Soldier Summit has been an important transportation route between the Wasatch Front and Price, Utah, since the area was settled by the Mormon pioneers.

At one time both the state highway department and the railroad had operations at the summit, but with the exception of a gas station that is sometimes open, the town site is now abandoned.

Spanish Friars Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante are credited with discovering the pass in 1776, but it was certainly used by Native Americans before them.

These soldiers were Southerners, previously under Union General Philip St. George Cooke at Camp Floyd, on their way to join the Confederate Army.

In 1919, a real estate promoter named H.C. Mears surveyed a townsite at Soldier Summit and began to sell building lots.

The introduction of diesel locomotives, and the realignment of the tracks through Tucker and Gilluly which reduced the grade from 4% to 2%,[2] eliminated the need to place helper engines at the site, and further hurt the town's fortunes.

[4] By 1979 there were only about a dozen adult residents left, but Soldier Summit still had four part-time police officers enforcing a community speed limit on the stretch of highway passing through town.