This is the valley's history in date order, built only from dates our own history pages state. Each line links the page where the date is documented, so a reader can check the source and read the rest of the story. Where those pages report that sources disagree, as on Springville's incorporation year or exactly when Geneva Steel closed, the timeline either leaves the date out or uses the specific event the page pins down. The History hub organizes the same material by city, canyon and institution.
Before settlement
- September 1776: The Dominguez-Escalante expedition reaches Utah Valley looking for an overland route to California, the first European party to record the valley. Source page
- 1777: The expedition's mapmaker, Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, finishes a map labeling the lake the Laguna de los Timpanogos. Source page
Forts, first towns and the wars, 1849 to 1869
- Spring 1849: About 150 settlers build Fort Utah on the Provo River, on ground the Timpanogos used as a major campsite. Source page
- Winter 1850: The Fort Utah conflict between settlers and the Timpanogos, inside what is now Provo. Source page
- Summer 1850: Four men bound for Fort Provo camp near American Fork Creek and stay. Source page
- 1850: Enoch Reece settles about four hundred acres in the Spanish Fork River bottoms. Source page
- September 13, 1850: Families sent south by Brigham Young arrive on the bench below Battle Creek Canyon, the start of Pleasant Grove. Source page
- September 18, 1850: Springville is settled on Hobble Creek. Source page
- October 20, 1850: Three families make camp on Peteetneet Creek, the founding of Payson. Source page
- 1851: Two Payson men dam a set of springs, and the settlement that grows up beside the dam is called Pond Town. Source page
- February 5, 1852: Lehi is incorporated. Source page
- June 4, 1853: American Fork is incorporated by legislative act, under the name Lake City. Source page
- July 18, 1853: A guard is shot dead at Payson's fort, the killing a town marker calls the opening of the Walker War. Source page
- May 11, 1854: Brigham Young and Wakara meet at Chicken Creek in Juab County, ending the immediate fighting. Source page
- January 1855: The territorial legislature grants Spanish Fork a city charter. Source page
- 1858: The Provo Canyon toll road is finished, during the Move South of the Utah War. Source page
- 1864: The Provo Bench Canal is completed, bringing river water to the bench that became Orem. Source page
- April 9, 1865: The conventional start date of the Black Hawk War, in Manti. Source page
- August 24, 1867: Provo's first tabernacle is dedicated, on the block where the City Center Temple now stands. Source page
- May 1869: The transcontinental railroad is completed at Promontory Summit, and territorial Utah's economy changes overnight. Source page
Railroads, mills and the academy, 1870 to 1919
- 1872: The Provo Woolen Mills begin operating. Source page
- 1874: The Utah Southern Railroad reaches Provo. Source page
- 1875: Brigham Young founds an academy in Provo. Source page
- January 6, 1876: The academy's first classes meet in the Lewis Building downtown. Source page
- 1880: The first steamer on Utah Lake is built, in Salt Lake City. Source page
- January 27, 1884: The Lewis Building burns to the ground. Source page
- 1884: John Beck establishes the resort at Saratoga Springs, named for the spa town in New York. Source page
- July 15, 1885: The Utah Territorial Insane Asylum, today the Utah State Hospital, opens in east Provo. Source page
- 1889: A post office application is approved under the name Lindon, probably because of a spelling error. Source page
- January 4, 1892: The Academy Building is dedicated. Source page
- 1892: The first major peach harvest on the Provo Bench. Source page
- September 21, 1899: The first Rio Grande Western train reaches Heber up Provo Canyon, the line later called the Heber Creeper. Source page
- 1900: The Knight Block is built on Center Street for the mining magnate Jesse Knight. Source page
- 1903: Brigham Young Academy becomes Brigham Young University. Source page
- 1905: Work begins on the Strawberry project, the first federal reclamation project in Utah. First water deliveries follow in 1915. Source page
- April 2, 1906: The first sack of flour comes off the line at the mill that became Lehi Roller Mills. Source page
- 1910: Jesse Knight buys the woolen mill and renames it the Knight Woolen Mills. Source page
- 1912: Eugene Roberts leads the first Annual Timpanogos Hike. Source page
- March 23, 1913: The electric interurban line from Salt Lake reaches American Fork. Source page
- 1914: The Provo Bench community takes the name Orem, after Walter C. Orem, president of the Salt Lake and Utah Railroad. Source page
- May 5, 1919: Orem incorporates under a town charter. Source page
The twentieth century, 1920 to 1999
- 1922: The Legend of Timpanogos, written by a BYU track coach, is published. Source page
- 1924: Lindon becomes a town, on paper for a drinking-water bond. Source page
- 1933: Orem residents organize the SCERA, which opens its State Street theater in 1941. Source page
- May 1938: Construction begins on the Provo River Project. Source page
- 1941: The school that became UVU opens as a wartime trade school in south Provo. Source page
- February 1944: Geneva's first open-hearth furnace is charged, and steel is tapped about fifteen hours later. Source page
- February 9, 1972: The Provo Temple, now the Provo Utah Rock Canyon Temple, is dedicated. Source page
- 1977: Highland and Cedar Hills both incorporate. Source page
- 1978: Mount Timpanogos becomes federal wilderness under the Endangered American Wilderness Act. Source page
- 1980: The first version of WordPerfect ships. Source page
- 1980: The Provo Downtown Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Source page
- April 1983: The Thistle landslide dams the Spanish Fork River, and Thistle's population falls to zero. Source page
- August 1, 1986: Geneva goes dark when a national work stoppage hits its parent company. Source page
- 1989: Vineyard, then a strip of dairy farms, becomes a town. Source page
- 1989: Two brothers, still students, found Hogi Yogi in Provo. Source page
- June 1994: Novell buys WordPerfect in a stock deal reported at about $1.4 billion. Source page
- December 1996: Eagle Mountain incorporates with about 250 residents. Saratoga Springs follows in December 1997. Source page
Since 2000
- 2002: Qualtrics is founded in a Provo basement. Source page
- July 1, 2008: Utah Valley State College becomes Utah Valley University. Source page
- September 2009: Adobe announces it will acquire Omniture for $1.8 billion in cash. Source page
- December 2010: Fire guts the Provo Tabernacle, leaving the brick walls standing. Source page
- March 20, 2016: The rebuilt tabernacle is dedicated as the Provo City Center Temple. Source page
- January 2019: SAP's acquisition of Qualtrics completes. Source page
- March 2023: A Silver Lake-led group agrees to buy Qualtrics in an all-cash deal valued at $12.5 billion. Source page
How this page is kept
A date appears here only after a history page on the site documents it, and it changes when that page changes. Dates that matter to a single town, such as the forts each settlement built during the Walker War, stay on that town's short history rather than crowding the valley-wide line.