From ‘Easy Street’ to Hill Field Road

HILL Field Road is one of the main arteries through Layton City today. Traveling from the South Gate of Hill Air Force Base, the road travels through the heart of the City’s business district and also offers access to the west side.

However, this highway wasn’t always called by that name. “Layton street gets new name” was an Oct. 30, 1942 headline in the Davis County Clipper newspaper.

‘”Easy Street,’ running eastward from the Main Street intersection at U.S. Highway No. 91 at Layton, has been changed to the name of ‘Hill Field Road,’ according to Vird Cook, Town Clerk.

“Located on this street is the 400 units of the demountable homes, now being erected by the government and the Skyline subdivision,” the story stated.

Hill Field Road was also proposed to be renamed Freedom Boulevard in 1991. UDOT even created new signs and installed a few prematurely in the summer, before the Layton City Council ended up voting 4-1 not to rename the busy highway after all.

Gordon Avenue used to be a single road and used to connect on the east side where I-15 now separates it and splits it into two sections. Here the western section dead ends on the west side of the Freeway.

-Why was road called "Easy Street" at first? The story goes that a noisy steam engine used to operate at the Layton Mill, which would have been closer to Layton's downtown area. Thus, "Easy Street" was coined, since heading to the northeast along this road, it became so much more quiet, serene and "easy going," without the loud sound of the mill. (-According to the Davis News Journal of July 14, 1977.)