Portage, UT

Portage is a town in the northeast corner of Box Elder County, Utah, with its northern boundary on the Idaho line. It sits in the Malad Valley west of Interstate 15 on former State Route 90, and the 2020 census counted 273 people. Box Elder County's history dates the settlement to 1867, when settlers from Wellsville established it just south of the state line; the first name was Hay Town, a nod to the area's hay fields, before the town became Portage. The valley was inhabited by Fremont and Shoshoni peoples before Euro-American settlement.

Portage's present map remains agricultural and border-oriented: farm roads run toward Idaho, I-15 carries longer trips, and former State Route 90 marks the older local route. Lorenzo Snow, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is associated with the Portage name through his Ohio birthplace in Portage County. The local scoop is a small Box Elder town with an Idaho-facing edge, a Malad Valley farm setting, and a name that keeps both pioneer settlement and local agriculture in view.