On Friday, July 11, 1958, a caravan of about 80 people from Pocatello, 20 of them women, crossed the Mink Creek divide into Power County on the Pocatello Chamber of Commerce's yearly farm tour. After breakfast at Cherry Springs, their first two stops were about Arbon Valley country: a lookout on the summit of the divide, where they could look over the Arbon Valley and Crystal area, and the Bannock Creek country. The rest of the day took them to American Falls, Aberdeen and Blackfoot. The Idaho State Journal reported the plans for the tour, and its Sunday paper of July 13 printed an account of the day by Nicholas Ifft.
Planning the tour
The Chamber's agricultural committee announced the tour on June 26. J. M. Hansen, district supervisor for the Pacific Fruit Express, was named to lead it. It was meant for Pocatello businessmen and for farmers near the city, to show them how farming was developing around them. The first plan had the caravan leaving the west end of Manson Park at 7 a.m., eating breakfast at Cherry Springs on Mink Creek, and then traveling through Arbon Valley by way of Pauline, with farm and forest specialists speaking at chosen points along the road. Chambers of commerce in Alameda, Chubbuck, American Falls, Aberdeen and Blackfoot were to be invited, as were Indian Service officials and extension workers at Fort Hall.
By July 4 the plan was firmer. Breakfast, ham and eggs and hotcakes, would be at 7 a.m. at the Cherry Springs campground, and the caravan would leave at 8:30. John Parker, supervisor of the Caribou National Forest, would speak at the first viewpoint. A second stop was set near the Zimmerli ranch on Bannock Creek, which the notice placed in Arbon Valley. There Glenn Kunkel, the Fort Hall Reservation's extension agent, would show the group seeded range, wheat grown on dry farms, and irrigated fields. The paper of July 8 reported that Pocatello merchants, meeting with the committee, had urged businessmen to go. Anyone who could not spend the whole day was asked at least to come to the breakfast, which the Portneuf Grange would serve.
What the tour was told about the valley
On the summit of the divide Parker spoke about the Caribou forest as a whole. By his figures the forest's range fed about 140,000 sheep and 16,500 cattle, its timber came to roughly three million board feet of lumber, and the Forest Service meant to add recreation sites and do more to guard water supplies.
Then the tour looked out over Arbon Valley and the Crystal country, and Sterling Schow, the Power County extension agent, gave the figures. His count for the Arbon-Crystal district was 76 farms holding 59,827 acres of cropland between them, or 787 acres to a farm on average. The district reached almost to Holbrook and Malad. For the 1958 harvest he put Arbon Valley's crop from its allotted wheat acres at 350,000 bushels, set against a Power County average of 19 bushels to the acre. In Schow's view the district counted for a good deal with business and professional people in American Falls as well as in Pocatello.
Bannock Creek came next, and the road there took the caravan over a stretch of Arbon country. Kunkel's subject was a pair of Indian Service programs on the reservation, one to reseed range so it would hold more stock and one against weeds. He pointed as well to the Indian share of the Michaud project near American Falls, where Indians still held about 17,000 of the 21,000 acres and that land was still open to development. Another sight on that stop was H. H. Zimmerli's operation: the Pocatello potato broker held a lease on some 540 acres there and was raising crops on them. Frell Owl, who headed the Fort Hall Agency, took a few minutes to remind the visitors whose ground it was. It was owned by the Indians, he said, not by the government, and the Indians would need guidance and support to get the good of the programs meant for them.
The rest of the day
At American Falls the visitors saw the Michaud project's power plant and the inside of the dam. Riders of a posse brought the caravan into the Aberdeen experiment station, and the day closed in Blackfoot with a plug for the Pocatello Frontier Rodeo, which opened July 15. LaSalle Pocatello, who sat on the Fort Hall Tribal Council, rode along as a guest.
What the papers do not say
The account names no Arbon Valley farmer as a speaker or a host, and it does not say which road the caravan took from the divide to Bannock Creek. The June plan said the route would go by way of Pauline, but the report of the day does not name Pauline. The papers do not say from whom Zimmerli leased his 540 acres or exactly where they lay; the July 4 notice placed the Zimmerli ranch on Bannock Creek. The notices also differ on who chaired the committee: Hansen in June and July 13, Roy Neider on July 4, with Hansen conducting the tour.
On this site: Arbon Valley's communities and Pauline and West Fork; the older Mink Creek road and the wheat haul; Bannock Creek allotments, roads and leases in an earlier time; contour strips on the valley's slopes in the same years; and Sterling Schow again, counting acres sprayed for grasshoppers in the 1970s.
The story as reported
Idaho Sunday Journal, July 13, 1958, page 8. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
Pocatello sent about 80 people, 20 of them women, on the Chamber of Commerce's yearly farm tour on Friday, July 11. The day's route started with Arbon Valley and the Bannock Creek country, then went on to American Falls and the Aberdeen experiment station. Organizing fell to the Chamber's agricultural committee; J. M. Hansen chaired it, and Elmer Terry and several Frontier Rodeo officials pitched in.
The morning began with a Cherry Springs breakfast cooked by Portneuf Grange members. From there the cars climbed to the summit of the Mink Creek divide, where Caribou National Forest supervisor John W. Parker ran through the forest's figures. Its range carried something like 140,000 sheep and 16,500 cattle, it yielded close to three million board feet of lumber, and the Forest Service hoped to build more recreation sites and do more to safeguard water.
From that same high point the visitors could see Arbon Valley and the Crystal country, and Power County extension agent Sterling Schow supplied that district's figures. There were 76 farms in it, he said, with 59,827 acres of cropland among them, close to 787 acres per farm. He looked for 350,000 bushels this year off Arbon Valley's allotted wheat acres, in a county where wheat averaged 19 bushels to the acre. The district stretched nearly to Holbrook and Malad, Schow said, and the business and professional people of both Pocatello and American Falls had a stake in it.
The caravan then crossed part of the Arbon country and came down to Bannock Creek. Glenn Kunkel, extension agent for the Fort Hall Reservation, talked there about two Indian Service jobs on the reservation: reseeding range so it would support more livestock, and fighting weeds. Of the 21,000 acres in the Indian part of the Michaud project near American Falls, he said, about 17,000 were still in Indian hands and still waiting to be developed. The group also saw some 540 acres that H. H. Zimmerli, a Pocatello potato broker, was farming under lease. The Fort Hall Agency's superintendent, Frell Owl, had a word for the visitors as well. This was Indian ground, he reminded them, not government ground, and if the programs set up for the Indians were to work, the Indians would need help and guidance.
At American Falls the Bureau of Reclamation's Michaud project engineer, Boyd Walter, described the project before the visitors toured its power plant and went inside the dam. At Aberdeen, Hassel Vargasson's posse escorted the cars to the experiment station, whose superintendent, Dr. Ed Owens, introduced the people who worked there; Terry then took the group on to Blackfoot to promote the rodeo. Among the guests on the trip was LaSalle Pocatello of the Fort Hall Tribal Council.