Andrew & Sophia Andersen
Catherine Gibbons's life sketch remembers her father Andrew Andersen, his work in Mendon, and his part in helping his sons establish homesteads in Bannock Valley.
THE ARBON VALLEY HISTORICAL ARCHIVEOne valley.
One valley.
Generations
of stories.
Watch 13 homesteading families settle the valley’s five communities, year by year, drawn from the archive’s own accounts. Then read their stories in full.
EST. BY THE PEOPLE WHO REMEMBERARBON VALLEY, IDAHO
Pauline & West ForkCrystalArbonSummitBuistOur past is a collection of lives.
13 FAMILY COLLECTIONS5 VALLEY AREAS238 DATED EVENTS ON THE MAP408 COMMUNITY RECORDSBEGIN EXPLORINGThe people. The place.
The people. The place.
The memories.
Follow a family name, revisit a familiar place, or spend a little time with a story you haven’t heard.
01 / THE PEOPLE↗
Homesteading families
Family accounts, photographs, and the generations that followed.
02 / THE PLACE↗
Places in the valley
Arbon, Buist, Crystal, Pauline and West Fork, and Summit.
03 / THE MEMORIES↗
A community in words
Every original blog post, from local observations to cherished remembrances.
NEW TO THE VALLEY?
A place to begin.
Older accounts call it Bannock Valley. Five communities, generations of families, and the stories between them make up this corner of southeastern Idaho.
ROOTED HEREBehind every name,
Behind every name,
a story.
Explore the homesteading families whose lives are woven into the valley.
PAGES FROM OUR PAST
Explore the curated archive ↗Open the archive.
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Arbon Valley Mines
A reader's encounter with abandoned mines prompts questions about an overlooked part of the valley's past.
Remembering Arbon
Dan Nuckols remembers school, winter roads, neighbors, and the feeling of coming home to Arbon.
Winter of 1948-49 Hits Hard In Arbon
A retrospective account of the winter of 1948–49, originally published in the Power County Press in 1999 and shared on the community blog in 2010.
The Forgotten Cemetery
A cemetery, a surviving iris, and a community effort to care for the valley's remembered neighbors.
History lives in the
details we remember.
A name on a photograph, a story your grandparents told, a date we have wrong: send what you know, and help keep Arbon Valley’s story close.
Share a story or memory ↗