Mayor Kelly Bush | |
Kearns Metro Township Website | |
City Council and Planning Commission Agendas
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Population | 36,723 |
Incorporation | In 2015, Kearns officially became a Metro Township. In November 2016, the first election was held to elect the first council members to serve the township, and they were sworn into office in 2017. |
| Government | The metro township is governed by an elected council consisting of five council members, one of whom is selected by the others to serve as Mayor. |
Location | Kearns is located in the west and central Salt Lake Valley. The city is located between Mountain View Corridor and Bangerter Highway from 4700 North to 6200 South. |
Known For | - Kearns is home to the Utah Olympic Oval, an indoor speed skating oval built for the 2002 Winter Olympics. The oval is known for the “fastest ice on earth” and more than 100 speed skating records have been set there.
- Usana Amphitheater
- Oquirrh Park
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History | The township was named after Thomas Kearns, a prominent citizen and one of the richest men in Utah of his time. Thomas worked in Park City where he prospected and developed, with others, the Silver King Mine. He became a millionaire. It has been said Thomas Kearns walked into Park City with only ten cents in his pocket and left a millionaire. - Kearns was designated as an Overseas Replacement Training Center for the Army Air Forces during World War II. Two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the Army chose 5,000 acres of wheat fields in the Kearns area for a basic-training site for future pilots and ground crews. Known as Camp Kearns, the base consisted of nearly 1,000 buildings and was constructed in 1942, the first of its kind to open and the last to close, in 1946. The community of 40,000 had the nation’s largest dental facility, a 1,100-bed hospital, a gas-warfare training range, and even a stockade.
- In 1942, Kearns Army Air Base, a large military installation developed for World War II, was located in what is now Kearns on the western side of the valley. After the camp was closed in 1946, the land was sold for private development. Rapid postwar residential settlement of the area began.
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