In 1917, the year the United States went to war, the American Falls Press followed the wheat of Arbon Valley from a hopeful June to a thin harvest sold at wartime prices. The valley had been in Oneida County until Power County was formed in 1913. Most of the wheat the paper reported was Turkey Red, a hard winter wheat, with some Bluestem sown in the spring.
A promising June
On June 5 the valley column reported that more than a week of daily rain had "made a great change in the looks of the crops." On June 12 the Press, reporting County Agent Kjosness's return from the valley, wrote that "Grain prospects in the Arbon valley excell those in any part of the county," and a Crystal man named Butterfield said the Arbon country had "some of the finest wheat he has ever seen." Hail-insurance agents made their rounds. Nobody expected hail, the valley column wrote on June 29, but "most of the grain around here is very good and we believe in preparedness."
Hail and heat
Then came Friday, July 6. The Arbon column reported:
A severe hail storm came up Friday afternoon about 2 o'clock which did considerable damage to several and slight damage to others, it hailed for several minutes cutting the grain and alfalfa down like a mower would do it.
The storm went nearly across the valley near the Central school, three miles wide in places. Will Allard lost three-fourths of his crop. Wm. Kramer was left with about 15 of his 80 acres of fall wheat, and Con Weidermann lost heavily too. John Bullock, probably the J. H. Bullock whose Turkey Red the Press had credited in March with a world's-fair medal, lost 120 acres; one report says his was the only crop not insured, the other that Kramer's was not insured either. Lorin Bailey's 60 acres, as good as any in the valley in June, threshed only 360 bushels. That evening Frank Swim telephoned to say hail was still piled around his buildings, and in October the Press wrote that in all D. J. Bowen's years on his ranch no hail had come near this one "in severity and destructiveness."
Heat followed. On July 10 a Pocatello report to the Salt Lake Tribune said hot weather was "burning up the crops" on some 300,000 acres of dry farms in the Arbon and Rockland valleys; without rain within three days, many fields would scarcely be worth harvesting. On July 24 the Press still expected the county's wheat to bring at least $1.1 million at the government's price, over twice the return on the bumper crop of 1914.
The war at harvest time
That issue also listed the county's draft numbers as drawn, Arbon and Crystal names among them, and help grew scarce. In late August Ben Davis left his law books to help his laid-up brother Jim harvest at Crystal, "doing his bit in the nation's crisis," the Press said. On September 12 Central Hall honored "our boys who are soon going to leave," among them Park Lusk, Charles Hassenpflug, Thomas A. Gibbons, John A. McCool, Thomas Wheatley and Ernest Poppie. In October a rancher seeking a hired man in Pocatello came home without one; the first he found wanted $5 a day and board. Even Roy Porter's four mules went: "Their Arbon valley days are over now, as Mr. Porter has sold them to the government," wrote the paper's roving farm writer, who signed himself "the Pilgrim." By December Robert Wheatley was farming his brother Thomas's ranch while Thomas served.
Harvest
On August 21 the Arbon column reported:
The grain is all ready to harvest and everywhere the combines and headers are to be seen at work. Palmers started up their thresher last week. The wheat is running around eight and twelve bushels to the acre. There is considerable grain ready to be hauled to the new platform when it is completed.
That was probably one of the grain platforms E. E. Zaring was building that month at Pauline, where the valley's only grain warehouse later grew from a platform. September brought more rain and hail; the rain kept the Jim Hill mustard green, so many fields stood uncut while owners waited for the weed to ripen. In October wheat piled up on the platforms faster than motor trucks could haul it to the railroad at Michaud, and by November bad roads had stopped the trucks.
What the year paid
J. N. Arbon threshed 4,696 bushels, "fully up to his expectations for an adverse year." J. R. Bailey threshed 1,800 bushels of wheat and barley, against 4,300 bushels of grain in 1913. T. B. Evans, whose first threshed wheat had sold for 50 cents a bushel in 1895, lost about 30 acres to hail and averaged about 11 bushels on the rest.
Turkey Red was bringing $1.68 to $1.72 a bushel, and more at Malad, across Jensen Pass in Oneida County. Joseph Abler got $1.83 there, and the Malad mill paid D. J. Bowen $1.95, "the highest price paid for wheat from Arbon valley this year." On November 16 the Pilgrim wrote:
Malad wheat buyers are eager to get hold of Arbon valley winter wheat. Whenever a load of this wheat gets to the Oneida county metropolis the owner of it has no trouble at all in disposing of it at top prices.
An American Falls elevator advertised that the price of wheat was set for 1917 and 1918. Yet the Pilgrim reckoned that "more than enough wheat to fatten 10,000 hogs has gone to waste this year in Arbon valley," some of it never cut because of the mustard. Even straw was now "an article of commerce," and after the stock-killing winter of 1916–17 ranchers paid cash for it.
In January 1918 the Press reported that E. T. Anderson, probably Ezra Taft Andersen of the Andersen family, had threshed 19 stacks into 2,875 bushels of Turkey Red, about 13½ bushels an acre, and sold it at the Malad elevator for $1.81 a bushel. He had "positively no kick coming as far as the price received for the grain is concerned."
Looking to 1918
The Pilgrim noted that "the Jim Hill mustard menace is the most difficult problem confronting the farmers," and the growers were practically agreed on two or three years of spring seeding only, accepting a few bushels less an acre. Anderson planned 400 acres of Bluestem. J. R. Bailey would put every available acre in wheat, mostly spring-sown, and W. E. Dawson of Pauline would do the same, the Press reported, "in compliance with the government's request."
The article as printed
American Falls Press, January 8, 1918, page 3. Transcribed from the page scan.
Gleanings by the Pilgrim In His Wanderings Here and There
E. T. Anderson, one of the pioneers of Arbon valley, had 19 stacks of wheat standing on his ranch when the headers were through with their operations and these stacks yielded 2875 bushels of Turkey Red wheat which tested 59 pounds and brought $1.81 per bushel at the elevator in Malad. The wheat went an average of 13½ bushels to the acre. On account of the weed situation Mr. Anderson will in the spring seed 400 acres of summer fallow to Bluestem. This pioneer of the valley is well pleased with the yield of his acres this off year, and he states that he has positively no kick coming as far as the price received for the grain is concerned.
Sources
- American Falls Press, March 29, 1917, page 1
- American Falls Press, June 5, 1917, page 2
- American Falls Press, June 12, 1917, page 4
- American Falls Press, June 12, 1917, page 5
- American Falls Press, June 19, 1917, page 5
- American Falls Press, June 29, 1917, page 5
- American Falls Press, July 10, 1917, page 5
- Salt Lake Tribune, July 11, 1917, page 13
- American Falls Press, July 24, 1917, page 1
- American Falls Press, August 10, 1917, page 5
- American Falls Press, August 21, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, August 28, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, September 7, 1917, page 8
- American Falls Press, September 18, 1917, page 4
- American Falls Press, October 9, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, October 26, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, October 30, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 2, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 6, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 9, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 9, 1917, page 8
- American Falls Press, November 13, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 16, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 20, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 23, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, December 14, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, January 8, 1918, page 3