In the fall of 1914 the voters of Power County chose their own member of the Idaho House of Representatives for the first time, and they chose William Allard, a homesteader from Arbon. The American Falls Press followed the campaign from a spring convention in American Falls to evening meetings at Crystal, Arbon and Pauline.
Arbon had been a precinct of Oneida County, governed from Malad, until 1913, when it became part of the new Power County with its seat at American Falls. The election of November 3, 1914, was the new county's first general election.
Spring and summer
On April 9, Republicans from every precinct in the county met at the auditorium in American Falls and organized a Power County Borah League in support of Senator William E. Borah. Their resolutions spoke of the county's Republicans "putting aside petty factional differences." Each precinct named three committeemen: for Arbon, J. W. Butler, T. B. Evans and J. R. Dawson; for Crystal, L. F. Moench Jr., S. R. Phillips and W. C. Snyder.
The Progressives wanted the valley's votes too: on June 24, W. O. Lloyd, Henry Rock, O. C. Hall and R. O. Jones went out to the Arbon valley to work for the party.
At the end of June, J. E. Keeler of Arbon came to town with bad news. Frost a couple of weeks earlier had done such damage, he believed, that no more than a third of the Bannock Valley acreage would be harvested. He also said he would seek the Democratic nomination for county commissioner, as people in his part of the county had for some time been urging him to do. Keeler and Allard had worked together before: when the valley organized its telephone company at the Central school in September 1913, Allard was elected secretary and Keeler a director.
The primary
The primary was held on Tuesday, September 1. The Press complained that outside American Falls and Rockland hardly anyone had voted. The official notice of the primary listed P. A. Anderson with Allard under representative in the Republican column, so Anderson was probably his rival; with two precincts still missing, the count stood at Allard 210, Anderson 91. With every precinct in but Crystal, the paper printed the tickets. For representative: Wm. Allard of Arbon, Republican; Thomas R. Guy of Landing, Democrat; and W. O. Lloyd of Rockland, Progressive. For commissioner of the Second District, J. E. Keeler of Arbon was the Democrat, against M. E. Walker and Henry Rock, both of Rockland.
T. B. Evans came over from Arbon to bring in the returns of the primary. Jewell Horton of Arbon and I. W. Phillips of Crystal went onto the Republican county central committee, and the candidates met its officers to plan "a thorough campaign throughout the county."
Meetings in the valley
The Progressives advertised meetings at the Crystal schoolhouse on October 26 and at the Arbon North End and South End schoolhouses on the two nights after; the paper does not say how those went. The Republicans came first. John Richter and W. D. Barnhart acted as advance agents for the party's meetings at Crystal and in the Arbon country, a hurried trip because the dates had to be rearranged. On Thursday, October 22, D. W. Davis of American Falls, just home from two weeks of campaigning in northern Idaho, went on to Crystal, where he was billed to speak that night.
The next week's Press reported:
The Republican candidates who visited Crystal, Arbon and Pauline last week are profuse in their praise of the reception they received. At Crystal the leaders prepared a sumptuous basket lunch, and after the meeting was through the lunch was served and dancing was enjoyed until an early hour. The attendance was splendid and a thoroughly good time was enjoyed.
The next evening's meeting at the Arbon school house drew about sixty people. The paper said the crowd was smaller because the date had been changed only two days before, and word had not reached everyone. On Saturday evening, October 24, a meeting at Pauline, at the north end of the valley, was judged to be "rivaling in interest the one at Crystal," though perhaps fewer came; its date had been changed too. The candidates, the paper said, "returned feeling well paid for their hard trip."
The Press did not name the candidates who made the trip. What is recorded of Allard is that two days after the Pauline meeting, on Monday evening, October 26, he was among those who made short talks at a Republican meeting in the brick hall at Rockland. In the same issue the paper, which backed the Republican ticket, sketched the party's candidates for commissioner and the legislature. Of Allard it wrote:
William Allard, of Arbon, for the lower house is one of our new settlers, a farmer, well educated, a good speaker, and a good thinker. In every way he is entirely worthy.
The new settler had made his homestead entry on April 13, 1909, and his patent was signed on March 7, 1914.
The result
Election day was Tuesday, November 3. The scanned text of the official returns, printed November 12, is too garbled to give the figures, but the same issue makes the outcome clear. It noted that Allard, "the first representative in the legislature from Power county," had been in town on business on Tuesday, November 10. A week later the statewide directory of the new legislature listed William Allard, Republican, of Arbon, as Power County's representative.
Keeler did not win. M. E. Walker of Rockland took the Second District seat, and the Press was calling him "Commissioner" by May 1915. No valley man has been found on the county board until Gus Brahmstadt of Arbon in 1917.
On Sunday, January 3, 1915, Allard left for Boise and the legislative session, taking his wife and daughter with him. The Press sent him off with a few lines:
Mr. Allard has been a resident of what is now Power county for five years, is a man of very high character and is capable. He has a farm in Arbon valley.
Afterward
Allard sought the Republican nomination again in 1916. The Press said then that he had served "with credit," but the ticket it printed that September named Andrew May of Rockland for representative. Allard went back to the House in 1919, that time as a Democrat, as told in the first legislator from the valley.
On this site: the histories of Arbon, Crystal and Pauline and West Fork, and the Allard family photographs.
Sources
- American Falls Press, June 12, 1913, page 5
- American Falls Press, September 11, 1913, page 1
- American Falls Press, April 16, 1914, page 1
- American Falls Press, June 25, 1914, page 5
- American Falls Press, July 2, 1914, page 1
- American Falls Press, August 27, 1914, page 3
- American Falls Press, September 3, 1914, page 1
- American Falls Press, September 10, 1914, page 3
- American Falls Press, September 17, 1914, page 1
- American Falls Press, October 15, 1914, page 5
- American Falls Press, October 22, 1914, page 5
- American Falls Press, October 29, 1914, page 1
- American Falls Press, October 29, 1914, page 5
- American Falls Press, November 12, 1914, page 2
- American Falls Press, November 12, 1914, page 5
- American Falls Press, November 19, 1914, page 1
- American Falls Press, January 7, 1915, page 5
- American Falls Press, May 20, 1915, page 5
- American Falls Press, August 10, 1916, page 1
- American Falls Press, September 28, 1916, page 4