Arbon Rich Community: Pocatello takes notice, 1909–1910

On Friday, July 15, 1910, the Pocatello Tribune gave the right-hand column of its front page to Arbon. "Arbon Rich Community," the headline read. Arbon was then in Oneida County, 27 miles southwest of Pocatello over the Mink Creek divide, and the paper counted about 150 families there. The occasion was a visit from two Arbon men, and the story shows Pocatello taking notice of the valley's trade.

A wheat sale in 1909

The Tribune had met Arbon wheat the year before. On Monday, May 3, 1909, John Payne of Arbon sold his whole crop to the Pocatello Flour & Feed company. The paper reported that his 90 acres of dry farm had made 45 bushels an acre of "the very highest grade of hard wheat," which brought $4,514 at $1.85 a hundred pounds.

Its other figures do not agree. It printed the yield as 24,440 pounds, "or nearly 408 bushels," but 90 acres at 45 bushels is about 4,050 bushels, and the price works out to about 244,000 pounds, so those figures appear to have lost a zero in print.

Mr. Cairns comes to town

On Thursday, July 14, 1910, J. C. Cairns, owner of a ranch at Arbon, came to Pocatello with his two sons-in-law, who are not named. He called on Mayor D. W. Church and on J. T. Young, president of the Pocatello Commercial Club, and told a reporter what Arbon had in mind.

There would be an Arbon commercial club, he said, and an Arbon Irrigation company, with $10,000 in stock, to flume water a mile from Buck Wright Creek onto dry-farmed land; the older Bannock Valley Irrigation company, the valley's first company, was already delivering water. He looked to a proposed electric railway from American Falls to Malad, and to a townsite and an incorporated village of Arbon.

He also brought an invitation: Arbon would hold a big Pioneer Day celebration on July 25, and he hoped for Pocatello speakers and a delegation from its Commercial Club. He praised the new road up Mink Creek and over the Rattlesnake Creek divide, which valley settlers had helped build.

John Payne, "the Arbon merchant," had driven in by the longer road through Michaud, which the paper said was better for heavy loads, and he went home on July 15 with a big wagon load of groceries. Young showed both men the wholesale district and the creamery.

An invitation taken up

On July 21 the Tribune reported that an auto party of Commercial Club members and officers planned to drive to Arbon the next Monday, to get acquainted and help organize an Arbon Commercial Club. On July 23 it said final arrangements had about been completed for President Young and others to go, and that Arbon would keep Pioneer Day on Monday with a program. The Semi-Weekly Tribune reprinted the note on July 27.

There the trail ends. No report has been found of whether the party went or of what happened at Arbon that day. Had the auto party made the trip, it would have come before the earliest automobile now on record in the valley, at the end of 1910, but without a report that cannot be claimed. A year earlier an American Falls car bound toward Arbon had broken down at Rattlesnake Gulch.

The harvest of 1910

On August 17 the paper noted that Mr. and Mrs. T. B. Evans had come in from Arbon over "the fine, new Bannock county road." On September 30 Cairns was back, buying barbed wire to fence some school land. The valley had raised fully 75,000 bushels of wheat, he said, and three threshers had about two-thirds of it threshed. The American Falls Press that month put the valley's crop at 75,000 to 100,000 bushels.

What came of it

Some of the plans took shape. An Arbon Irrigation Company did come into being: it was on the state's 1917 list of corporations behind on their license tax, and in 1923 three shares of its stock were advertised for a sheriff's sale along with 480 acres of valley land. By December 1912 there was an Arbon Commercial Club, with L. B. Evans as its vice-president, though by then American Falls was courting the valley's trade as hard as Pocatello. When the club was founded is not known. In 1911 the townsite was still only talk, and no railroad, electric or otherwise, was ever built into the valley.

Within a few months Cairns was away. The Tribune later called him an old-time Pocatello boilermaker; a native of Scotland, he served an L.D.S. mission in Great Britain and sailed home from Liverpool in March 1912. He married Elizabeth A. T. Halley of Crewe, England (the surname is hard to read in the surviving copy of the notice), in the Salt Lake Temple on April 10, 1912, and on April 26 the people of Arbon gave him a reception with a supper and dance.

On this site: John Payne as Arbon's unofficial mayor, the Arbon area, the Arbon family he married into, and the valley's Pioneer Days from 1916.

The article as printed

Pocatello Tribune, July 15, 1910, page 1. Transcribed from the page scan.

ARBON RICH COMMUNITY
Bustling Oneida County Town Which is Tributary to the Gate City.
Enterprising Citizens to Form Commercial Club for Exploitation of Bannock Valley—Fine Road to Pocatello Over Mink Creek Divide.
One of the progressive and growing communities tributary to Pocatello, and one of many from which the Gate City draws its heavy country trade, is Arbon, Oneida county, over the Mink creek divide in Bannock valley, 27 miles southwest of Pocatello. It is a fertile farming community consisting of about 150 families and its growth within the past five years has been rapid. J. C. Cairns, one of the hustling citizens of Arbon, and owner of a fine ranch there, was in the city yesterday on a mission of business, accompanied by his two sons-in-law. While here Mr. Cairns conferred with Mayor D. W. Church and President J. T. Young of the Commercial club.
"We are going to organize a Commercial club in Arbon," said Mr. Cairns to a Tribune man, "—not to boom the town, but to work for its steady growth and progress along all lines. Arbon is a fertile field for commercial exploitation, and a Commercial club will be an important factor. The town is connected with Pocatello by one of the finest mountain roads I ever traveled, and its growth and development will add materially to the commercial importance of Pocatello as a wholesale distributing point and trading center.
"Five of the leading residents of Arbon recently took the preliminary steps toward organizing the Arbon Irrigation company, with a capital stock of $10,000. Water will be taken from Buck Wright creek and flumed one mile to a large body of irrigable land which heretofore has been devoted exclusively to dry farming with excellent results. In fact, dry farm grain in our district is looking great. The yield will average between 25 and 30 bushels of wheat per acre, but with plenty of water the yield will be tremendous The Bannock Valley Irrigation company is now delivering water to a considerable acreage and the results have been so magnificent that it will only be a matter of time when every foot of land which can be reached by canals will be under irrigation. Bannock valley is about four miles wide, and is on the route of the proposed electric railway from American Falls to Malad. Railroad connections with the outer world would transform the community into one of the most prosperous and productive sections of the southeast."
Mr. Cairns says arrangements are under way for the laying out of a townsite in the near future and the incorporation of the village of Arbon.
"We are going to have a big celebration of Pioneer day in Arbon on July 25," says Mr. Cairns, "and I am trying to arrange for some Pocatello speakers. It would be a good move on the part of the Pocatello Commercial club to send a delegation to Arbon to get acquainted with our people and get a line on the trade that must come from that district to the Gate City."
Mr. Cairns paid a high compliment to Road Supervisor Tom Reynolds, under whose supervision the new road up Mink creek and over the Rattlesnake creek divide was recently built. "This is one of the best pieces of road building I ever saw," says Mr. Cairns.
The settlers along Rattlesnake creek and in Bannock valley volunteered their services in building this road, and thereby exhibited an enterprising and boosting spirit that augurs well for the progress of that community.
John Payne, the Arbon merchant, is also in the city today, having driven in yesterday over the road via Michaud and Swanson's ranch, which is about six miles longer than the road via Mink Creek, but which is better adapted to heavy loads. Mr. Payne returned home this afternoon with a big wagon load of groceries purchased from the Idaho Wholesale Grocery company.
While in the city Messrs Cairns and Payne were entertained by Preisdent Young of the Commercial club, shown through the east side, wholesale district and through the creamery.