Arbon Valley land in the want ads, 1976–1983

Between 1976 and 1983, land in Arbon Valley, Power County, Idaho, turned up again and again in the classified columns of the Salt Lake City and Logan papers. Apart from one notice placed by the government, the ads name no owners and give no reasons for selling, and no report of a sale has been found for any of them. What they do record is what was offered, how it was described and, sometimes, what was asked for it.

Recreation land and a cattle range, 1976

In late February and early March 1976, a real-estate display in the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune offered 500 acres at the mouth of Knox Canyon, "with a stream and beautiful trees." It was a new listing, placed under a recreation-and-vacation heading beside city lots at Lava Hot Springs. Knox Canyon is the canyon whose water early settlers carried to their fields in the valley's first irrigation ditch. The asking price per acre cannot be read with confidence, because the three scanned copies that show a price give $225, $125 and $725.

In June a different ad ran for about a week in the Logan Herald Journal and the Tribune, this one for a cattle range. It offered 2,400 deeded acres in Arbon Valley, cross-fenced into three pastures, with a small home and corrals. The ad rated the range at 187 head in all, 37 of them on a Bureau of Land Management grazing right that ran from May 15 to September 20. It does not say whether any cattle went with the land. The ad added that the "Knox Canyon recreation area goes through property." Buyers were to call W. D. Fuhriman of Downey, Idaho, or the Gate City Real Estate Co. of Pocatello, who were also offering a sprinkler-irrigated farm at McCammon in the same columns.

The scans give the place's name as the "Roy Arbon range" (one copy reads "Ray"). The ads do not say who that was, and no one of that name appears in this site's family records. Nothing ties the range to the George Arbon family, for whom the valley was named. The ads also do not say whether the 500 acres at the canyon mouth were part of the same ground.

Barnwood and big dry farms, 1978–1979

On April 29 and May 1, 1978, a seller with an Arbon telephone number advertised barnwood in the Tribune; in the April 29 paper the ad sat between ads for used railroad ties and cedar shakes. Most of the boards were moss-covered and, the ad said, "in excellent condition," and the seller would deliver.

In April 1979, ERA-Aloma Real Estate of Logan listed a 1,200-acre dry farm in Pocatello Valley along with 340 or 360 acres in Arbon Valley; the scanned copies disagree on the figure. A dry farm grows grain without irrigation, on the moisture stored in the soil. In the valley, dry farming meant summer fallowing: a field is left unplanted every other season so that it can soak up moisture for the next crop.

On October 19, 1979, the Tribune offered an Arbon Valley dry farm, "first time offered": 2,400 acres, all tillable, with "26 bushels normal yield." The scan prints the price as 81,400,000. That is probably $1,400,000, with the dollar sign misread as an 8, a slip that turns up elsewhere in these scans. The price would come to about $583 an acre, with the balance to be paid on contract. Replies went to "Arbon Valley Farm, Box 336 Logan," and no owner is named.

1982 and 1983

For about a week at the turn of April and May 1982, the Tribune carried a one-line ad for an 1,100-acre dry farm in Arbon Valley at $199 an acre. Next to the 1979 farm that price looks low, but the ads cannot show a trend. They describe different farms, of unknown quality, and their figures are asking prices, not sales.

In November 1983, a larger notice ran again and again in the Tribune between November 3 and November 16. "The Government is offering for sale," it began: a 320-acre dry farm in Arbon Valley, with "215 acres cultivatable." The government was authorized to finance the property at 10.75 percent interest, and terms and price were negotiable. Offers would be taken until November 18, 1983, and inquiries went to the Malad City office of the Farmers Home Administration, the Department of Agriculture's farm-lending agency. The notice does not say whose farm it had been or how the government came to hold it, and no report of the sale has been found.

Who owned most of these places, and who bought any of them, the papers do not tell. If you know, send it to the archive.

On this site: Knox Canyon's early story is in the first irrigation ditch and the Arbon area history. A different chapter, the foreclosure suits brought against mortgaged valley farms after wheat prices fell around 1920, is told in the foreclosures of 1920–1925.