Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Payson Payson, UT

Payson is a city in Utah County, Utah, in the Provo–Orem metropolitan area, with 21,101 residents counted in the 2020 census and 6,029 households.

Sixteen Latter-day Saint pioneers led by James Edward Pace Jr. arrived on Peteetneet Creek on October 20, 1850, and the settlement was first called Peteetneet Creek, from the Timpanogos name Pah-ti't-ni't meaning "our water place."

Brigham Young renamed the settlement Payson on March 23, 1851, for Payson, Illinois, where kind citizens had sheltered his family after they were driven from Missouri in 1839.

Payson was incorporated as a city on January 21, 1853, and voters elected David Crockett as its first mayor on April 12, 1853.

In 1873 the Payson independent school district established a high school, the first such institution in Utah south of Salt Lake City.

The Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project's completion in 1912 brought a Utah-Idaho Sugar beet factory to Payson, completed in October 1913; in its biggest year, 1915, 36,915 tons of beets were processed into 7,722 tons of sugar before the factory closed in 1924.

The Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center, originally Payson's first school, preserves the city's history and holds a monument to Chief Peteetneet.

Payson celebrates a Scottish Heritage Festival each July, a salmon supper each August, and Onion Days each Labor Day weekend, and its historic Main Street is lined with Payson Historical Society markers.

Most of the 1984 film Footloose was filmed in and around Payson, including at Payson High School, and the city was the childhood home of animator Don Bluth and the birthplace of singer-songwriter Jewel.

The Payson Utah Temple, announced January 25, 2010, was dedicated June 7, 2015, as the 15th temple in Utah and the 146th in the world.