Three Mile Creek was the name given to early-day Perry when Mormon settlers first arrived in 1853. Small scale farming and stock raising was good but the area was limited in growth because of the sparse water supply. The railroad passed through the western part of Three Mile Creek Canyon in 1868-1869. Many residents found work hauling timber for the telegraph poles that went hand-in-hand with the railroad tracks.

In late 1894, the local folks started to build a dam at the head of Three Mile Canyon but they only got about half-way into the project before winter shut them down. They weren't able to do any more work on the dam the next year but in June, 1896, a very heavy rain combined with heavy snowmelt burst the partially completed dam and flooded the canyon below. Three Mile Creek became "Perry" in 1898, in honor of Gustavus Adolphus Perry. In 1902, the Three Mile Creek Irrigation Company was organized to pipe irrigation water from the mouth of the canyon to the fields and orchards. The bounty was so great that a cannery was established in 1910 to deal with all the surplus. The residents strung their own wires and built their own electric generating plant in 1905. The company was bought by the town in 1912 and then sold to Utah Power & Light in 1950.

It was in the 1950's that Perry began to change from an agricultural community into a suburb with more and more folks commuting to Brigham City, Ogden and other towns to work for companies like Thiokol and Nucor Steel (after La-Z-Boy shuttered their factory and moved all the jobs to Mexico). The family dairy farms dwindled away and the orchards were cut to make room for new residential subdivisions.