Homeseekers' Paradise: Arbon Valley asks for settlers, 1908–1909

In November 1908 the settlers of Arbon Valley, then part of Oneida County (Power County was not created until 1913), set out to find themselves neighbors. For nine months the American Falls Press, about thirty miles away, gave them its front page again and again, first with interviews and news of the government's township plats and, from January, with photographs.

How it began

Writing the valley's first history for the Press in 1917, Mrs. E. A. Logan said it started when John L. McKown and O. H. Barber, the paper's editor, visited Arbon in 1908 and were surprised to find so much land still open to homestead entry. The settlers asked for their help and promised to answer every letter of inquiry. Then, she wrote, "Pictures of farming scenes in the valley were printed, yields and the names of farmers given to substantiate them."

The papers of the time bear her out, though they name only McKown. On November 7 the Press reported his verdict that the valley surpassed anything he had seen in southern Idaho for dry farming, with figures from Julius Abter, who ran a threshing machine in the valley: about 45,000 bushels of wheat that year, averaging 25 bushels an acre. Abter's brother Joe, from McFarland, Kansas, was already among the newcomers.

A week later came the headline "Arbon Valley, Homeseekers' Paradise." J. R. Bailey, the Arbon postmaster and one of its pioneer farmers, said there was room for hundreds of families:

At the lower end of the valley is a body of land, he says, embracing about a township and a half, upon which there is not a single settler, and there is not ten acres in the entire tract that cannot be plowed.

Bailey dated the first farming there to about seven years before, with never a crop failure, and counted about fifty families. Homeseekers could write to Bailey, Joseph Arbon, W. F. Arnn, Julius Abter, John Payne, Bert Evans or G. W. Jensen, "or any resident of the valley, all of whom are desirous of having it settled." Within a month papers at Mountain Home, Montpelier and Blackfoot had reprinted his crop figures.

A committee to answer the letters

The Press of November 21 reported:

An organized effort is to be made to settle Arbon valley. At a meeting held at the upper schoolhouse in Arbon the first of the week steps were taken to supply homeseekers with information regarding the advantages and opportunities offered by this favored section. A committee consisting of Adam Affleck, Lorenzo Evans and John Payne was appointed to answer correspondence and to send out literature, with a view of securing the settlement and cultivation of the thousands of fertile acres that abound there.

A booklet describing the valley was planned. The paper pictured a valley about six miles by thirty, with timber, a sawmill and good wells. The settlement filled about one township; between it and the Fort Hall reservation line lay a township and a third that Bailey called nearly all good plow land. The paper counted fourteen years since the first settler came, and its "A Few Facts About Opportunities" page of November 28, reprinted the next July, put that settler in 1894. Family accounts reach further back, as the first settlers entry shows.

On December 5 Abter reported a large number of recent homestead filings in the valley. A filing was a homesteader's claim on government land; title came after he had lived on and farmed it. The government plats, just received by the United States commissioner at American Falls, showed vacant sections even in township 11 south, range 33 east, "in the heart of the Arbon settlement," and only thirteen filings in the township south of it.

On December 19 the paper noted that Adam Affleck, "one of the men appointed by his neighbors to answer inquiries of homeseekers," had lately sewn up his own badly cut foot. When readers doubted the yields reported around American Falls, the Press replied on January 2 that "no reputable newspaper would dare put forth false statements of such a nature."

The spring of 1909

Pictures followed. On January 9 the paper printed a view across the valley from its middle, looking west, and a note that about 75,000 acres were open to entry. By March the Arbon correspondent could write:

Arbon valley is settling up fast. There have been twenty-eight homesteads taken since November, and the writer has gone broke twice this winter answering letters of homeseekers. Come along, boys, we have the room and good land, and lots of it. We have two good schools in the valley and will need more.

Bishop Joseph Arbon, the column added, was arranging to lay out a townsite. The same column reported that Bert Evans, 22, son of T. B. Evans, had died on February 16 after an illness of five days. He was probably the Bert Evans named in November among the men to write to.

On April 3 the Press printed a photograph of T. B. Evans's wheat field at Arbon, which averaged 35 bushels an acre and was, the paper said, "far from being the best field." It added, of the whole American Falls district: "The Press hammered away for a year before it created interest enough to cause people to investigate, but investigation convinced." On April 17 an illustrated front-page feature, "An Inviting Land for Homeseekers," called the Arbon valley "beyond question the best there is here" for dry farming. It described settlers who were "thrifty, enterprising and neighborly," two schools, a general store, a townsite being laid out, and 75,000 to 100,000 acres still open.

That page traveled. Paul Ellis of Aberdeen mailed his copy to R. E. Smith of Dayton, Washington, and in May Smith, R. F. Payne and Isaac S. Broyles ("J. S. Broyer" in the story) filed on homesteads about eight miles south of Arbon. "The Press has not magnified the advantages of that part of the country," Smith told the paper. "We found it just as described."

What the papers leave open

The boosters' numbers moved. The valley was ten miles wide in one issue and six two weeks later; the open land was put anywhere from 150,000 acres to 75,000; the settlement was forty families or fifty. These papers do not mention the promised booklet again. Looking back in 1917, Mrs. Logan wrote that within two years practically all the vacant land had been homesteaded.

The article as printed

American Falls Press, November 14, 1908, page 1. Transcribed from the page scan.

ARBON VALLEY, HOMESEEKERS' PARADISE
Whole Townships of the Most Fertile Lands Inviting Settlement, With Running Water and Abundance of Timber Nearby—Wheat Yields Average 25 Bushels
J. R. Bailey, postmaster and one of the pioneer farmers of Arbon, was here Tuesday. He says many new settlers are coming into the valley, but there is room for hundreds of families yet, and the finest land in the valley still open to settlement. At the lower end of the valley is a body of land, he says, embracing about a township and a half, upon which there is not a single settler, and there is not ten acres in the entire tract that cannot be plowed. Water of the finest kind is there in abundance, and near the surface. Above this tract is a much larger body of sparsely settled land, with schools and a store convenient, which is equally [illegible]
The first farming in Arbon valley was begun about seven years ago. There has never been a crop failure, and this year there are 45,000 bushels of wheat to be hauled out. The average yield this year was 25 bushels of wheat, and about 50 of oats. The settlement embraces about fifty families, and is growing.
Those familiar with the valley claim it to be the finest dry farm section in the state. Moisture is kept [illegible] the surface by drainage from the hills, and alfalfa is matured without irrigation. Timber is abundant for wood, fencing and building purposes, a small sawmill providing all the lumber needed. Water is abundant and is used to some extent for irrigation, but the dry farming conditions are so advantageous that irrigation is little resorted to. Information regarding this section will be furnished upon application to J. R. Bailey, Joseph Arbon, W. F. Arnn, Julius Abter, John Paine, Bert Evans, G. W. Jensen, or any resident of the valley, all of whom are desirous of having it settled.
An appropriation of $300 has been made for a new road to the valley which Mr. Bailey believes will shorten the distance ten or twelve miles and bring the lower end of the valley within about fifteen miles of American Falls, with a water grade most of the distance. An ordinary team of horses will bring about thirty sacks of wheat to market here without difficulty. Work on the road will probably begin next week, and its completion should only be a matter of a short time.

On this site: the Arbon area history, the Evans family and Lorenzo B. Evans, very probably the committee member, and the first engineered road, begun that same November.