In April 1916 the Power County commissioners gave the north end of Arbon Valley a polling place of its own at the Pauline schoolhouse. That fall both candidates for the valley's seat on the county board were valley men, and the winner became the first valley resident found on the board. The American Falls Press recorded both.
Arbon had been part of Oneida County, governed from Malad, until 1913, when the new Power County was created with its seat at American Falls. Three commissioners ran the county, one for each district, but, as the Press explained in 1918, they were "elected at large, the people voting for a member from each of the three districts."
A precinct for Pauline
On April 11, 1916, the board, with W. S. Sparks of American Falls in the chair, took up a petition from the valley. Its minutes read:
Petition having been made by residents of Arbon Valley, it is hereby ordered that a voting precinct be created with a voting place at the Pauline Schoolhouse, to contain school district No. 13 ...
The valley now had three precincts: Arbon, Crystal and Pauline. The schoolhouse was probably the two-room building that District 13 had bonded for in 1913 on John Noble's land, which, enlarged, is still Arbon Elementary (see the first schools at West Fork and Pauline).
In July the board named the polling places: Arbon at the Central school house in District No. 12, Crystal at its own Central school house in District No. 14, and Pauline at the Pauline school house in District No. 13. At its session of July 31, printed on August 10, it named the judges of election for the next two years: T. B. Evans, Joe Arbon and James Payne at Arbon; E. C. England, H. M. Saulsberry and John Bollenbroke, probably John Bolingbroke, at Pauline; and John Johnson, J. W. Staley and I. N. Davis at Crystal.
The race for the valley's seat
The valley lay in the Third District, and every man who sought that seat in 1916 gave Arbon as his address. The first to be reported was John Payne, the Arbon justice of the peace, who was said in December 1915 to be running for commissioner on the Republican ticket. His advertisement appeared in July 1916, and by the next week's paper G. A. "Gus" Brahmstadt of Arbon had announced for the same nomination. On August 10 the Press's list of nominations gave the Third District only two names, Brahmstadt for the Republicans and John Noble for the Democrats, and said they had "no opposition." Noble was probably the John Noble who kept the first store at Pauline.
Payne's advertisement was still running on August 17, and on August 31 the paper still wrote that Payne, "a pioneer," "will make the race for commissioner this year." But his name is not on the county's official list of primary candidates printed on August 24, nor in the returns of the September 5 primary, nor among the nominees in the county's notice of the November election, printed in October. The papers do not say why.
William Allard's name dropped away in the same way. Allard, who had gone to the Legislature in 1915 as the first legislator from the valley, advertised in August for the Republican nomination for representative. The Press called him "a farmer and a leading spirit in the Arbon valley" who had "served with credit." That spring he had publicly backed D. W. Davis, the American Falls banker, for governor, as "the ablest candidate for the office." Yet the official list and the primary returns show Andrew May of Rockland alone on the Republican line for representative, and again no reason is given.
The campaign in the valley
In July the Press printed a mock farm note:
Owing to unfavorable November crop predictions, L. L. Evans, S. H. Laird and Ben Davis, crop specialists, have recently visited Arbon and Rockland, offering suggestions as to methods of inoculation and cross breeding which they believe will impart vigor to the waning Wilson plant. For some time this plant has been showing signs of blight, and they hope to restore it or to introduce other plants to take its place.
The "Wilson plant" was evidently President Wilson's campaign for a second term, and the item added that "Hope for the Alexander plant has all but been abandoned"; Alexander was the Democrats' candidate for governor. L. L. Evans belonged to the American Falls Evans family of the Evans State Bank, not to the Arbon Evanses.
In the last week of the campaign the Republicans came to the valley. At Crystal on Monday evening, October 30, the American Falls quartette gave four selections, and Mrs. Breeze and the Misses Snyder and Whiting gave musical numbers. On Tuesday Hon. Will H. Gibson, a state speaker, held "a splendid meeting at the Central school in Arbon," with about 160 people. On Wednesday the county candidates held a meeting at Pauline; the paper does not say of which party. Election day was Tuesday, November 7.
The valley's commissioner
The November returns have not been found, but the outcome is clear. At the board's April 1917 session G. A. Brahmstadt sat with W. S. Sparks and R. W. Peterson, and that July the Arbon news called him "our commissioner here." In her history of Bannock Valley, printed in the Press that spring, Mrs. E. A. Logan wrote:
We have one of the present board of county commissioners, Mr. G. A. Brahmstadt, an enterprising and public spirited farmer who is doing his full share toward the development of the valley. He is a very capable man and will render good service.
He is the first valley resident found on the Power County board (see the first county commissioners from the valley), and valley men held the Third District seat for years afterward. One was E. C. England, a Pauline judge of election in 1916, who was serving on the board in July 1920 when he sought another term. The Press wrote then that "the people of Arbon and the voting populace of the county in general seem to favor Mr. England," and called him in every way a "square shooter."
Allard went back to the House for 1919–20, that time as a Democrat. Davis had lost to Alexander in 1916, though the Press held that he had been "counted out." By 1920 he was governor, and on February 10 that year "Hon. Wm. Allard" left for Boise, called by Governor Davis to "a special meeting of the state representatives."
On this site: the histories of Arbon, Crystal and Pauline and West Fork, and the Evans, Arbon and Bolingbroke family histories.
Sources
- American Falls Press, December 23, 1915, page 7
- American Falls Press, April 20, 1916, page 8
- American Falls Press, June 1, 1916, page 1
- American Falls Press, July 13, 1916, page 1
- American Falls Press, July 20, 1916, page 1
- American Falls Press, July 20, 1916, page 8
- American Falls Press, August 3, 1916, page 8
- American Falls Press, August 10, 1916, page 1
- American Falls Press, August 10, 1916, page 2
- American Falls Press, August 17, 1916, page 2
- American Falls Press, August 17, 1916, page 4
- American Falls Press, August 24, 1916, page 6
- American Falls Press, August 31, 1916, page 2
- American Falls Press, September 14, 1916, page 2
- American Falls Press, October 26, 1916, page 1
- American Falls Press, October 26, 1916, page 3
- American Falls Press, October 26, 1916, page 5
- American Falls Press, November 2, 1916, page 7
- American Falls Press, November 23, 1916, page 2
- American Falls Press, March 29, 1917, page 7
- American Falls Press, April 19, 1917, page 7
- American Falls Press, July 27, 1917, page 5
- American Falls Press, November 1, 1918, page 2
- American Falls Press, February 20, 1920, page 1
- American Falls Press, February 20, 1920, page 3
- American Falls Press, July 2, 1920, page 1