In the first half of the 1920s the dry farmers of the Arbon valley, part of Power County since 1913 and of Oneida County before that, lived through falling wheat prices, scarce credit and failing banks. The site's Stories already tell of the foreclosures of those years. This post follows the county paper, the American Falls Press, as it tried to explain them.
A good crop at a falling price
The drought of 1919 had cut the valley's crop short, but 1920 began well. After a heavy rain in late May the Press found the Arbon and Rockland valleys "beautiful beyond description" and wrote that "General conversation now centers on the price of grain rather than the prospects entertained for a crop failure." In June it judged the Arbon valley's outlook probably the best in the county, with 25 bushels to the acre predicted.
The price was the worry. Wheat had sold at $2 a bushel at the time of the last wartime freight increase, as the paper recalled the next summer. In August 1920 the Wheat Growers Association, formed to market grain together, announced that platforms would be built at Arbon and Roy, and by December William Allard of Arbon was one of its local directors. In November the Press wrote of a general decline in prices that had "already assumed proportions of a landslide." The Arbon column of December 3 reported that Bernie Burge had taken a carload of mules to St. Louis, only to find the market had dropped.
Seed on credit
By the spring of 1921 many of the county's dry farmers could not buy seed. Congress voted $2,000,000 for seed loans to farmers hurt by drought, and County Agent T. H. Morrell explained the need in Power County:
Much of the land was prepared for sowing last fall, but no wheat was planted for the simple reason that the farmers couldn't buy their seed. They had no money.
Power County's share was $22,500, by the paper's account the largest in Idaho, and only farmers who had failed to raise a crop in 1920 could apply. They could borrow $2 an acre, no more than $200 each, on a note secured by a mortgage on the new crop that came ahead of every other mortgage. Committeemen had charge of the loans in each community: Fred Fanning at Crystal, T. B. Evans and Ed. Davis at Arbon, and John Kowallis and C. England at Pauline. The papers do not say how many valley farmers borrowed.
When the Federal Farm Loan Board prepared to lend again that spring, G. S. Butler, almost certainly the George S. Butler who had homesteaded in the Arbon valley before buying a dry farm west of American Falls, told the Press in April, and again in May, that few Power County farmers would benefit. Their farms "were already over mortgaged", and land values had fallen so far that a federal loan would not pay off the old mortgages, as the board required.
Seventy-cent wheat
The valley's 1921 crop looked good. After the June celebration at the oil well on the Toyn ranch, the Press wrote that "No where in the state is there better looking wheat crops, and green valleys are no where greener than at Arbon." Two weeks later it reckoned what a good crop would earn:
A 2,000,000 bushel crop of wheat for Power County, a bumper yield to be sure, the maximum price for wheat 70 cents a bushel—yet when the farmer balances his books, the railroad freight charges will have taken all the profit and more.
In September wheat was 83 cents a bushel at American Falls.
Farms for the back taxes
By March 1922 the lenders wanted new farmers. W. G. Kerr, whose firm represented loan companies with about $1,000,000 lent on 30,000 acres of improved land in the county, said 150 families could take up cultivated farms by paying the delinquent taxes and interest and taking on a small debt. Of the county he said:
It is new, has been deserted in large part by the original homesteader as all new countries have, has in many instances been poorly farmed and is now getting its second start, a start that will be based on careful farm management and intelligent work, not overburdened by excessive credit, extravagant methods and high interest rates.
Another article on the same page blamed many first farmers for heavy debts and careless dry farming, said land worth fifty dollars an acre had fallen to twenty, and, as far as the broken text can be read, placed much of the land on offer in the Rockland and Arbon valleys.
Banks and tax deeds
In 1923 the First National Bank of American Falls and the First State Bank of Rockland failed. That October the Press wrote that "Every common school district had money in the bank", that every highway district had suffered losses, and that the county stood to lose more than $100,000. By that account the valley's school districts lost money too.
In September 1924 the county treasurer gave notice that Power County held certificates for unpaid 1920 taxes on tracts around Crystal, Arbon and Pauline, among many others, and would take a tax deed to any not redeemed by January 4, 1925. Henry D. Wall's land was on the list. The notices do not say which tracts were redeemed.
Two-dollar wheat again
The turn came with the harvest of 1925. The Mountain Home Republican passed on a Press report that hard red milling wheat had opened around $2.00 a bushel and that yields would be more than twice the year before: "Many farmers who had 500 or 600 sacks of wheat last year will have 3,000 or better this year." The Arbon valley and Roy, it added, would be the last to harvest.
That October the Press reported that the Power County Bank, opened about fourteen months before on what many considered "a hopeless banking situation", had some 900 accounts, while about three-quarters of the 1925 wheat crop was being held in warehouses for $2.50 a hundred pounds. The paper told the bank's growth as the story of how fast the county was recovering from the hard years.
The papers do not tell how many valley families held on and how many lost their land or left; the notices record suits and sales, not outcomes. At Crystal and Buist, drought and debt returned at the end of the decade.
The article as printed
American Falls Press, July 15, 1921, page 1. Transcribed from the page scan.
Unite For Reduction of Freight Rates or Farm For Nothing
A 2,000,000 bushel crop of wheat for Power County, a bumper yield to be sure, the maximum price for wheat 70 cents a bushel—yet when the farmer balances his books, the railroad freight charges will have taken all the profit and more. That means a year's work under extraordinarily favorable conditions all for less than nothing in the way of better credit, better homes, and increased prosperity.
Figures prove, beyond a doubt that the present price of something over 60c a bushel for wheat means an actual loss to the producer. The last wartime increase in freight rates precluded any possibility of profit in the wheat industry.
When wheat was selling at $2 the bushel with everyone holding out for three dallors, freight rates were boosted 33 1-3 per cent to eastern points and 25 per cent to western coast points. The railroads now announces a $400,000,000 cut in wages and salaries. The government just announces a $500,000,000 gift to the railroads. Surely this must have obsorbed all railroad losses, whether for depreciation, freight losses or labor troubles. The railroads then are back to normalcy as far as operating conditions go. The farmer is also nearly back to normal in his operating costs.
Then why not get back to normalcy with freight rates? A reduction of one-third the rate to eastern points and one-fourth the rate to coast points will put the rates back where they were before the last raise and net the wheat grower 18 cents a bushel in the bargain, enough to make his year's effort worth while.
Let all interested organizations make a joint appeal to the railroads. Time will not permit any other sort of appeal as the relief must come within the next thirty days. State Farm Bureaus, Wheatgrowers Associations, Milling Companies, Chambers of Commerce and State Markets Departments should unite in securing a special rate over the wheat shipping period that will give the industrious Idaho and Utah farmer an opportunity to make at least a living from his farm. We will have prosperous farmers or soon we will not have farmers at all. He will soon become too wise to work for nothing while exhorbitant freight rates eat the profit right before his eyes.
On this site: The foreclosures of 1920–1925, Drought and debt empty Crystal and Buist and the Swim family, whose page tells of the Butlers.
Sources
- American Falls Press, August 16, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, May 28, 1920, page 4
- American Falls Press, June 18, 1920, page 1
- American Falls Press, August 6, 1920, page 1
- American Falls Press, November 26, 1920, page 4
- American Falls Press, December 3, 1920, page 1
- American Falls Press, December 3, 1920, page 2
- American Falls Press, March 18, 1921, page 1
- American Falls Press, March 25, 1921, page 1
- American Falls Press, March 25, 1921, page 8
- American Falls Press, April 8, 1921, page 1
- American Falls Press, May 6, 1921, page 1
- American Falls Press, July 1, 1921, page 6
- American Falls Press, July 15, 1921, page 1
- American Falls Press, September 9, 1921, page 1
- American Falls Press, March 24, 1922, page 1
- American Falls Press, October 18, 1923, page 1
- American Falls Press, June 26, 1924, page 1
- American Falls Press, September 18, 1924, page 6
- American Falls Press, September 18, 1924, page 7
- Mountain Home Republican, August 7, 1925, page 4
- American Falls Press, October 29, 1925, page 1