In the summer of 1918, the second summer of the war, Arbon Valley had more wheat growing than ever before and no railroad to carry it. The grain had to go over the mountains to Michaud, a siding on the Oregon Short Line eight miles west of Pocatello, and how it would get there became a question for the valley, the newspapers and finally the national motor-truck trade.
A big crop and a long haul
On June 4 the American Falls Press reported that J. N. Arbon and J. R. Bailey, probably James R. Bailey, "two of the pioneers of that valley," told of several fine rains and a larger acreage in wheat than ever before. In July the paper reckoned that Bannock valley, as it sometimes still called Arbon Valley, could not have less than 20,000 acres in wheat.
The year before had shown how hard the haul could be. In the fall of 1917 the grain buyers set up platforms at Pauline and Crystal and sent motor trucks to carry the sacks to Michaud, but by November the roads had stopped the trucks and "Teams Wanted" was the buyers' cry. The last load of that crop from the Zaring company's platform at Pauline reached Michaud only in mid-August 1918.
On July 2 the Salt Lake Tribune, reporting from Pocatello, said the farmers of the Crystal and Arbon valleys were "considerably concerned over the question of getting their crops to market this fall." If they had to haul their own grain, it said, next year's acreage would probably be cut by half. An effort was to be made to have the national food administration, through the federal grain corporation, put on a line of trucks.
On July 16 the Press reported that V. H. Torrance, back from a trip through Crystal and Arbon valley, had found the wheat looking the best in many years. The ranchers meant to make the heading and threshing a community affair, without outside help, but the paper added: "The greatest problem confronting the farmers this year will be the hauling of the thousands of tons of grain to railroad points this fall."
On July 29 the Tribune carried a Pocatello report on moving Idaho's wheat, which the Press reprinted the next day:
The organization of motor truck routes for the movement of wheat from communities remote from railroad transportation is being planned. Farmers from the Arbon valley, located over the mountains about thirty miles southwest of this city, have been considering such a project, as the estimated crop of nearly half a million bushels which should be raised in that valley will have to be hauled to Michaud, on the Oregon Short Line, a distance of from twenty-five to thirty-five miles.
A letter to the truck men
The valley's case went beyond Idaho. In September 1918 the trade journal American Garage & Auto Dealer printed an article on the "Rural Motor Express," truck lines serving farm districts, which it argued would encourage farmers to plant more. It quoted a letter from "Senator B. A. Cummings, of Idaho" to the committee "of which Mr. Fenn is the executive," asking for a route between Arbon Valley and Michaud. Several hundred settlers, he wrote, expected to raise 500,000 bushels of wheat that season:
Their crops as well as all their supplies have to be hauled from 20 to 30 miles.
The handling of this grain represents a big problem this fall, due to the fact that they will have an unusually large crop, and if the farmers have to devote their time to hauling it, it will mean curtailing the acreage for next year by perhaps 50 per cent.
The committee asked truck makers to "render Senator Cummings assistance in the direction of supplying motor transportation." The writer was B. A. Cummings of Pocatello, a state senator from Bannock County, and very probably the same attorney with whom Arbon Valley ranchers had signed a contract in March 1916, pledging a dollar an acre toward a railroad that was never built.
Harvest and hauling
"Harvesting is in full blast," the Arbon column reported on August 23, with grain going 16 to 30 bushels an acre, but many combines had shut down "on account of scarcity of sacks which makes it very inconvenient as much of the grain is shelling."
The Zaring Grain Company of American Falls built a warehouse at Pauline late that summer, and a large crowd came to its opening dance. On October 8 the Arbon column reported: "The Zaring grain warehouse is about full and teams remain standing for hours waiting to unload." Three threshers were still running, and "there is still a lot of grain to be marketed."
Wheat was still being trucked from the Zaring warehouse to Michaud in December. Early on December 23, B. O. Kelley of American Falls, hauling for the Zaring company, set out from Pauline to load wheat for Michaud. The Press reported that he was driving without a light and evidently took the Bannock Creek bridge for part of the road; the truck went through it onto the ice, and he was killed instantly. At the end of January 1919 some Crystal farmers had still not threshed, while "others are still busy hauling wheat to market."
Moved and saved
On April 3, 1919, Motor Age printed an article on the rural motor express by F. W. Fenn of the Rural Motor Express Committee, who told the valley's story as an example. Its farmers, he wrote, had raised "the largest wheat crop in the history of that section," Senator Cummings had warned that it must be moved by rural motor express or the loss would be enormous, and "This crop was moved, and it was done by motor trucks, and saved."
Fenn wrote as a promoter of truck lines. No local report found says a truck route was organized for the valley that fall, or how much of the crop went by truck and how much by team, and no count of the 1918 harvest has been found; the half million bushels was a July estimate. What the columns show is teams waiting at Pauline in October and trucks on the Michaud road into December. The next spring the contractor graveling the Arbon Valley road, Duke Sandstrum of American Falls, was to use trucks instead of horses.
On this site: the first trucks and the first grain warehouse in the Stories, and the area histories of Pauline and West Fork and Crystal.
Sources
- Salt Lake Tribune, March 12, 1916, page 5
- American Falls Press, September 25, 1917, page 2
- American Falls Press, November 16, 1917, page 1
- American Falls Press, June 4, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, July 2, 1918, page 1
- Salt Lake Tribune, July 2, 1918, page 7
- American Falls Press, July 5, 1918, page 1
- American Falls Press, July 16, 1918, page 4
- Salt Lake Tribune, July 29, 1918, page 2
- American Falls Press, July 30, 1918, page 1
- American Falls Press, August 13, 1918, page 1
- American Falls Press, August 23, 1918, page 3
- American Falls Press, September 3, 1918, page 3
- American Garage & Auto Dealer, September 1918, page 17
- American Falls Press, October 8, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, December 24, 1918, page 1
- American Falls Press, January 31, 1919, page 8
- Motor Age, April 3, 1919
- American Falls Press, May 2, 1919, page 7