In December 1911 the American Falls Press reported that G. S. Randall, "one of the energetic new settlers of Arbon, will leave in a few days for a visit to his former home at Somerset, Ky." The scanned text blurs his initials and damages the rest of the item, but its fragments seem to say that he had "made good" and would serve as an "immigration agent" while he was away. Arbon was then in Oneida County; Power County was not formed until 1913.
Somerset is the seat of Pulaski County, in southern Kentucky. For about a decade the paper's country columns let us follow the valley's Kentucky families.
Somerset and the American Falls country
The tie to Somerset was older than Randall's trip. In December 1908 a G. S. Randall, probably the same man, was in American Falls with T. L. Jones; the paper listed them as "of Otis." Mr. Randall had had a number of inquiries from parties in the east about homesteads, especially in the Arbon country, and he picked up literature to answer them. The item does not say where in the east the inquiries came from. In March 1909 the Press announced that "Sixteen homeseekers will leave Somerset, Ky., next Tuesday, for Idaho." Their first stop would be American Falls, and if they found things as they had been told, they would stay.
The Nunnelleys were Somerset people too. W. A. Nunnelley was born there in 1859, and he and Nancy Ann married there in 1904. In August 1909 the family moved onto homesteads at Summit, the high country between Arbon and Buist. Their first winter is told among the Stories. The papers do not say whether they travelled with the March party.
Making good
The Randalls farmed at the north end of the valley, around Arbon and Pauline. In September 1911 the editor of the Press stopped at "Vic Randall's place, in Arbon". The Dawson brothers' steam outfit was there, threshing Turkey Red, a hard winter wheat, at seven bushels a minute. Victor Randall finished with 1,224 bushels from forty acres. In August 1912 he came in from the Arbon valley on business, telling the paper that "there is no place like the Arbon valley for raising wheat." Whether he made the trip, and whether anyone came west because of it, the papers searched for this post do not say.
Victor Randall was made road overseer for the Arbon district in 1913. His resignation was accepted in October, and by that winter he was in Kentucky.
Homesick for Idaho
The Nunnelleys went back that winter too, for a sadder reason. In the spring of 1914 the paper's Arbon correspondent wrote:
Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Nunnelly returned in January from Kentucky where they were called by the serious illness of Mrs. Nunnelly's mother, Mrs. Nunnelly was with her mother at the time of her death which occurred December 21. While in Kentucky they saw "Vic" Randall, formerly a resident of Arbon. "Vic" was home sick for "dear old Idaho" and is thinking some of returning. Idaho is a good state, as many return after they leave.
Vic did return. "He thinks Idaho is good enough for him," the Arbon column reported in April 1915. In June the South Arbon column, which covered the Summit end, added:
Victor E. Randall was at the W. A. Nunnelly home last Thursday and from there went to Malad to buy a team of horses. Mr. Randall has been in Kentucky the last year and a half and has decided that he would rather live in the west so he is going to settle down to business now.
The kin who followed
More of the family came in 1915. Mr. and Mrs. Gastineau of Kentucky spent several months with Mr. and Mrs. G. S. Randall; Mrs. Gastineau was Mrs. Randall's sister. In September Mr. Gastineau and Sherman Randall, "from the north end of the valley," were at the Summit end on business. This Sherman Randall was probably G. S. Randall himself, since Mr. Gastineau was staying with the G. S. Randalls. By late October the Gastineaus had gone home to Kentucky.
Luther and Lucy Estep came to stay. Mrs. Estep was a sister of Oscar Randall, and the paper called her a recent arrival from Kentucky, the family "having come here to make their home." That October their nine-month-old son, Oscar, died on the way to Pocatello for treatment. He was buried in the Pauline cemetery, and his death is told among the Stories.
Oscar Randall and his wife spent that winter in Pocatello, and their son was born there in January 1916. At the Power County fair that September, G. S. Randall took first prize for the best bushel of Bluestem wheat and Oscar Randall took second.
Who stayed
The circle did not hold together long. Sherman Randall and his wife came back from a winter in Pocatello in April 1917 to "their home here in Pauline," but by October 1917 Oscar Randall was "in Montana now," and the column added, "Mr. and Mrs. Randall formerly lived here." The next summer his wife and children came back for a long visit with their relatives, the Esteps and the Sherman Randalls. In 1919 a son was born to Vic Randall, then living at Sterling. He spent a month in the valley in late 1921 and then "returned to his home in Kentucky." The papers in hand lose sight of the Sherman Randalls in the early 1920s.
The Nunnelleys left Summit for Malad, the Oneida County seat, in 1922. W. A. Nunnelley became a coal merchant there. He died at his home in September 1931, aged 72, and his son James A. Nunnelley was then still at Arbon. Nancy Ann Nunnelley had been born at Williamsburg, Kentucky, and had taught school there. She lived at Malad until 1946 and then at Brigham City, where she died in 1957. Her obituary remembered the Nunnelleys as "the first family to settle there" in Arbon Valley. That was the family's memory; the site's history of Summit records cattle claims there from the 1880s and homestead entries from 1901.
The Esteps stayed. They spent the winter of 1920–21 in American Falls and in the spring moved back to "their home above Pauline." Their son Carl, born at Arbon in 1918, was lost in North Africa in 1943. Louie Estep, probably another son, farmed at Arbon with his wife, Eileen Ward Estep, until they retired.
On this site: Pauline and West Fork, where the Esteps settled; Summit; the Nunnelley sawmill fire; and the first school at Summit, built on Mamie Nunnelley's land.
Sources
- American Falls Press, December 26, 1908, page 4
- American Falls Press, March 13, 1909, page 1
- American Falls Press, September 14, 1911, page 1
- American Falls Press, September 28, 1911, page 1
- American Falls Press, December 14, 1911, page 6
- American Falls Press, August 8, 1912, page 4
- American Falls Press, May 22, 1913, page 2
- American Falls Press, October 23, 1913, page 1
- American Falls Press, April 2, 1914, page 11
- American Falls Press, April 29, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, June 17, 1915, page 1
- American Falls Press, September 30, 1915, page 6
- American Falls Press, October 28, 1915, page 7
- American Falls Press, January 20, 1916, page 5
- American Falls Press, September 28, 1916, page 4
- American Falls Press, April 26, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, October 30, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, August 23, 1918, page 3
- American Falls Press, December 5, 1919, page 3
- American Falls Press, April 8, 1921, page 2
- American Falls Press, December 16, 1921, page 13
- Salt Lake Telegram, September 5, 1931, page 12
- Box Elder Journal, August 9, 1957, page 12