Bonneville Salt Flats during the winter has about 1 inch of water on it. (Rishel Peak shown.[1]

Geologist Grove Karl Gilbert named the area after Benjamin Bonneville, a U.S. Army officer who explored the Intermountain West in the 1830s.[2][3] In 1907, Bill Rishel and two local businessmen tested the suitability of the salt for driving by taking a Pierce-Arrow onto its surface.[4]

A railway line across the Flats was completed in 1910, marking the first permanent crossing.[2] The first land speed record was set there in 1914 by Teddy Tetzlaff.[5]

Entertainment filmed at the Flats include portions of Walking with Dinosaurs Special - The Ballad of Big Al, Knight Rider, Warlock, Independence Day (1996) and its sequel, SLC Punk, Cremaster 2 from Cremaster Cycle, The Brown Bunny, The World's Fastest Indian, Gerry, The Tree of Life, Top Gear and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Furthermore, the Pontiac Bonneville (former flagship sedan of the Pontiac motor division), the Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, and the Bonneville International media company are all named for the Flats.

The Bonneville Salt Flats hosts the annual US Flight Archery Championships. The goal of flight archery is to shoot arrows from bows at the greatest distance possible without regard to hitting a target, and so the vast flat plane of the flats serves as an ideal location to measure the linear distance traveled by arrows without geographic interference. Both the 1977 (archer Don Brown) and 1982 (archer Alan Webster) world records were set there; while the current world record, achieved in 1987 (archer Don Brown), was set at the salt flats near Smith Creek, Nevada.[6]