Lehi, the northernmost community in Utah Valley, was first settled by a small group of Mormons in the fall of 1850. Known as Sulphur Springs that first year, the community later was named Dry Creek and then Evansville. Early in 1852 local bishop David Evans presented a petition to the Utah Territorial Legislature requesting that the community be incorporated. This request was granted on 5 February 1852, making the town Utah's sixth oldest. Also approved was Bishop Evans's suggestion that the town be named Lehi. Like the Book of Mormon patriarch of the same name, the colonizers of Lehi had been uprooted on numerous occasions before finally settling in their promised land.

Agriculture (producing wheat, oats, barley, and alfalfa) and animal industries (cattle ranching, sheep raising, dairying, poultry raising, fisheries, and mink ranching) have made a profound impact on the economic history of the community. With the establishment of the Utah Sugar Company's first plant in Lehi in 1890, the sugar beet became the town's most important cash crop and remained so until after World War I.

Important early industries in Lehi included Mulliner's Grist Mill (1856-90), the Lehi Banner newspaper (1891-1914), Lehi Cereal Mill (1922-74), Lehi Stone, Marble, and Granite Works (1897-1930), and the Standard Knitting Factory Company (1904-09).

A wide range of companies continue to maintain offices in Lehi in the 1990s.