Guys,

Been looking at real estate in these areas. (As well as others in UT, but these areas are new to me)

Then, at work, I met a dude who lives up closer to Bear Lake...and he started bad mouthing these areas. Especially Tooele.

He was mentioning "stink alerts", dust, and certain unflattering things about the locals.

What opinions, if any, do you guys have on those areas?

Some of the homes I've seen (on the internet) in those areas are fantastic.....especially Tooele.

Thoughts?

Driving through Tooele is like going back in time 20 years.  Erda and Grantsville, even more.

In a good way or a bad way?

We love it out here. We are country folk and live in pine canyon, which is a couple of miles east of tooele. Out of the city, but close enough to work. Traffic sucks in tooele during rush hours but nothing like I 15. We have 5 acres and peace and quite. Been here for 4 years. We will stay out here.

Never speed through Stockton.

Sounds great.

Lol, I've lived in the bear lake area, there is a pretty lake there, but those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Lots of bad things can be said about that area, especially about the locals. Sorry I'll be of no help with your question about Tooele etc. , just giving you perspective on his opinions.

Bad way.

I'm very interested in reading anything else you'd care to write on the subject.

When I grew up there, it was completely full of small-minded, idiotic, inbred hicks.  And the entire town shut down at 6:00, and I mean SHUT DOWN.  When I got old enough, I moved away.

About ten years later, I told my wife how bad Tooele was.  She didn't believe me.  I took her out there to visit.  We stopped at the "Gopher" (a convenience store), and the clerk immediately started telling my wife how she had dropped out of school in the seventh grade, and never gone back.  My wife told me "I'm amazed that she would tell something like that to a stranger."  I explained to my wife that she may have had more schooling than anyone else in her family.

I'm told that it's not quite as bad now because it's grown, but still, every time I go out there to visit extended family, I'm always depressed at the huge number of small-minded people that I meet out there.  It's not everyone, and it's not as bad as it used to be, but still, it's something to be aware of.  You may want to spend a vacation around the area before committing to anything.

I have a lot of family in the area and have been visiting since I was born.  I've never lived there so I can't give advice on that but I have spent a lot of time there.  It has changed a lot since '83.

Those towns were/are the gateway to the West Desert where I spent  more time than I should have poking around driving down dirt roads and shooting jackrabbits and coyotes.  There were no fences.....or if there were you left the gate as you found it.  

I worked in Tooele for a while at the Ford dealership (Quality) and remember when Tooele DID NOT have a Walmart and the Army's Maintenance Depot was the largest employer. When there was an accident in town everyone held their breath cause everyone knew everyone. Teen age pregnancy was.........astronomical. Billboards read "A child costs $8,432.00 a year to raise-how much is your allowance?"

Grantsville is gateway to the Stansbury Mountains.....where I spent more time than I.....

These "little" towns represent the very best of what the west used to be but time has changed them at least for me.

They have grown up. My neighbors fled out to Grantsville/Tooele to escape the sprawl of the Salt Lake Valley in the early 2000's and created......sprawl in the Tooele valley.  I used to smile driving by homes "out in the middle of no where".....that are now gateways to big ass subdivisions. Larry H. Miller fucked up the whole valley with his noisy race track. There is a giant Walmart distribution center on the west side of the valley now that you can see from everywhere. Traffic is a nightmare getting off I-80 and God help everyone when it snows.

Tooele is home to one of the the Army's largest ammunition depots. South of Stockton is where the country stored 60+% of it's chemical weapons. They built an incinerator to destroy them and I guess that job is done now. Stockton was also home to a big Superfund mine clean up a while back. (lots of this area is mines.....see Kennecott)

Someone earlier in this post said it's like going back 20 years.  Yep....used to be more and there is nothing wrong with that either.

Bottom line, OP if you are from NY and like freedom and the desert......and can tolerate the cold......and the heat.....and the pollution from MagCorp.......and mosquitoes.....and race track noise you might like the Tooele valley-but plan a long long visit before you make that jump.

I was stationed at Tooele Army Depot back in 1997.  

 We joked around that "tooooo-hell-Ahhh" was French-Creole/UTE  for 'Crazy White Man with more wives than teeth who lives next to stinky lake you cannot drink water from'

 Back in 1997 They didn't 'allow' us to have COMEDY CENTRAL on cable due to the local LDS religious intolerance towards what was offered on cable.  So all of us in the barracks got digital satellite and branched it off to the several rooms.

Alot has changed in Tooele since then.  I have moved away to other countries and come back to the States and chose to come back to Utah, but, not returned to Tooele as I live out in Midvale now and work at Dugway.

The South area is done with chemical weapons, and pretty much vacant & unutilized - but still guarded and patrolled.  The Tooele Ammo Depot is still doing good business.

I too have looked at the Erda area, but, the biggest warning I have heard is "Check out the property when a train passes by (colder weather is better for a gauge of the noise) and also check out the property when there is a racing event going on at Miller Sports Park" - again, cooler weather means denser air and sound travels farther & louder.

I also like Stansbury Park, but, small lots.  I'd 'like' to have 1 acre +.  But, I am just building more escrow in my current home the longer I wait to sell.

Grantsville gets more of the "Stinky Alerts" and that is the dying off or pooling up of decaying organic matter in the Great Salt Lake wafting over.

I have heard that MagCorps has polluted quite a bit - but - its only from what I have heard not read.  Me personally: I wouldn't propogate that rumor unless there is hard evidence.

 Another item you didn't mention is LAKE EFFECT SNOW.  All those areas you listed get a better than average snowfall due to lake effect snow.  Its great if you like snow, its terrible if you don't like to shovel or plow snow or have a two wheel drive car and HAVE to be somewhere on time.



Do your due diligence, ask questions on PAPER, get answers in writing and ask to sleep over at the property if its unoccupied to check it out.

Utah families begin young, sometimes end in tragedy, divorce or bankruptcy.  Lots of property for sale, trouble is making the appraisal match the asking price - many folks are underwater or improved the lot and the banks don't want to cut a mortgage on a horse property, only the home.

Best of luck, neighbor!

Will

Yeah.  The density of the lake makes a lot of the waste and rotting stuff float to the top, instead of sinking.



Magcorp is one of the largest polluter in the state, and dumps large amounts of chlorine into the air.  They've cleaned up a bunch, and IIRC, only dump about 1/10th as much as they did a couple of decades ago, but still, they do pump it out in large quantity.  There was a time when, between them and (from what I've heard) Kennecott, there was enough acid rain that there were good-sized areas with no vegetation at all.  That was taken care of decades ago, but yeah, Magcorp still pumps it out.  When the SL valley gets an inversion, remember that only half of that is from cars - the rest is from industry, with Magcorp, Kennecott, the refinery, and just a few others comprising the great bulk of it.

There's a guy here at work that moved to Toelle from South Carolina 4 years ago. I read him some of the posts and he laughed and also complained (a lot). It seems if you grew up there, like some of his neighbors did, you love it or love some of the memories of it, but for new move ins, him and his buddies, they can't stand it. I asked him to describe it in one word and he said: motherfucking shithole. I told him that was more like 4 words or at least 2... his house is currently up for sale because he wants to move to Orem.
I've never been out there so I don't know from personal experience.