In the spring of 1920 the farmers of Arbon banded together to keep the sheepmen's bands out of the canyons and hills around their valley, which had been part of Power County since 1913. Through that summer the Arbon columns of the American Falls Press reported what followed: a sheepman fined, a trespass case against a sheep company, a deputy riding the ranges, and trials held at a justice's home in Pauline.
Sheep in the canyons
By 1915 the homesteads were climbing into the canyons. On June 3, 1915, the Central Arbon correspondent wrote that a few new homesteaders had filed on land in Knox Canyon, whose creek fed the valley's first irrigation ditch, and were building there: "Even the mountain ranges are being homesteaded, which is gradually crowding out the sheepmen." Yet the canyons were still sheep country. Two weeks later the Arbon news reported the Eliason brothers at work with a crew at their shearing corral in Knox Canyon, and in June 1916 it noted that "The Eliason brothers recently finished the shearing of their sheep in Knox canyon." The papers give neither their first names nor where they lived.
In June 1918 the Arbon column reported a cloudburst in a canyon where shearing was under way. The scanned text names it "Hull canyon," probably Bull Canyon, at the south end of the valley. The water "carried many bales of wool several miles down the canyon, causing a loss of several thousand dollars." The paper did not say whose wool it was.
Not every sheep belonged to an outsider. The Summit area history recalls boys herding their families' flocks on the mountain, and homesteaders going east over the mountain to work in the shearing sheds of the Daniels area. There had been trouble before: in June 1919 a sheepherder drew a revolver on an Arbon farmer. Power County's tax roll for 1919, printed in the Press on July 2, 1920, counted 3,671 "common" sheep in the county and 17,616 migratory ones.
The range association
On May 7, 1920, the Press reported that a "stock grazing or range association" had been incorporated at Arbon the week before. Its president was Jerry Baker, the Arbon rancher who had married George Arbon's daughter Mayme. Its secretary-treasurer was Lucien McLarry, probably the man who had bought the Parley H. Bailey place at Arbon in 1918. The two had the association's constitution and by-laws drawn up in Pocatello. The paper explained:
The purpose of the organization is to keep the sheep out of the canyons and prevent them from grazing on the ranges thereby reserving the pasture land for stock belonging to farmers. Signs will be placed on the ranges and along the boundaries of the districts.
A summer of arrests
Within weeks a sheepman was arrested. On June 11 the Arbon News reported:
Eugene Berard, sheepman, was arrested last week for ranging his sheep on the land of Brigham Bowen. He paid his fine and trailed through to the shearing corral at Dairy Creek.
Dairy Creek lies east over the mountains, near today's Daniels Reservoir. The correspondent added that the Range Association was "making it disagreeable for the sheepmen," because the feed in the hills and canyons was the best in several years and there would be feed for stock if the sheep stayed off. The same column noted that the Servel company was shearing its sheep near Bull Canyon, in the south of the valley, and that trucks were busy hauling the wool to Schiller's Spur, probably the Schiller siding on the Oregon Short Line railroad.
Two weeks later Attorney T. D. Jones of Pocatello came to Arbon to take charge of the case of "the Range Association vs. Servel Sheep company for trespassing." In July J. R. Bailey and Jerry Baker went to Malad on the association's business, and the column of July 16 reported:
Mr. Hy Secrist, Deputy sheriff, has been very busy the past two weeks riding the ranges, on the lookout for sheepmen, also arresting several for Trespassing.
Jerry Baker and Lucien McLarry and others have been doing good work in keeping the sheep back. Several trials have been held in the Justice court at the home of Mr. Wm. E. Dawson, of Pauline.
The deputy was probably Hyrum Secrist, an Arbon homesteader, and W. E. Dawson was then the justice of the peace at Pauline. There the record stops. The Press did not name the other sheepmen arrested, report the verdicts or say how the Servel case ended. No later mention of the range association has been found.
After 1920
In late May 1921 the Roy correspondent reported a crew of shearers who expected to shear 26,000 sheep at the Holloway corrals and 6,000 at the Bull Canyon corrals. The road through Bull Canyon runs west from the south end of the valley, and in 1924 three Roy men went from Arbon back to Roy "through Bull Canyon," so these were probably the valley's corrals. Where the Holloway corrals stood is not said.
In April 1922 the Ogden Standard-Examiner reported that Xavier Servel, "pioneer sheepman," stood to lose about 1,000 sheep that had come into Idaho in poor condition after a long trip and had been unloaded at American Falls. Nearly 300 lay dead in one group near Michaud. The Press said the sheep had wintered in Nevada and belonged to "the Servel interests." That fall a sheepherder killed a mountain lion "in Bull canyon, south of Arbon."
By 1926 a Salt Lake paper placed at least one of the Servels at Arbon. The Salt Lake Tribune of May 16, 1926, reported that Pierre Servel had "left his home at Arbon early Tuesday morning for his sheep shearing corral on Marsh creek, sixteen miles south of Pocatello." That Tuesday was May 11. An employee found him dead the next morning beneath his car, about a mile south of the corral. The Bannock County sheriff's investigation led to the theory that his shotgun had gone off by accident as he tried to take it from the back seat. After a requiem mass at St. Anthony's Catholic church in Pocatello he was buried in Mountain View cemetery. He left his widow and a brother, Xavier. The papers never say outright that the brothers were the Servel company the range association took to court in 1920, but it is probable.
The article as printed
American Falls Press, May 7, 1920, page 5. Transcribed from the page scan.
ARBON FARMERS ORGANIZING
Arbon, Idaho.—The stock grazing or range association was incorporated her last week. Officers were elected as follows: President, Jery Baker; secretary-treasurer, Lucien McLarry. These two officers had the constitution and by-laws of their organization drawn in Pocatello last week.
The purpose of the organization is to keep the sheep out of the canyons and prevent them from grazing on the ranges thereby reserving the pasture land for stock belonging to farmers. Signs will be placed on the ranges and along the boundaries of the districts.
On this site: the Buist area history, on the old road through Bull Canyon, and the Stories entry on the Ward brothers' stolen sheep in 1927.
Sources
- American Falls Press, June 3, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, June 17, 1915, page 1
- American Falls Press, June 22, 1916, page 8
- American Falls Press, June 25, 1918, page 2
- American Falls Press, May 7, 1920, page 5
- American Falls Press, June 11, 1920, page 6
- American Falls Press, June 25, 1920, page 6
- American Falls Press, July 2, 1920, page 4
- American Falls Press, July 16, 1920, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 19, 1920, page 7
- American Falls Press, May 27, 1921, page 2
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, April 27, 1922, page 2
- American Falls Press, April 28, 1922, page 1
- American Falls Press, November 2, 1922, page 2
- American Falls Press, June 19, 1924, page 5
- Salt Lake Tribune, May 16, 1926, page 11