedicatory program for an addition to the county courthouse in 1958, the governor cautioned farmers not to sell their rich black soil to developers. "The day will come," he said, when we will regret having covered our valuable, productive farm lands with concrete. The homes should be built along the mountain terraces where land is unproductive agriculturally, but the view as 362 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY home sites is excellent."7 Most of the early subdivisions did hug the foothills, for that is where land was available for purchase. The Bountiful area saw such expansion replace the productive orchard land. In later decades, the rich loam of the lowland farms from North Salt Lake and Woods Cross to Clinton and West Point felt the encroachment of suburbia. Planning for Growth. The process of change did not go without notice in Davis County Community leaders and the people they served cared about the county's future and the impact of expanding populations. "Urban growth is a challenge," the Board of County Commissioners noted in 1966: "A challenge that directly concerns the people."8 To prepare for the future, the commissioners organized cit­izen planning councils to study various issues and to prepare plans for the two halves of the county. The South Davis plan was completed in June 1966 under the chairmanship of Ezra T. Clark and Harold J. Tippetts. A North Davis plan followed two years later, under the guidance of Stanley H. Stringham and C. G. "Bud" Tice. In the inter­est of unity, the second report was expanded at the request of the county commissioners to create an overall master plan for the entire county The countywide summary was drawn from individual plans created by each city as guidelines for managing future growth.9 These plans were the product of a cooperative effort of county planners, economic analysts at the University of Utah, and seven cit­izen committees from each city Each citizen group focussed on spe­cific aspects of the physical development of the area, such as land use, traffic patterns, and public facilities. In all of the reports, countywide planning and coordination was strongly recommended.10 The issues defined by the study committees became a focus not just for the 1970s but for the 1980s and 1990s as well. In other words, the challenges of growth identified in those reports continued to be important as the years rolled on. The citizen groups urged planners to lessen the impact of urban sprawl on agricultural land and pre­serve the county's rural flavor. Even so, they recognized that first the southern farms and eventually the entire county might someday suc­cumb to urbanization. They hoped at best that planning would pre­vent a fragmented, leap-frog approach to expansion resulting in landlocked farm parcels. The study committees recommended clus- PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 363 tering subdivisions around a neighborhood center consisting of a school, playground, and city park. They urged multiple uses for school buildings. Other recommendations included establishing recreational trails and scenic roads, including one through Farmington Canyon to Morgan County. The committees hoped to consolidate the buying power of Davis County residents and end the haphazard spread of commercial development. Rather than more strip developments, they recommended strengthened downtown business areas or establishing new clustered shopping centers. The study groups liked the taxes and jobs generated by industries but were concerned over the related pollution, waste disposal, and other environmental and zoning matters. The need for the careful study and coordination of transportation needs was obvious. Among the long-range proposals were a border-to-border West Davis expressway and a boulevard to run along the east bench from Ensign Peak to East Layton. Of immediate need, the report said, were more east-west and intercity connecting roads.11 These studies of the late 1960s and a subsequent evaluation of the work gave county officials by 1970 a comprehensive view of where most residents wanted it to go over the next twenty years. Implementation was left to those in municipal offices with zoning and permit-granting authority "Actual happenings will probably fall somewhere in between recommended development and current land uses," the county plan acknowledged.12 Much that was viewed as favorable was accomplished. Some recommendations failed under the pressures of growth. Many hopes remained unfulfilled thirty years later. Most of the issues remained of concern to citizens trying to prepare Davis County for continued growth in a new century Urban and Suburban Models. By 1960 Davis County had quali­fied under federal guidelines as an urban county Ten years earlier, the census had identified 46 percent of the county's total population as urban and 54 percent as rural. The 1960 census certified that the county had changed radically in ten years. By that year, 80 percent of residents, or nearly 52,000 people, lived in areas of the county defined as urban.13 Urbanization generally signalled a shift toward a different approach to life than that found in rural agricultural regions, and 364 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY greater diversity among the population. Among the factors evident in Davis County's gradual move toward urbanization during the 1950s were increased numbers of women working outside the home and a greater variety of religious denominations and special-interest groups. Urban areas not only had more businesses but many special­ized services and stores. Better libraries, more living conveniences, and expanded educational offerings were other characteristics of urban areas. Each of Davis County's cities organized a planning com­mission to consider ways to deal with the suburbs sprouting in the areas surrounding the town centers. Newcomers brought fresh ideas into each community, but the established residents often opposed their views. In all of these categories, Davis County qualified as an urban area moving away from its rural past.14 A survey of county residents in the mid-1950s found them divided but generally satisfied with the changes that had taken place. Not surprisingly, the strongest negative reactions were expressed by older residents living in Layton and Clearfield, two of the areas hard­est hit by the intrusion of the defense installations onto fertile farms. Residents of south and central county communities enjoyed the eco­nomic benefits of expansion without carrying the obligation of accommodating so many new people. Their satisfaction with the changes was higher.15 Because Davis County's growth was part of a much larger pat­tern along Utah's Wasatch Front, statisticians in the U.S. Census Bureau proposed to attach the county to an adjacent metropolitan area for planning and statistical purposes. This recommendation in October 1963 brought mixed reactions from county residents and from neighboring counties. For a number of years the chambers of commerce in Salt Lake and Weber Counties had used half of Davis County in describing their own metropolitan areas. But the defini­tion was informal and did not meet federal standards. Census Bureau officials agreed that commuting patterns in the three-county area supported the idea of attaching the county to both neighbors. Since regulations did not allow a county to be divided for statistical pur­poses, officials had to make a choice. Their studies identified 4,600 workers from Davis County commuting to Salt Lake County for work and 1,800 Salt Lakers commuting north into Davis County At PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 365 The "Lots for Sale" sign on this field along the route of the Bamberger Electric in 1939 was an early sign of the potential for suburban growth in the Bountiful area. (Utah State Historical Society) the north end, 5,700 Weber County residents worked in Davis County and 1,700 from Davis drove to Weber County for employ­ment. On a close call, the bureau decided that "Davis County has a stronger, and possibly a more permanent type of economic relation­ship with Salt Lake County than it has with Weber County." Members of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce were pleased, those in Ogden expressed disappointment.16 The Davis County Commission immediately asked for a recon­sideration, proposing creation of a new single-county metropolitan area for Davis County But, without a city of 50,000 people and a population of at least 150,000, the county did not qualify. Davis County's 80,000 people became part of the Salt Lake metropolitan area for reporting purposes, business planning, and market analysis. With the decision made, Commissioner Wayne M. Winegar saw one benefit. The county had been somewhat divided, he said, by eco­nomic and cultural attractions that pulled people in north Davis County toward Ogden and those in the south into Salt Lake City. 366 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Including the entire county in the Salt Lake district would "help pull Davis County together," he believed.17 In succeeding years, county officials encouraged this one-county notion. They combined a number of north and south committees during the late 1960s and encouraged independent organizations and groups to do the same. Despite these hopes, however, Davis County continued to exist in many minds as a county divided at the Farmington-Kaysville line. Planners often looked at the two halves in their studies. The U.S. Bureau of the Census had the greatest impact because of its statistical reports, but federal highway programs cre­ated separate study programs, and Mountain States Telephone Company and some other businesses looked at the county as two separate economic entities. Because of natural population splits, many churches found it convenient to divide jurisdictions at a mid­point north or south of Kaysville.18 The boundaries of Utah's metropolitan areas changed from time to time to serve various economic or political interests. When the question was revisited in 1969, Davis County was once again assigned to the Salt Lake area. This time, county commissioners encouraged the affiliation, preferring it to having the county split in half. Some officials expected the county to qualify for its own metropolitan area by 1980. As the Davis County Clipper put it in 1969, "Davis County was never destined to be a part and parcel of some outside metro­politan area, but eventually a metropolitan area all its own." The county reached the necessary total population figure in 1990; how­ever, at that time Layton was still 10,000 people short of meeting the large-city requirement. The question remained open for reconsider­ation after another federal census.19 In the late nineteenth century, being part of an urban, metropol­itan area in America meant that people lived in compact areas and depended upon public transportation. That supposition influenced all American cities and their suburbs, including Salt Lake City and its environs. Under the urban model, city trolley lines and interurban lines such as the Bamberger Railroad were developed. Davis County was part of that turn-of-the-century experiment in public trans­portation. But the automobile quickly ended much of that urban dream. Davis County's electric trains were among the nation's last to PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 367 cease running; they stopped during the postwar boom when motor vehicles became widely available. "The old order changes, yielding place to the new," a Deseret News editorial declared on the day of the last Bamberger freight run to Ogden. The line's usefulness, the paper said, "was before the whole country took to private cars."20 Automobiles required improved roads and highways to connect country residences with the city workplace and department stores. The suburban model prevailed. California freeways rather than New York busses became the pattern followed in Utah's metropolis. Western ranch houses, not eastern apartments, became the symbol of the good life in Davis County.21 Eventually, again following California's lead, the Wasatch Front moved from suburbia to post-suburban metropolises, where resi­dents from Provo to Ogden both lived and worked in their "bed­room" suburbs. In Davis County, the process differed in the two ends of the county. The southern section began with small towns and cities that added their own suburbs but depended upon the large city for economic vitality. Clustered shopping centers worked, but attempts to establish a new postsuburban city center did not. In con­trast, northern Davis County developed jobs inside county bound­aries because of Hill Air Force Base and other federal entities. This encouraged the development of a vibrant regional economic center around the Layton Hills Mall. All of north Davis County to some extent then became a suburb to this new economic core. In Salt Lake County, similar developments occurred in Sandy and West Valley City. By 1990, Utah had a larger percentage of its population living in large cities than did the state of New York. California led the nation with 92.6 percent urban dwellers, followed by New Jersey and three western states; Utah was sixth with 87.0 percent.22 Suburbia and the Freeway. Construction of north-south Interstate 15 through Davis County in the 1960s made the suburban develop­ment model a reality and eventually led to the rapid growth of Layton as a new commercial hub. By shortening travel time to Salt Lake City, the new freeway encouraged subdivisions in the middle of the county. The communities along the freeway's route rightly envi­sioned a new incentive for growth. Interstate 15 made the greatest difference in the Centerville, Farmington, and Kaysville areas, which 368 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY had lagged behind other parts of the county because of their distance from both Ogden and Salt Lake City. Also, as in the Syracuse region, a stable agricultural population existed in the central core. Small sub­divisions began appearing in these central cities about the time the interstate began reaching into the county from the south. Suburban sprawl brought the first, small subdivision to Syracuse in that same decade.23 The national highway system was launched during the Eisenhower administration by the Federal Interstate Highway Act of 1956, which also expanded federal subsidies for major state highways. Washington paid 95 percent of the costs, making construction of the Davis County section not a matter of "if," but "when." The Davis County Planning Commission recommended a route that closely fol­lowed U.S. Highway 91, although in Bountiful and Layton it bypassed the established highway in order to avoid displacing businesses.24 North of Layton, the proposed route followed the abandoned Bamberger Railroad line. The Ogden Chamber of Commerce pre­ferred the Mountain Road (U.S. Highway 89) north of Farmington. The state hired a San Francisco engineering firm to study the options. The company found the lower route a shorter distance to military job centers and less costly to build than a route through the mouth of Weber Canyon. Because Congress had designated the national system as both an interstate and a defense highway, the more direct route through Davis County was approved.25 A new Beck Street overpass at the county line was built in two parallel segments in 1955-58 as part of Highway 89/91 and was later widened and integrated into the interstate system. Similarly, portions of the interstate between Bountiful and Layton were upgrades of an existing "super highway" that the state had built as a four-lane divided highway in the early 1950s.26 Because of the urgency of providing for increased traffic between Salt Lake City and Ogden, the Utah State Road Commission chose a six-mile section in south Davis County to be Utah's first highway built to interstate standards. In a ceremony in North Salt Lake in January 1958, Governor George D. Clyde launched the project by dri­ving a bulldozer into Amasa Howard's ninety-year-old dairy barn to clear a route for the new $7.3-million segment. Utah's first section of PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 369 In July 1959 construction was well underway on the Pages's Lane overpass in Centerville, the northern limit of the first segment of the Interstate Highway built in Davis County. (Utah State Historical Society) six-lane divided interstate highway reached north to Pages Lane and was completed in 1962.27 The original plan did not include an inter­change between Bountiful and Lagoon. Through the efforts of Centerville City officials, however, one was added at Parrish Lane to serve local residents. Hearings on the 6.4-mile segment between Pages Lane and Lagoon were held beginning in 1963, but plans were not ready for bidding for another six years. Northbound lanes on that $10.1-million section opened late in 1971 and the southbound side opened the following year.28 Meanwhile, the northern sections of Interstate 15 were being built from the Weber County line south to Layton. Widening and resurfacing the existing section of Highway 91 from Layton to Lagoon was accomplished in 1977 as a $9.9 million project. With the route finished through Davis County, motorists could travel on an uninterrupted interstate from northern Juab County to northern Box 370 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Elder County29 Long freeway stretches in other parts of the state would not see completion until the early 1990s. Meeting transportation needs remained one of the pressing con­cerns for Davis County citizens as the twenty-first century approached. Fearing a gridlock situation because of increased traffic on the arterial routes, highway officials and local governments explored options for increasing highway capacity and improving mass-transit options.30 Countywide planning for major transporta­tion routes had begun with the growth surge in the 1950s. To prevent a choking of existing arterial routes and to create a scenic drive, in 1951 the county planning commission proposed a new foothills highway through the county along Highway 89 from Weber Canyon to Fruit Heights, and then along the old Lake Bonneville terrace to Bountiful, with links to Highway 91 and around Ensign Peak to the state capitol. Salt Lake County planners extended the route along the old Lake Bonneville terrace to connect with Salt Lake City's Wasatch Boulevard and then plotted a route all the way into Utah County. At first called Wasatch Drive, the proposed route eventually came to be known as Bonneville Drive.31 The concept of a valley-rim route was included in Davis County master plans of the 1960s and 1980, along with a proposed lowlands highway along the shore of the Great Salt Lake. Opposition from Salt Lake County eventually stymied efforts to realize a multicounty Bonneville Drive. The shoreline route took on the name of Salt Lake County's West Valley Highway and became a much-discussed topic in the 1990s as population growth in north Davis County surged.32 The shoreline route was named the West Davis Highway by county planners and then renamed the Legacy Parkway by Governor Michael Leavitt, who included it as part of a proposed 120-mile route extending from Brigham City to Nephi. Beginning in the early 1990s, Representative Marda Dillree, a Republican from Farmington, became a regular voice in the Utah Legislature in favor of the west­ern route and an active proponent seeking solutions for the Highway 89 issues. As chair of the Transportation and Environmental Quality Appropriations Subcommittee in the mid-1990s, she urged legisla­tive action to provide funding to solve the problems. Representative Don Bush (R-Clearfield) headed the House Transportation PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 371 Committee, another key position of help to Davis County33 Local officials worked through the Davis Council of Governments to draw attention to the needs. Republican Congressman James V. Hansen, a Farmington resident, added his support to the effort to unclog a con­gested 1-15 in central Davis County That bottleneck, he said, should be the state's top highway priority34 Location and wetlands issues stalled the West Davis Highway Centerville and Farmington residents were most concerned about its placement. Because the first stage of construction would end in Farmington, the road needed a junction with 1-15 and Highway 89 near Lagoon. That intersection would displace a new city road shop and dominate the landscape just outside Farmington's historic down­town district. Centerville planners wanted to push the highway west against the lake, but conservationists preferred a more easterly route to limit encroachment on wildlife preserves and federally protected wetlands. As the south-end debate ended in a temporary deadlock, city officials in Syracuse and West Point acted to divert developers and protect a hundred-foot swath for a transportation corridor adja­cent to Bluff Road for a future extension of the highway35 While debates continued over the West Davis Highway, planners moved forward to resolve traffic congestion problems along the thirteen-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 89 from the north Farmington junction to south Ogden. Residents in Kaysville and Fruit Heights pushed the issue to the forefront when they approached planners in the early 1990s seeking help in improving the safety of the route. Options included adding traffic lights, expanding bus service, and creating a limited-access freeway. As an interim solution, state high­way officials installed three traffic signals at the busiest intersections in 1992 and at others in subsequent years. A new interchange at the Hill Field Road (Utah Highway 193) was approved as well.36 Davis County residents were divided in their options about how to resolve the problem, or uncertain even if there was a traffic problem on the Mountain Road. A poll in 1995 found that a majority of those con­tacted didn't like the idea of traffic signals or turning the route into an expressway37 After additional study and discussion over a five-year period, the Utah Department of Transportation proposed a long-term solution. 372 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Officials announced that the busy road would be transformed into a six-lane expressway with a narrow median between the north and south lanes. A series of nine interchanges, several overpasses, and new frontage roads would give local motorists access while limiting cross-traffic to prevent collisions with through traffic. The upgrade would eliminate 136 homes and twenty-two businesses over the course of the ten-year project. The first of the interchanges, already under con­struction at the Hill Field Road (U-193), was completed in early 1996.38 Planning began immediately afterward for a second inter­change at the Cherry Hill Resort exit (U-273) in Fruit Heights. Work began in the spring of 1999 on that project. An aging Interstate 15 also needed attention during the 1990s. A number of rehabilitation projects replaced and patched deteriorating concrete and replaced some asphalt shoulders along the entire span of the thirty-year-old route.39 Motorists grumbled over the delays and wondered what they had gained when the repair crews left and the freeway still lacked the additional lanes many of them thought it needed. The idea of adding one lane in each direction received strong support from Davis County citizens-80 percent of respondents in a Deseret News poll in 1995 liked the idea. Cities in all parts of the county encouraged action on the plan through the Davis County Council of Governments and the Wasatch Regional Council.40 Highway planners had designated start-up funds for the West Valley Highway as a higher priority, citizens were told. However, when progress on the controversial western route stalled, Governor Leavitt made the addition of two lanes on the 1-15 stretch from 2600 South in Bountiful to 200 North in Kaysville first on the transporta­tion agenda. Part of the $260 million tagged by the Utah Transpor­tation Commission for the West Davis Highway between Salt Lake City and Farmington was diverted to widening Interstate 15. The freeway from the 1-215 merge to the south county line had already been expanded. Also, meters installed in 1996 at three on-ramps in Bountiful and Centerville helped regulate merging traffic during the morning rush hour.41 "Widening 1-15 in Davis County will not replace the need to build the Legacy Parkway," a Deseret News editorial noted, "it just buys the state some time." Highway officials estimated that a widened PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 373 interstate would handle increased traffic until about 2004. Freeway traffic in south Davis County had climbed by one-third in the four years between 1994 and 1998. The traffic flow of more than 115,000 cars a day was expected to continue growing by at least 8 percent a year. Planning would continue on the four-lane Legacy route and possible light rail and commuter rail systems. The $50 million interim solution was slated for a summer 1999 construction start.42 Some Layton officials urged the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) to continue the widening project northward, but the sug­gestion was rejected. The decision to go ahead with a short-term solution postponed for five years the full reconstruction of 1-15 in Davis County; UDOT moved its start date for that project to 2008.43 Subdividing Benchlands and Farmlands. Many people chose to live in Davis County because of its traditional, rural flavor; yet their presence contributed to the decline of open space. They sought out benchland homesites to get away from the traffic and commercial hubbub of city centers. More exclusive neighborhoods at higher ele­vations provided the additional aesthetic benefit of views overlook­ing the valley and the Great Salt Lake. The lowlands typically became lower-priced housing developments; but all of the new subdivisions altered the dwelling patterns that had prevailed in Davis County's first cities with their surrounding farmlands. The original city plats of Davis County had imitated the orderly four-square communities so popular in nineteenth-century America. Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington, and Kaysville had that look. Although the intent was that farmers live in the city, many of them built homes on their farms, creating a mixed pattern of settlement. The homesteaded areas outside the platted cities followed this rural pattern. Until the end of World War II, the county remained agricul­tural. The earliest recorded subdivision, platted in 1889, was Sulphur Springs. Nothing came of this paper town situated along the Jordan River pasturelands on Cudahy Lane in North Salt Lake.44 Many of the early subdivisions imitated traditional right-angle street patterns, but wandering streets gradually became the preferred model. The curved roadways both discouraged through traffic- often with cul-de-sac dead-ends-and ensured more privacy for res­idents. The arrival of interurbans and the subsequent age of the 374 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY An aerial view in February 1959 reveals the beginnings of subdivision devel­opment to the east and south of the original four-square platted city of Bountiful. (Utah State Historical Society) automobile created a heightened interest in suburban living. Numerous subdivisions appeared on the gently sloping land lying along the roads leading southwest from Bountiful to the Hot Springs. They carried names such as Carlton Place, St. Joseph, Stockdale, Bonneville, Enterprise, Cleverly, Odell, and Val Verda.45 One that retained its identity was Val Verda, immediately south of Bountiful. When the arch that had marked the development's entry for more than sixty years fell down in 1977, residents rebuilt it. They fought off incorporation with Bountiful for decades, until proponents in 1996 finally convinced a two-thirds majority to sign the annexation peti­tion. 46 The surge in home building throughout Davis County supported an active construction industry. Hundreds of new homes were built in the county every year. The pace remained relatively level during the 1950s and 1960s, then tripled and even quadrupled in some cities in the 1970s. Home building dropped significantly during the eco- PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 375 nomic slowdown of the early 1980s; this was followed by an upswing and another slump. It was possible to say in 1990 that most of the homes existing in the county had been built since 1970. Nearly a thousand new permits were issued in the county in 1990. During the next few years, the annual count was double that figure, but as the decade ended planners anticipated a slowdown in home construc­tion. 47 The number of new dwelling units for the population would even have been higher had Davis County's family structure been more like the nation's. Households with married couples in 1990 made up 77 percent of the county's population, compared with 66 percent for Utah and 56 percent for the nation. Each home in Davis County averaged 3.45 people, compared with 3.15 in Utah and an average of 2.63 in the nation. The suburban living standard for Davis County in 1990 was a single family home with from two to four bed­rooms and an attached garage. Nearly half of the families owned two cars, and another one-fourth had three or more vehicles.48 The rate of home ownership in Davis County was one of the highest in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 76 percent of homes in the Salt Lake-Ogden metropolitan area were owned by their inhabitants. The national average was ten percentage points lower.49 While most residents of Davis County lived in traditional fami­lies, 12 percent of families were headed by a female, and another 10 percent of adults lived alone. Many of these citizens lived in manu­factured housing or in apartments. Young couples and low-income families also chose apartments to live in. City planners created spe­cial zones for multi-unit dwelling places. Typically they were located as a buffer between single-family housing and commercial zones. The numbers available varied greatly from one city to another because of local markets or preferences.50 In North Salt Lake, for example, half of all housing in 1995 was multifamily Clearfield, Layton, and unin­corporated areas had permitted 30 percent in that category; Bountiful and Woods Cross were at 22 percent. At the bottom of the list were South Weber and West Point, with 2 percent, followed by Clinton (4 percent), Farmington, and Syracuse (both at 8 percent). Overall, the ratio in Davis County was 22 percent, compared with 31 percent in Salt Lake C o u n t y A shortage of apartments in Davis 376 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY County in 1995 became a glut four years later when new construc­tion outpaced needs.51 Communities struggled with proposals from developers to build more m u l t i - u n i t buildings or to develop mobile home parks for manufactured homes. Owners of single-family homes sometimes opposed such units because of concerns over traffic congestion. In response, proponents of multi-unit construction raised questions of p r o p e r t y rights and d i s c r i m i n a t i o n against low-income families. Most cities sought to balance local apartments and starter homes on small lots with upscale subdivisions. In the 1990s every growing city faced issues of r a p i d new expansion. At the end of the decade, Syracuse found itself one-quarter full, with r o om for another 35,000 people, while Clinton anticipated it could triple in size and, with space for another 20,000, reach b u i l d - o u t by the year 2030.52 Clearfield was engaged in discussions on whether the city should move away from policies allowing low-income housing in order to achieve a greater balance.53 Layton's city council was willing to approve additional multifamily units to meet a pressing local need.54 Farmington residents, on the other hand, opposed the introduction of multi-unit housing in a city with very few apartments.55 To help cities work together on these and other common growth-related issues, county planners created the Davis County Planning Coordination Committee as a clearing house for information on growth, open space and parks, apartment locations, affordable hous­ing, street alignments, and land use. It was the third county land-use coordinating group created in the state.56 In every community in Davis County, as agricultural property disappeared under houses and black-top, residents began seeking ways to preserve open space. Those accustomed to rural life won­dered if farming was not preferable to any suburban development.57 For those who accepted as inevitable the move towards suburbaniza­tion, a mixed-use option combining single-family and twin-home units with professional offices and a neighborhood park won accep­tance. Other cities p r o p o s e d open space ordinances that would require homes to be built on small lots clustered around park-like open areas. When a developer proposed an open-space project in Farmington, residents were divided: some preferred large lots and PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 377 city parks for the city's west side; others believed that shared open space in a tightly clustered subdivision was the only way to provide needed housing for the future. City officials moved ahead in drafting a conservation ordinance that would penalize developers by requiring many fewer lots in developments without open space. "Farmington is no longer a rural area," one developer noted in proposing clustered urban townhouses with garages hidden in a back alley58 Even with support for clustered homes coming from Salt Lake City's Deseret News and various regional planning groups, including Envision Utah, decisions such as these would not be any easier. For communities to change their thinking from the rural and suburban housing models to an urban pattern would mark the beginning of another transition in the way Davis County's people would live on the land. "It takes thick skin to change the pattern of urban sprawl," a Salt Lake Tribune reporter noted. "There is no guarantee Utahns will want to buy into experimental neighborhoods that shun the tradi­tional suburban home on a half-acre lot." Cities such as Farmington, Clinton, and Kaysville moved ahead with the concept, however, and listened to proposals for clustered homesites.59 An incentive for local communities to take control of their future was passage by the 1999 Utah Legislature of the Quality Growth Act. Sponsored by Layton representative and House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, the measure had the support of several Davis County mayors and county officials. "It is born of the ethic of preservation and planning," Governor Michael Leavitt said of the bill as he signed it into law. "We will not subsidize urban sprawl, but care for future generations."60 New Schools for New Students. As the county's population increased during the 1950s and 1960s, so too did the number of schools. The district enrolled more than 2,000 new students each year during much of this period. Enrollment at the end of 1963 was 16,000 students in elementary classes and another 10,000 in sec­ondary grades. By 1970 the Davis School District counted 33,990 stu­dents, making it second only to Granite School District. Twenty years later, enrollment reached 54,558 in the Davis district. Granite and Jordan districts were larger by 20,000 and 10,000 students, respec­tively61 These figures reflected the fact that all along the Wasatch 378 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Front, Utah's population was young and comprised of families larger than average in America. In 1970 only 6 percent of Davis County's residents were age sixty-five or older; 9 percent of Utahns and 13 per­cent of Americans were senior citizens. In contrast, the 1990 census found 40 percent of the population age seventeen or under. Demographers noted, however, that since 1970 the percentage of older citizens had been growing and the younger age group shrink­ing. 62 To accomodate expanding enrollments under tight budgets, the Davis district built many new schools, usually in phases. In some years a third of the construction budget was dedicated to adding classrooms to existing schools, including some built before 1950. Each step forward required community approval of bonding issues to fund the required expansion.63 Once the younger students reached their teens, Davis County saw the beginning of a new trend in high schools. The last countywide class graduated from Davis High in 1956. The following year, Bountiful High became a four-year school, and for the first time the district had two high school graduating classes. Postwar expansion in north Davis County soon led to the construction of four more high schools. The new facilities were Clearfield High School in 1959, fol­lowed by Viewmont (in north Bountiful) in 1964, Layton two years later, and Woods Cross in 1972.64 The Woods Cross school introduced a layout not previously used in the area. The brightly colored school featured movable wall partitions in two large eight-room classroom pods and in the multipurpose gymnasium, the cafeteria, the home-making suite, and an interior open court.65 Because of expansion pro­jects at four of the high schools during the late 1960s, it would be twenty years before another new high school would be needed in the county The new school was called Northridge High School and opened in 1992 in Layton. Anticipating further growth, the district purchased land in 1990 for a future Syracuse High School.66 The first new junior high schools in nearly fifteen years were Central Davis Junior High, built in Layton in 1955, and South Davis Junior High, opened five years later in Bountiful. The 1960s saw con­struction of five additional facilities: Kaysville Junior High in 1961, Centerville and Sunset in 1965, and Millcreek (Bountiful) and North PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 379 Layton in 1967-68.67 The school-age population continued to grow during the 1970s and succeeding decades. The district built its next six junior highs to redistribute the load on existing schools. The new facilities were Farmington and Syracuse in the mid-1980s, followed by Fairfield, Mueller Park, and North Layton schools. At the elementary school level, construction surged, with four­teen new elementary schools built in the 1950s and nine more in the next decade. Because growth got a head start in the southern com­munities, thirteen of the twenty-three new schools were built in the region from Centerville south. That ratio was reversed in later decades.68 The pace of new construction was moderated somewhat by the use of portable classrooms and year-round schools, but these strategies did not eliminate the eventual need for new buildings. The Davis School District built seven new elementary schools in the 1970s. With twelve additional buildings added during the 1980s, con­struction moved at a faster pace than it had since the frenetic 1950s. In 1984 the Provo School District opened the first year-round school in Utah; Davis District adopted the program four years later and soon had a number schools participating in this cost-saving program. Even with this economizing, another eight elementaries were built in the 1990s. With each new school came boundary adjustments-a painful situation for students, but a fact of life for a growing county69 During the 1970s, the district introduced the first of its special­ized schools, all of them with countywide clienteles. The Monte Vista School, located in Farmington, was created to offer special-education classes for elementary students; it later added regular classes. Specialized programs for high-school-age students were established in an educational complex built behind Davis High in Kaysville. The Davis Area Vocational Center, established in 1978 (renamed the Davis Applied Technology Center in 1990), offered courses in technical fields. Mountain High School oriented its services to students need­ing help in adjusting socially. A Young Parents Program is also offered at this education complex. The district also sponsors the Farmington Bay Youth Center in Farmington and the Pioneer Adult Rehabili­tation Center in Clearfield. With the growing load of managing expanding numbers of schools and assisting teachers, the Davis School District built its first 380 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY This 1963 photograph of the Naval Supply Depot marks the beginning of the site's use as the Clearfield Freeport Center, a manufacturing and ware­house park offering special state and federal tax exemptions. Early occu­pants included Westinghouse, Fram Utility Trailer, Hercules, and Thiokol. (Utah State Historical Society) administration building at a cost of nearly $700,000. Located north of the courthouse, the four-story building was at the time the tallest building in Farmington and possibly in the county. School officials moved out of the courthouse to the new quarters in mid-1969.70 As social patterns changed, the county's schools faced the chal­lenge of adjusting to meet new needs. A policy created to discourage early marriages raised challenges that sent the case all the way to the Utah Supreme Court. A newly married senior at Davis High School challenged the policy that prohibited married students from holding student offices or participating in extracurricular activities. The pol­icy also kept pregnant students out of the classroom. The lawsuit, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, allowed the courts to review an earlier ruling by the state attorney general's office. The ruling declared similar policies in other districts unconstitutional. PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 381 Second District Judge Thornley K. Swan supported the Davis School District, as did the Utah State Supreme Court, creating a benchmark for all Utah schools. The district did not ignore the special needs of married or pregnant students: among the district programs created to help these students were the Mountain High School and Young Parents Program in Kaysville.71 The returning veterans from America's mid-century wars found opportunities for college training under government-funded school­ing made available by the GI Bill of Rights. This incentive, and an expansion of the college-age population along Utah's Wasatch Front, pushed university and college enrollments up at steadily increasing rates through the early 1960s. This was a turnaround from the war years, when Selective Service siphoned off so many young men that enrollments fell nearly 70 percent.72 With post-high school numbers approaching 44,000 students at Utah's nine institutions of higher education, legislators considered a proposal to establish a college in Davis County. "We need, and can support a community college," said Utah Senate President Haven J. Barlow, a Layton Republican. At that time, the University of Utah served 12,000 daytime students; Weber State College's enrollment stood at almost 4,000, with nearly a third of the students from Davis County. Barlow was joined in the pro­posal by Senator Ezra T. Clark, a Republican from Bountiful. They viewed the possibilities optimistically and gained the support of local government, civic, and church leaders. They noted that Davis County was the fastest-growing county in the state and, of the larger coun­ties, the only one without a college or university The proposal did not win legislative approval, however; still, county planners placed the dream of at least one community college, or a combination col­lege and vocational school, in the county's 1970 master plan.73 Another try for a community college surfaced in the 1990s. For a number of years the county had hosted university classes to fill local requests, demonstrating a need for a closer-to-home campus. The University of Utah had established off-campus classes in Bountiful and also offered courses leading to master's degrees in selected fields at its center at Hill Air Force Base.74 But the U of U was not the only school interested in expanding into Davis County Weber State University began offering courses in the 1970s at Hill Air Force Base. 382 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY It gradually expanded its enrollment to nearly 7,000 students annu­ally, with classes at its Davis Center in Layton, the Davis Applied Technology Center in Kaysville, and at six public high schools. When Weber State decided in the 1990s to build a branch facility in the county, Farmington and Layton both proposed sites for the campus. Property one mile west of the south gate of Hill Air Force Base was selected, and the university acquired 104 acres for its future campus.75 Libraries, Histories, and Museums. Public libraries in Davis County had their roots in a system of ward libraries set up in LDS meetinghouses and similar collections in local schools. Books for teens dominated the small church collections, usually housed in a cupboard in the meetinghouse and promoted by the Young Men's and Young Women's Mutual Improvement Associations. Sunday Schools also took an interest in the circulating libraries. Beginning in 1899, each public school established its own "unit library" under the guidance of the Davis School District. Layton's ward library opened its books to the general public in 1900, in what was described as Utah's first free circulating library The experiment lasted only a few months, apparently dying for lack of interest. Some high schools in the county provided public access to their collections, but the diffi­cult times brought on by depressions and wars delayed creation of a public library system.76 The Davis County Library was organized in 1946 when the county commission appointed five men to the governing board and gave them two charges: develop a countywide free public library sys­tem and serve secondary school libraries. The director and staff, all women, were headquartered at Davis High School and furnished books for five secondary schools. Within a few years, the library board established branch public libraries in Bountiful, Clearfield, Farmington, and Verdeland Park. Services were expanded in the 1960s with a bookmobile that visited more remote neighborhoods in the county In the fall of 1963, the staff moved into a new Davis County Library Processing Center just east of the courthouse. The $200,000 facility was built as a joint project of the county and the Davis School District. Books for both the county library system and the school district were processed at the center, which also had a main-floor public library, including a special section for children. PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 383 Civil Defense headquarters occupied part of the basement. The school and public library programs went their separate ways in 1977, after thirty years as a consolidated system. After that time, the schools got their library books through the Utah State Library processing ser­vice, and the county library system specialized in the public library function, serving readers of all ages.77 As patronage increased, the county library board built new facil­ities for the South Branch in Bountiful in the late 1960s and the North Branch in Clearfield in 1977. Despite local protests, the county's Layton branch, which had operated since 1960 in the old city hall, was closed and its 5,000-book collection moved to Clearfield when that branch opened. A new Central Branch Library in Layton was completed in 1988. The next step for expanding service was announced by the Davis County Library Board in the spring of 1999. Plans called for new branches near the Syracuse City Hall and at Parrish Lane in Centerville as well as anticipated additions to the library buildings in Layton and Bountiful.78 That announcement may reopen a longstanding question in Kaysville, where an independent library exists under city sponsor­ship. The Kaysville Library grew from humble beginnings in a reno­vated blacksmith shop before finding a home and sponsor in the Kaysville City Building. At various times, most recently in the mid- 1990s, city officials have explored the possibility of Kaysville's library joining the county system, with its more extensive holdings. Each time, however, local convenience has been given higher priority: fears that the county might close the Kaysville facility, requiring patrons to travel to Layton or Farmington, kept Kaysville with its library79 The normally placid work of administering a library erupted into controversy in 1979 when County Commissioner Morris F. Swapp, a member of the Davis County Library Board, removed a contested adult novel from the shelves. He did so after library director Jeanne Layton and two six-member review committees had decided the book should remain despite patron complaints that it was obscene. At issue were questions about book selection, access to adult books, and censorship. The matter was complicated when two new mem­bers of the library board supportive of Swapp's position were appointed during the controversy. An ad hoc group called the Library 384 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY The proliferation of ranch homes in Davis County subdivisions eventually gave the older Victorian homes a special appeal. One of the more elaborate of these historic places is the Kaysville home of Governor Henry H. Blood, built about 1896. (Utah State Historical Society) Coalition rallied behind Jeanne Layton. The coalition challenged the board appointments as unrepresentative of a diverse county popula­tion. The group especially opposed the selection of a member of Citizens for True Freedom, an ultraconservative group. In a 3-2 vote, the library board fired Layton in September, listing a half-dozen rea­sons, including insubordination. Layton took the issue to federal court, claiming that Swapp had exceeded his legal a u t h o r i t y Before the court could rule, the county merit board decided that Layton was covered by the merit system and reinstated her. Layton went back to work, but with new limits placed on her a u t h o r i t y by t h e library board, including a mandate to involve more outside voices in the book-selection process.80 As an adjunct to learning, museums have played a supporting role in Davis County The Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) organiza­tion was the first in the county to preserve artifacts. Many of these found their way into the central collection displayed in Salt Lake City's Pioneer Memorial Museum. A number of local DUP camps kept their treasures at home. Preserved in pioneer log homes, the clothing, pho- PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 385 tographs, and household furnishings of the pioneer period offered glimpses of an earlier generation. The various DUP groups in the county also compiled some of the first town histories and wrote bio­graphical sketches of early settlers. A compilation of these writings was published in 1948 for the settlement centennial. Titled East of Antelope Island: History of the First Fifty Years of Davis County, the book remains a valuable reference on the county's beginnings. The U.S. bicentennial in 1976 sparked a nationwide interest in history that translated into hundreds of new histories and museums being created. In Davis County during the mid-1970s, the first book-length histories of Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington, and Kaysville appeared. These histories of the county's first settlements were fol­lowed in subsequent years with books on other communities, most of them appearing around 1990. An active Kaysville-Layton Historical Society published a collection of historical essays in Layton, Utah: Historic Viewpoints in 1985 and also issued a number of topical studies in pamphlet form. Davis County families remem­bered ancestral contributions to the county's early history by pub­lishing dozens of biographical and family history collections. These form another resource for historical reading and research. Layton City, the youngest of the older cities, created the first town history museum. Centerville's historical society furnished a his­toric home to preserve artifacts collected for that purpose. Other communities began discussion of options for town history museums. The display of the work of local artists found sponsors in two com­munities. Kaysville patrons of the arts organized a Community Art League and sponsored a gallery featuring the work of LeConte Stewart, a Kaysville resident celebrated as Utah's dean of landscape artists.81 Bountiful accepted the support of the University of Utah to launch what became the locally supported Bountiful/Davis Art Center. The gallery expanded its program under a new director in the 1990s and moved into the renovated Public Safety Building in the city government complex in 1998, where its cycle of exhibits spot­lights county artists and encourages student talent.82 The Geography of Religion. Employees attracted to Davis County because of jobs at the military installations brought with them reli­gious backgrounds not well served by existing area churches. Their 386 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY arrival lessened the dominance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and introduced the first meaningful diversity to the county's religious makeup. Most of that variety existed in the north­ern communities. Because of the new immigration, Latter-day Saint membership in the county between 1940 and 1950 dropped from 80 percent of the total population to 72 percent. At the same time, mem­bership in other denominations grew from 20 percent to 28 percent. In raw numbers, however, LDS membership increased consider­ably The number of wards increased during the 1940s from nineteen to twenty-nine, and church officials created a third stake. A half-century later, dozens of new LDS meetinghouses were to be seen, each serving two or three wards. A 1999 roster listed 114 wards in the four southernmost cities; another 99 wards in the central region reaching from Centerville to Kaysville; 76 wards in Layton; and 64 others in the other six northern communities. These 353 wards were clustered into forty-nine administrative units known as stakes, each of them encompassing six to nine wards. A highlight for south Davis Latter-day Saints was the dedication on 8 January 1994 of a temple on a foothill site overlooking Bountiful. LDS President Howard W. Hunter offered the dedicatory prayer. Twenty-seven other sessions over the next six days allowed thousands of people to attend the sacred event. Tens of thousands more walked through the temple during a public open house. The temple's service district included members from Kaysville south to the county line. Latter-day Saints in north Davis remained in the Ogden LDS Temple district. As school districts in Utah were setting up public high schools early in the century, the LDS church tested a weekday religious edu­cation program to compensate for the loss of spiritual instruction in the church schools. Seven years later, in 1919, an LDS seminary began adjacent to Davis High School. Named in honor of John R. Barnes, who helped the North Davis and South Davis Stakes fund the new yellow-brick building, the seminary offered released-time classes for Latter-day Saint high school students.83 The church's program expanded with the addition of each new high school in the county, and later seminaries were added to serve ninth-grade students attending junior high schools. PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 387 Religious influence in the public schools became a sensitive issue during the last decades of the twentieth century The church-state issue in Davis County was, in effect, a local manifestation of a nation­wide dialogue over the boundaries of religion in public education.84 Along the Wasatch Front, concerns were raised about the use of reli­gious music in school choral presentations and the offering of prayers in graduation programs. The Davis School District recog­nized the sensitive nature of these issues in a cosmopolitan popula­tion. Consequently, officials invited representatives from the PTA, Davis Education Association, an atheist group, and leaders of eleven religious faiths to examine the question and prepare written guide­lines for teachers and students. In January 1997 the Davis Board of Education became the first in Utah to adopt a comprehensive policy addressing religion. "The Davis District is plowing new ground," Superintendent Darrell White told a reporter. "We are out on the frontier." The policy was designed to protect First Amendment rights of free religious expression and to prohibit coercion and harassment in the schools. Among other things, the groundbreaking guidelines permitted private student religious expressions and the wearing of religious clothing and jewelry by students and volunteering clergy and missionaries. Choral teachers were allowed to include selected sacred music in the curriculum, and students could choose to lead a moment of silence at graduation ceremonies. Classroom discussions had to relate to academic subjects and avoid proselytizing.85 In 1940 most non-Mormon area residents looked outside the county for religious services. For many years, the Bountiful Community Church, established in 1882, had been the only non- Mormon church in Davis County. Its membership doubled during the 1940s. During that decade, new churches appeared in other areas of the county-most in the northern region. In Clearfield, a com­munity church organized in 1945 grew quickly to 235 members. Two other Protestant groups lacked buildings but had their own minis­ters. One was the Community Church in Verdeland Park, and the other was the First Southern Baptist Church in Clearfield. All of these churches catered to the new influx of people attracted by the wartime defense depots.86 The few Catholics in pre-war Davis County were affiliated with 388 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY the St. Joseph Parrish in Ogden or looked to the Salt Lake Cathedral of the Madeleine. Most were migrant workers who lived in the county only during the summers. The arrival of defense industry employees created a new but also somewhat transient membership. Beginning in 1941, a Paulist mission established itself in Bountiful. The priests offered services in rented spaces in Bountiful for families living as far north as Kaysville. In the northern communities, they met for a time with members in a portable trailer, but membership grew rapidly. Permanent facilities were erected in 1942 for the Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Layton. By 1950 the church listed 800 members. Bountiful's congregation at that time was around eighty parishoners and grew slowly. Saint Olaf 's Catholic Church opened on Orchard Drive in 1959. A school for elementary students was added the following year.87 The Protestant faiths with the largest followings in Davis County have been the Baptists and Lutherans. The county's nine Baptist churches are found in the larger cities at both ends of the county, where they serve thriving congregations. The Grace Baptist Church and First Southern Baptist Church were the earliest, organized in the early 1960s in the Bountiful area.88 Some Baptist churches in the county serve ethnic congregations. The True Vine Baptist Church was organized in Layton in 1978 for African Americans, although its con­gregation also includes many Hispanic and some Caucasian mem­bers. 89 A more recent group, the Layton Bilingual Baptist Church, offers services in Spanish and English. Also in Layton are the Mountain View Baptist Church and the Layton Hills Baptist Church. The Korean Baptist Church is based in Clearfield, as is the Salt Valley Landmark Mission Baptist Church. Two Baptist churches in nearby Roy also attract followers from Davis County For forty years, the Cross of Christ Lutheran Church in Bountiful served as a gathering point for Lutherans of various traditions in the south and central regions of Davis County The church was formally organized in 1958 as an affiliate of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. A second Lutheran congregation in Davis County, the Grace Lutheran Church, planted itself in Centerville and attracted a follow­ing as far north as Layton.90 The newer Light of the Valley Lutheran PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 389 Church in Layton serves members of the evangelical tradition in northern Davis County The 1960s and 1970s brought a number of additional Christian churches to Davis County to minister to relatively small congrega­tions. By the 1990s the religious landscape reflected a well-established religious diversity in Davis County. Southern Davis County congre­gations included the Abundant Life Assembly of God Church in North Salt Lake, Jehovah's Witnesses in Bountiful, the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Centerville, the Kaysville Bible Church, Kaysville Church of Christ, Kaysville Assembly of God Church, Westminster Presbyterian Church in Fruit Heights, and Pilgrim's Christian Fellowship in Bountiful. In Clearfield were found the Wasatch Church of Christ, Saint Peter's Episcopal Church, AMIGO International Assembly of God Church, and the Clearfield Community Church. Layton churches include the Church of the Nazarene, Cavalry Chapel Christian Fellowship, First Assembly of God Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus' People Ministries Church, and the Liberty Christian Church. The growing number of Davis County Asian residents brought new religious organizations outside the Christian religion to the county. The first Japanese Buddhist church was built in Syracuse in 1925 to serve farm workers and sharecroppers who had been gather­ing in the area since 1917. It was merged with the Ogden Buddhist Church in 1979. Late in the century, the Wat Dhmmagunaram Thai Buddhist Temple was established to serve eighty families in the Layton area.91 As the twentieth century drew to a close, the Bahai faith was functioning in Clearfield, Layton, Bountiful, and Farmington. Economic Growth in a Suburban County During the first decades after World War II, Utah's economy expanded on a solid base that had been strengthened by wartime spending. Residents of Davis County enjoyed a new era of prosper­ity that created a standard of living and personal incomes much higher than in the Depression and war years. Much of this growth related to the continuing presence of defense installations and related businesses. Commercial agriculture's role steadily declined during the