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 14 homesteading families settle the valley’s five communities, year by year, drawn from the archive’s own accounts. Then read their stories in full.
13 FAMILY COLLECTIONS · 5 AREASARBON VALLEY, IDAHO
Pauline & West ForkCrystalArbonSummitBuistWhat the archive holds.
13 FAMILY COLLECTIONS5 VALLEY AREAS238 DATED EVENTS ON THE MAP442 ARTICLESBEGIN 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 article: the community blog’s news and remembrances, and the stories of the old papers.
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.
The homesteading families of the valley, each with its history, its people and its land.
PAGES FROM OUR PAST
Explore all the articles ↗Read the articles.
↗
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 ↗