In March 1954 a pickup stolen at Lava Hot Springs was found in Arbon Valley. Two months later a sheepherder found, in the same valley, the body of a Pocatello man who had the pickup's keys in his clothing. By the end of that October, twenty ranchers of the Arbon and Crystal valleys had organized under the Power County sheriff to guard their homes through the winter.
The two stories come from different papers, months apart, and neither paper connects them. They are told together here because they belong to the same valley and the same year. Arbon Valley has been in Power County, whose seat is American Falls, since 1913. Pocatello and the resort town of Lava Hot Springs are in neighboring Bannock County.
A trip to Lava Hot Springs
The first story comes from a United Press dispatch out of Pocatello, printed on Monday, May 24, 1954, in the Provo Daily Herald and the Twin Falls Times-News. The machine-read text of both copies is badly garbled, but between them most of the report can be read.
It concerned Dene Earl Sutton of Pocatello. The Herald gives his age as 22 and the Times-News as 32. One of the two is a misprint or an error in the machine-read text, and which one is not certain.
According to Sheriff Alma Marley, probably the Bannock County sheriff, Sutton had gone to Lava Hot Springs on March 17 with "two other Pocatello youths." His companions later said that they had car trouble on the trip and that Sutton suggested stealing another car to get back to Pocatello. They said they turned the idea down and returned to Pocatello in their own car.
A pickup truck was stolen at Lava Hot Springs that same day. On March 20 it was found in Arbon Valley. The dispatch says that a search for Sutton had been under way since April 28.
Found in the valley
On Sunday, May 23, a sheepherder whose name was printed as Domingo Solodo came upon Sutton's body in Arbon Valley. He told a rancher, Ted Norton, who called the Bannock County sheriff's office. A Ted Norton was counted among the Crystal households in the 1950 census, and he was probably the same man, though the dispatch names no place nearer than "Arbon valley."
The keys to the stolen pickup were in Sutton's clothing. It was also found that a ranch house about half a mile from where he lay had been broken into. The rest of that sentence goes on to mention several cans but cannot be made out in the text of either copy; scattered words about fruit survive. Dr. E. B. Webb, a Pocatello pathologist, said the body was too decomposed for an autopsy. The dispatch adds that it was surmised Sutton "was the one who ate the poisoned fruit," and that this caused his death.
The report leaves much unsaid. What can be read of it does not say where in the valley the body lay, whose house had been broken into, how near the pickup had been left, or what the poisoned fruit was. Nor does it say why the call went to the Bannock County sheriff's office rather than to Power County's. What it tells of the theft rests on his companions' account and on the keys. No later report of an inquest or a funeral has been found in the papers searched so far.
The Arbon and Crystal Valley Vigilantes
Five months later, on October 31, 1954, the Salt Lake Tribune carried a short report from American Falls. Ranchers of the remote Arbon and Crystal valleys had banded together as the Arbon and Crystal Valley Vigilantes, vowing to protect their farms and homes against a rise in pilfering, thievery and looting.
Twenty ranchers formed the group under Power County Sheriff Rulon Neal, who had called the meeting at the request of several valley farmers. Through the winter they meant to patrol the valley in turns, "on skis if necessary," and to keep watch from the air once winter closed in. The charter members were to start at once to sign up every man in Arbon and Crystal.
Sheriff Neal had already sworn in official deputies. The first named was Lloyd Brower, probably the Crystal rancher J. Lloyd Brower. The second name is damaged in the print but appears to read Sherman Roper. A third deputy, and possibly a fourth, was to be named for the south end of the valley. The group also meant to seek advice on its lawful rights in carrying firearms and on what means of protection it might rightly use.
Despite the name, the group was formed under the county sheriff's direction and meant to learn what the law allowed.
The Tribune names no particular theft, suspect or victim, and it does not mention the Sutton case. Whether the patrols went out that winter, and whether they caught anyone, has not been found in the papers.
On this site: the vigilantes have a short entry among the valley's tragedies and hard times, and the Crystal page tells the history of the Crystal area.