The Arbon road controversy: a road across the reservation, 1915

In the fall of 1915 the farmers of Bannock Valley, as the papers often called Arbon Valley, got a new county road north across the Fort Hall Reservation. Power County got a quarrel over who should pay for it, which a Rockland paper called "the Arbon road controversy." The American Falls Press reported both.

Before the allotment

Arbon, in Oneida County until 1913, now lay in Power County, governed from American Falls. The valley's way to the railroad at Michaud, between American Falls and Pocatello, ran north across the reservation. The Andersen family history recalls that in 1913 a grain trip to Michaud or Malad took three days either way, with no houses or meals on the Michaud road.

In those years the government was dividing the reservation's land into allotments for individual tribal members. On December 10, 1914, the Press reported that the state would soon survey its road through Power County, and why:

The reason for action at this time is the desire of the government to complete the allotment of lands on the Fort Hall Indian reservation, and desire that the survey be made in advance of the allotment in order to avoid possible friction.

The state road, the paper said, would give "an excellent road part of the way to Crystal and Arbon people." On December 28, 1914, the county board divided the county among its commissioners and put its chairman, Walter S. Sparks of American Falls, in charge of the district for Arbon and Crystal.

The contract

In 1915 Highway District No. 1, which held 76.5 percent of the county's taxable value, built the roads within its bounds. Its line reached only partway down the road across the reservation: about eight miles of the route lay inside the district, and 5.2 miles lay outside it, between the district and the valley.

On April 12, 1915, the board told Sparks to negotiate with the district's commissioners, and in May he was appointed to the highway commission as well. On Sunday, June 6, the road camp moved to "the old rock ford, about five miles above Bannock," "to work on the new road leading to Crystal and Arbon." The next week the Arbon column reported on the way north: "The bridges on the reservation over Birch creek and Michaud are in very poor condition. Many of the bridges are out completely, which makes travel very bad, especially with loads."

On June 14 Sparks signed a contract for the county with Highway District No. 1, which would build the 5.2 miles with its own tools and machinery and charge the county only for labor and materials. The county's resolution gave the reason. The government was "now allotting" the reservation lands in Bannock valley, and once the allotments were made, permission for a highway would not be given. Unless the road was built, the people of Arbon or Bannock valley "would have no means of egress or ingress," and the way across the reservation "would be closed for all times."

Who should pay

The district's bill came to $4,554.08. Meanwhile, on June 22, voters had created a second highway district, No. 2, around Rockland. The county auditor divided the road debts of the county outside District No. 1, this bill included, by taxable value and charged the new district 66 percent. On October 13 its commissioners protested to the county board. The Press granted that the charge was open to challenge, since steps to create the Rockland district had begun before the arrangement with District No. 1 was settled and the road would not benefit it.

The board decided that County Attorney Spencer L. Baird could not act for it, because his law partner, Ben W. Davis, was counsel for District No. 2, and it hired the firm of Bissell & Baum. On October 22 it wrote into its minutes, nunc pro tunc ("now for then"), a July 12 resolution approving the contract, which it said had been left out by mistake, and ordered the bill paid in $200 warrants, each entered as "Highway District No. 1, road work, Bannock Creek."

Nine commissioners and seven attorneys

On November 11 the Press reprinted a jab from the Rockland Times:

The Highway District law doesn't seem to be working out very satisfactorily in Power County. At the present time we have nine commissioners and seven attorneys, (including the three additional attorneys employed as special counsel in the Arbon road controversy) to look after what could very easily be handled by three commissioners and one attorney. Of course, we expect to have a lot of fun, but it's going to cost money.

On November 17 Baird filed five appeals to the district court, four of them over the road, including one against the warrants themselves. He argued that no contract had ever been made, that the board could not legally have made one, that its resolution about the contract falsified the records, and that Sparks had sat on both boards that made it. The Press noted that the April and July minutes were silent on the arrangement, and left the facts and the law to the court.

The new road

Meanwhile the valley's traffic had changed roads, probably to the one built under the contract. On December 2 the North Arbon column reported:

The old road over the reservation to Michaud has been abandoned the last few days and steady traffic has commenced over the new county road which the Bannock farmers are very proud of, it being a level road and a good one at that.

The papers read here do not trace the new road's route or record what the Bannock Creek families on the reservation thought of it.

No report of the court's ruling has been found. The one account of the outcome is the Press editor's, written in August 1918, when the road apparently came up again in a hearing against the lawyer O. R. Baum. The editor, Barber, wrote that the quarrel had cost him his partner: he chose to defend commissioners Sparks, M. E. Walker and C. F. Eggers against charges of bad intent, and within weeks John R. Jones was paid $2,000 for his interest and retired. The editor allowed "irregularities in the making of the contract," but said that at the trial of Baird's appeals "the court sustained every contention the Press made in behalf of the commissioners, the decision commending the board for its apparent desire to do the right thing."

The article as printed

American Falls Press, November 18, 1915, page 1. Transcribed from the page scan.

COUNTY ATTORNEY BAIRD APPEALS AGAINST COMMISSIONERS.
Papers In Five Actions Filed and Cases Will Be Heard in Court
County Attorney Baird filed five appeals from actions taken by the board of county commissioners, late yesterday with Auditor Bulfinch. The most important of them, and the only one that will materially affect any part of the taxpayers, relates to the issuance of warrants approximating $4,600, which the commissioners issued at their last meeting in favor of Highway District No. 1, in payment for the building of that part of the Bannock valley road lying without Highway District No. 1.
Another appeal is against the action taken by the board in employing the law firm of Bissell & Baum in a threatened action by Highway District No. 2 against the apportionment of the cost of the construction of the part of the Bannock valley road lying without Highway District No. 1. The appeal filed by County Attorney Baird will obviate the necessity of this threatened suit, as the legal points at issue will all be involved in the action brought by Mr. Baird. A third appeal lies against the approval of the fee accounts of Auditor Bulfinch and the Sheriff, Jeffries, made at the last meeting of the board. This is a technical case only. When O. R. Baum was county attorney he gave an opinion to Auditor Bulfinch to the effect that no filing fee was required in cases brought by the county, as it was public business. Mr. Baird held otherwise when the matter was put up to him. The money has since all been collected and turned into the treasury, but it was not collected when the quarterly report for July, August and September was made up at the close of the quarter. The Jeffries case is [illegible].
One of the other actions is aimed at the resolution passed by the board of commissioners justifying the employment of special counsel in the highway warrant matter. The latter appeal is against the resolution put on the records of the September meeting of the board relating to the contract entered into by the county with the highway district for the construction of the Bannock valley road. Attorney Baird pleads that no contract was ever entered into and that the commissioners could not legally make such a contract.
The cases involve points of law and of fact, and the proper place for their determination is in the district court.

On this site: the first engineered road out of the valley, from 1908, and the first state highway and graveled road, which followed in 1919.