Kearns metro township, UT

Kearns became a city on May 1, 2024, when Utah House Bill 35 converted four metro townships into cities. Voters had chosen metro-township status in 2015, and Kearns’s first council members took office in 2017; the Greater Salt Lake Municipal Services District continues to provide municipal services after the legal change. The city lies in the west-central Salt Lake Valley and listed a 2025 population estimate of 38,455. Its modern development began with Camp Kearns, an Army Air Forces training installation built on about 5,000 acres in 1942. Nearly 1,000 buildings stood there before the camp closed in 1946, after which the land was sold and rapid residential development followed. The Utah Olympic Oval is Kearns’s most distinctive public facility.

Built in 2001 for the 2002 Winter Games, it contains a 400-meter speed-skating oval, two international-size ice sheets, and a four-lane running track. It remains open beyond elite competition through public skating, hockey, figure- and speed-skating programs, curling, and learn-to-skate classes. Next door, the county’s 53.24-acre Oquirrh Park has walking paths, ball diamonds, a large sports field, playgrounds, pavilions, and the Kearns Skate Park. Kearns Library adds a different kind of hands-on space: its Create Space provides an audio-video studio, virtual-reality and robotics equipment, 3D printers, a large-format printer and laminator, a laser cutter, Cricut and vinyl tools, and textile equipment for public projects.