Tremonton is located in the Bear River Valley, just west of the Bear River, along Interstate 15, and about seven miles south of the confluence of the Malad and Bear rivers. Its elevation is 4,322 feet above sea level and about 120 feet above the mean level of the Great Salt Lake, which lies some fifteen miles south and west of the city. Tremonton is the second largest city in Box Elder County; it had a population in the 1930s of some 1,400 and an estimated population in 1992 of 4,264.

The area was inhabited by the Fremont and later the Shoshoni Indians before the coming of the first white settlers in the late nineteenth century. Though the townsite was first settled in 1888, the town itself owes its existence to the "second colonization" of Utah around the turn of the twentieth century. John Petty took up a homestead of 160 acres in the area in the year 1888. His farm covered the present south half of town.

Toward the opening of the new century, land agents, including V.S. Peet, the immigration agent for the Union Pacific Railroad Company, went east to induce more people to settle in the Bear River Valley. As a result, a number of families from Nebraska came to the area and bought farms during the years following 1898. Fred Nihart came from Cairo, Nebraska, in the spring of 1899, settling on the northeast quarter of the present townsite. According to his own statement, he came because of a desire to farm irrigated land.

After the Bear River had been tapped and the local canal system built, water began to flow over the thirsty soil. In 1892 possibilities for Bear River Valley began to look promising for many new settlers. Fred Nihart reported that others came from Nebraska and also from Tremont, Illinois, in 1899.

A German colony came from Tremont, Illinois, in the spring of 1900 and settled on or near the Salt Creek. They soon built nice homes and improved their farms. The townsite of Tremonton was laid out early in the spring of 1903 by John Shuman, Fred Nihart, and John Petty on part of their farms. They chose the site because of its location on the Malad branch of the Oregon Short Line railroad and because it was centrally located on the crossroads in the Bear River Valley.

C. C. Wilson of Bear River City purchased the first lot and built a building which he used as office and sales room for his hardware business. His lumber was piled at the side of the office in the sagebrush. He opened his door for business on 14 April 1903.

Petty, Shuman, and Nihart began erecting buildings to attract business to the new townsite. Shuman opened a meat market and distributed mail from the market. Felix Zesigar opened a barber shop, and a Mr. Stohl moved his saloon from Corinne. Nihart opened an office and started a weekly newspaper, the Tremont Times, which he had printed in Logan but which was distributed from the new townsite which, at the request of the German colony, had been named "Tremont."

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