On Monday, July 9, 1917, the Pocatello Tribune reported on its front page that the settlers of Crystal, in the hills north of Pauline, could now telephone Pocatello. The paper called the line "an improvement they desired for a considerable period." Work on it had gone on since the winter, with Pocatello money and the settlers' own labor.
Arbon itself had been talking to the outside world since December 1915, when the long-distance line from American Falls was joined to the valley's own line. Crystal lay apart from that system, up Rattlesnake Creek in the hills toward Pocatello. Since December 1915 its mail had come from Pocatello three times a week, and when it wanted a telephone it looked to Pocatello as well.
Poles in the winter
The first report found so far is a short item among the Tribune's Local Brevities on January 17, 1917. Some weeks before, it said, people from "the Arbon section" had gone before the Pocatello Commercial Club and asked for help, and the club had given money. Setting the poles was the settlers' part of the work:
The poles are of light timber but will suffice for the time being and there is indication in the near future, when the project is thoroughly tried out, and the service installed that a more lasting line of poles will be installed, though the present line will be planted to last for years. Spring should witness fine service to the valley.
About a week later a state news roundup printed in several Idaho weeklies said the line had been financed "without delay" through the Commercial Club, that the poles were nearly all in, and that service was expected by spring.
The Pocatello paper wrote of "the Arbon country," but the line was built for Crystal. On March 29 the American Falls Press reported that the poles for a line to Pocatello were set and that wire would be strung when the snow went off. It credited S. D. Breeze, J. C. Davis and a third Crystal man, whose surname is hard to read in the scan, together with the Pocatello Commercial Club. That article is transcribed in this site's account of Crystal, the hidden settlement up Rattlesnake Creek.
Connected
The next report found is the Tribune's of July 9, which said the line had been "hooked up with the Mountain States service," the company that already carried Arbon's long-distance calls through American Falls. The Crystal end was twenty-two miles from Pocatello, and a call cost fifteen cents in toll. The Tribune gave the credit to "the good people of the Crystal section."
A Pocatello dispatch printed in the Salt Lake Tribune on July 11 added that the Commercial Club and Pocatello business houses had put up the money and that the people the line would serve had done the work. It gave the distance as twenty-five miles, not twenty-two. The papers do not say which is right.
Two lines, one valley
At the end of 1917 the two telephone systems were not joined to each other inside the valley. The Arbon line belonged to the Falls-Bannock Telephone company, with its central in the home of T. B. Evans and its main exchange at American Falls; Crystal's line ran to Pocatello. Writing in November about Mrs. T. B. Evans, the Arbon operator, the Press's farm writer, "the Pilgrim," noted a gap of nine miles on the line between Crystal and Pauline "which ought to be closed up." As things stood, a call from the Arbon central to Crystal went by way of American Falls to Pocatello and then to Crystal. He made the same point in a December sketch of T. B. Evans: when that stretch was built, the valley would be well supplied. The site's Stories record West Fork homes connected in early 1919, but no report has been found of the gap being closed.
Much is not recorded. The papers do not say where the line ended at Crystal, how many homes it reached, the day it first carried a call, or whether the light poles were ever replaced.
On this site: the first telephone line, the first long-distance call, and Susannah Evans, the Arbon telephone operator.
The article as printed
Pocatello Tribune, July 9, 1917, page 1. Transcribed from the page scan.
PHONE LINE TO CRYSTAL IS COMPLETE
The residents of Crystal, over in the Arbon valley, are now connected with Pocatello by telephone, an improvement they desired for a considerable period. Some time ago, through the Pocatello Commercial club, they took up the matter of extending the telephone line with the consequence that active work and co-operation was given and the line built and hooked up with the Mountain States service.
The other end of the line is twenty-two miles away, and a regular toll service, costing fifteen cents, has been provided: The good people of the Crystal section, anxious to get into touch with Pocatello, did good work in installing the improvement.
Sources
- Pocatello Tribune, July 9, 1917, page 1
- Pocatello Tribune, January 17, 1917, page 2
- Meridian Times, January 26, 1917, page 7
- American Falls Press, March 29, 1917, page 23
- Salt Lake Tribune, July 11, 1917, page 13
- American Falls Press, November 9, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, December 14, 1917, page 3