Rush Valley, UT

Rush Valley is a Tooele County town in the broad basin west of the Oquirrh Mountains and east of the Onaqui Range. The 2020 census counted 431 residents. The town sits inside a larger rural landscape of ranches, hay fields, mountain roads, and dispersed settlements, within the Salt Lake City metropolitan area but far from the Wasatch Front’s built-up center. Town Hall and Rush Valley Park provide a local civic address; larger shopping, jobs, and medical services run toward Tooele and the Salt Lake Valley.

The area was first settled in 1856. In 1934, the settlements of Clover, St. John, and Vernon were gathered into the incorporated town of Onaqui; the remaining town of Rush Valley took its current form in 1972. Tooele County’s older economy included ranching, hay and grain, and the Rush Valley Mining District, organized in 1864. Faust Road follows the route of the old Pony Express Trail across the valley. Rush Valley today is a high-desert town with a mining-era past, working ranch country, and mountains defining every direction.