Kaysville is located between the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains and the shore of the Great Salt Lake. The first city in Davis County to incorporate and the sixth incorporated city in Utah, Kaysville is 16.6 miles from Ogden and about the same distance from Salt Lake City. Its elevation is 4,294 feet.

In 1847 Hector C. Haight built a herdsman cabin northwest of where the Lagoon resort stands today. He is credited with being the first settler in Farmington and Kaysville area. The second settler was Samuel Oliver Holmes, who settled northwest of the Haight cabin.

In the fall of 1849 Edward Phillips and John Hyrum Green tried to travel between Salt Lake and Brown's Fort (Ogden). They were turned back by heavy snows and wind; but they returned in the spring, with their families and the William Kay family to settle permanently in the west Kaysville/Layton area. By 1851 there were more than 300 settlers in the area.

The Kays LDS Ward was established in September 1851 with Kay as bishop and Phillips and Green as his counselors. The boundaries of the ward went from Farmington on the south to the Weber County line on the north. Few people lived outside of the immediate area around the city center of present-day Kaysville.

As part of its missionary movement, the Presbyterian Church established a church and school in Kaysville in 1881. The church continued until 1917, although the school closed in 1909. The Presbyterian chapel is still standing, the only example of an early Protestant church remaining in Utah.

With the formation of fort districts in 1854, many settlers living in outlying areas moved into the area's fort, thereby establishing the business and residential districts of Kaysville. Although the businesses have changed over the years, Kaysville still has an attractive city center.

The incorporation of Kaysville on 15 March 1868 helped solidify the small-business climate. General merchandise stores lined Main Street from the mid-1860s until the Great Depression. One was ZCMI, an LDS cooperative store. The names of other local merchants included Williams, Sheffield, Burton, Stewart, Barton, and Bowman. The Bowman family still operates a grocery store in Kaysville. Barnes Banking Company, another business that is still functioning, was founded by John R. Barnes in 1891. He also was instrumental in founding the Deseret Milling Company (which is still in operation), Inland Printing, and the Kaysville Canning Company.

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