Brigham Young's company crosses Bannock Valley, 1857
In spring 1857 Brigham Young's company crossed Bannock Valley on its way to Fort Limhi, and two accounts of the trip are the earliest printed descriptions of the valley yet found.
2026 in the valley.
News, observations, announcements, and remembrances from the original Arbon Valley community blog.
Browse the original records
Community blog · 2010–2020 · original publication order · stories from the old papers added since 2026
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When Bannock Valley was cattle range, 1879–1909
How the papers saw Bannock Valley as stock range, from the killing winter of 1879–80 and the stockmen of 1888 to the sheep trails of 1903 and 1909.
Ten cents, two cows and a greased pig: the J. R. Baileys of Arbon
In 1917 the American Falls Press profiled J. R. Bailey of Arbon, who had come with ten cents and two cows; in 1940 he and Annie marked fifty years married, recalling a greased pig.
The squatters of 1892, in Mrs. Logan's words
Mrs. E. A. Logan's 1917 history tells how the first squatters took up Bannock Valley in the 1890s; in 1920 she retold it as a birthday tribute to George Arbon.
D. J. Bowen tells the Pilgrim how Arbon began, 1917
In October 1917 the American Falls Press printed D. J. Bowen's account of the 1892 search for water, his 1893 aspen-log cabin and Arbon's first post office.
A valley of log cabins: canyon timber in Arbon and Crystal, 1917
In 1917 the American Falls Press's farm writer found Arbon Valley full of log cabins built from canyon timber, and reported ranchers going back to the canyons for wood when coal ran short.
The reservation next door: the 1898 cession and a borrowed wagon
How the 1898 Fort Hall agreement opened Crystal to homesteaders, what a 1900 Utah paper said the Tribes kept in Bannock valley, and an Arbon churchman's borrowed wagon in 1904.
Who kept the Arbon post office, 1898–1922
The papers follow the Arbon post office from D. J. Bowen's cabin through the Evans, Bailey, Leavitt and Keeler years to the summer of 1922, when it nearly closed.
From branch to ward: the Arbon Ward's first thirty years
How Arbon's Latter-day Saints grew from a branch of the Samaria Ward in 1900 into a ward with its own bishops and hall, as the papers and the church historian recorded it.
Mrs. T. B. Evans of Arbon, at the post office and switchboard
Susannah Smith Evans, Mrs. T. B. Evans in the papers, kept Arbon's post office and telephone central, led its Red Cross and registered its voters.
Charles and Grace Bailey's four years at Arbon, 1901–1905
Charles A. Bailey made the first homestead entry on the Arbon floor in 1901 and died in 1905; his widow Grace took their children home to Wellsville.
Prospecting for ore and coal around Arbon, 1903–1920
An Ogden man's 1903 bonanza, a coal company on Birch Creek and a Pocatello mayor's claims: the papers followed prospecting around Arbon for years, but no report found says any of it paid.
John and Beatrice Bolingbroke's golden wedding, 1903–1953
Married at Malad in 1903, John and Beatrice Bolingbroke ranched at Pauline for four decades, wintered in Malad, and kept their golden wedding in Pocatello in 1953.
Not only Mendon: Buist settlers from Box Elder and Spanish Fork
Buist's first homesteaders came from Mendon, but the papers show families coming from Brigham City, Garland and Spanish Fork too, probably among them a postmistress fined in 1912.
Andrew Jenson's 1906 letter from Arbon
In 1906 the church historian Andrew Jenson wrote from Arbon, telling how the young settlement began and describing the valley as he saw it from Rocky Ridge.
Arbon's 1907 harvest: 35,000 bushels from the dry farms
In November 1907 two Arbon men told the American Falls Press that thirty-two families had threshed 35,000 bushels of grain, and named the best wheat fields and varieties.
Mendon in winter, Arbon in summer: the Cache Valley homesteaders
Logan's town columns of 1908–1917 follow Mendon and North Logan families north to Arbon and Buist homesteads each spring and home to Cache Valley for the winter.
Women who proved up: Arbon and Crystal land claims, 1908–1919
Land notices in the American Falls Press name valley women proving up claims of their own, from Arbon wives' desert land to a mother and her daughters on Cherry Creek near Crystal.
Somerset to Arbon: the valley's Kentucky settlers, 1908–1922
In December 1911 G. S. Randall of Arbon planned a visit to his old home at Somerset, Kentucky; the papers follow the Kentucky families who came to the valley, stayed and left.
Ren Evans of Arbon, 1869–1934, as the papers knew him
Ren Evans of Arbon died in 1934; his obituary and earlier papers follow him through a road campaign, a judgeship he never took up, the mail route, oil stock and a cheese factory.
A Summit homestead that became an Idaho Century Farm
J. Parley Sorensen of Mendon received title to a Summit homestead in 1914; his descendants the Thompsons farm it still, and in 2024 it was recognized as an Idaho Century Farm.
How Arbon voted to join Power County, 1908–1913
Between 1908 and 1911 Arbon voted three times to leave Oneida County for a new county around American Falls; bills failed in the 1909 and 1911 legislatures before Power County was created in 1913.
The $300 road from Arbon to American Falls, 1908
In November 1908 Oneida County spent $300 on a shorter wagon road from Bannock Creek over the foothills to American Falls, and the Press named the men who laid it out and built it.
Sixteen wagons of Arbon wheat to Michaud switch, 1908
In November 1908 sixteen Arbon teamsters hauled a carload of sacked wheat to the railroad at Michaud switch, and the American Falls Press printed every driver's name.
Homeseekers' Paradise: Arbon Valley asks for settlers, 1908–1909
In 1908–09 Arbon's settlers and the American Falls Press advertised the valley's open land to homeseekers, and by spring newcomers were filing on it fast.
Showing the dry farm: Arbon at Farmers' Day, 1908–1912
Arbon people were named judges and officers of Farmers' Day, the yearly American Falls farm show begun in 1908, and their dry-land alfalfa won the paper's praise.
Arbon potatoes and the Kansas father who changed his mind
Dry-land potatoes from Arbon in 1909, and a homesteader whose garden proved the old-timers wrong and won over his doubting father from Kansas, as the American Falls Press told it.
Proving up at Arbon: the land-office notices, 1909–1914
How Arbon Valley homesteaders turned claims into titles from 1909 to 1914, from the land-office notices: the neighbours who stood witness, and the contests over empty claims.
Crystal, the hidden settlement up Rattlesnake Creek, 1911–1917
In 1911 Crystal was a new settlement wanting a school; by 1917 the American Falls Press found about 150 families in a basin so well hidden that strangers could not find the road in.
Elmira and Delone Smith, two homestead daughters at Summit
Two daughters of the Summit homesteader E. G. Smith, as the 1915 South Arbon columns saw them and as their obituaries remembered them seventy years on.