Wintering out: Arbon Valley families leave and come home, 1917–18

As the harvest of 1917 ended, the Arbon, Pauline and Crystal columns of the American Falls Press began to fill with families leaving for the winter. By the end of March 1918 the same columns were counting them home. In between came an open December and then, in January, the kind of blizzard the valley was known for.

Arbon Valley had been in Oneida County until Power County was created in 1913. Leaving for the winter went back to the valley's early years: a Press profile of D. J. Bowen that October recalled that the Bowens spent their first winters in Samaria, in the Malad Valley, until the ranch grew enough hay and grain to winter the stock.

Leaving

Doc Pruitt's family left their homestead above Rattlesnake Creek for a ranch near Pauline "to give the children better school facilities," and the Bells of Crystal Creek went to Logan, Utah, where the older children would attend the agricultural college. E. L. Davis's family went to Pocatello, and Ethel Johnston with her mother and brother to Malad. Lou Reese moved his family from their West Fork ranch to his father's place between Pauline and Crystal. Owen Wall took his family back to Kaysville, Utah, to live with his mother on the old homestead, meaning to return in the spring to put in his wheat, and Carl Wright left for Blackfoot. Others went for wages: Ralph Ripley to Salt Lake until spring, and Ezra Burwell of Crystal to carpenter work at Tyhee.

Some spent the winter feeding someone else's stock. Richard Thomas and Bill Richards "returned for the winter to feed cattle at John Bolingbroke's ranch," Carl Johnston moved onto the Wright place at Crystal, and at West Fork Will Jenkins fed cattle for Dave Daniels and John D. Price for his uncle, Henry Daniels.

The case for staying

The Press's roving farm writer, who signed himself the Pilgrim, described farmers who stayed, among them John Reddy and Mrs. Reddy, a mile or so south of Crystal, who had stayed summer and winter since homesteading nine years before. "They do not believe that any farmer can be truly successful unless he remains on the farm throughout the year," he wrote. His fullest example was Roy Porter, a mile west of the Arbon post office, whose father, C. D. Porter, also stayed the winter a mile to the south:

Last winter Mr. Porter and his family moved out, and in the spring the roads were so bad that they could not get back to the ranch in time to attend to the early spring work. Mr. Porter stated that as a result he was behind in his work all summer, and he has resolved to stay with the farm both winter and summer.

"Last winter" had been the stock-killing winter of 1916–17. This time the Porters stayed, and that fall Roy got through much of the work usually left for spring.

An open December

The weather was kind to those who stayed. "The sunshine faucet is turned on," the Pauline correspondent wrote in late November. In the first issue of 1918, what appears to be the Crystal column wrote, "Imagine Christmas here in the mountains without snow," and added, "Why go to California for the winter."

On the Daniels ranch north of Pauline "the hay stacks are getting off easy as the open fall is giving plenty of pasture." D. G. Davis, Joe Arbon's brother-in-law and partner, said that a year earlier it had taken "three husky men" to do the feeding and chores on the Arbon ranch, and now "one reasonably husky lad" could do it. M. V. Tallon of Arbon, who had plowed in the fall for spring seeding, spent the mild December freighting wheat from the Pauline platforms to the railroad switch at Michaud.

The blizzards

In the Press of January 15, 1918, the Pauline correspondent reported:

Old King Winter has begun his reign in earnest here at last. Several inches of snow has fallen and a blizzard was on Sunday. The kind of blizzards the valley is noted for. The sleighing is getting fine.

A week later the Arbon column agreed: "Winter has come at last at Arbon. Lots of snow and cold winds." Lorin Bailey, who carried the mail from Pocatello, had switched from his car to a sleigh, changing teams at Crystal. David Lusk took a four-horse load of grain to Pocatello on a sleigh. On the Wright place every horse fell sick; the sudden change in the weather was thought to be the cause, and Carl Johnston and the neighbors had so far saved them all. Another blizzard struck Crystal in late February.

Coming home

On March 12 the Pauline column wrote:

It looks as though we were going to have an early spring. The snow is going fast. We don't feel to complain of winter we have had in the valley this year thus far.

"Many of the people that moved away for the winter are moving back to begin work," it added. Earl Daniels and Zack Armstrong brought their families home from Pocatello. Dave and John Bolingbroke moved their families back from Malad, Frank Burnett came home from Malad, where he had lived since harvest, and Bert Daniels and his wife returned from Washington. At Arbon, John Butler's family came home from Dunlap, Kansas, John Fuller's from Walla Walla, Emmett Lee from Jens, Montana, and the Davises from Pocatello. At Crystal, Carl Wright returned from Blackfoot and his partner from Chicago: "Both are quite anxious to begin work on the farm again." In April Myrtle Pack came home from Pocatello, where her children could go to school.

By late March the Arbon column reported that the mail to Pocatello "is again being carried by automobile, going and returning the same day," though at the end of the month Bailey was still using a buggy between Crystal and Pauline.

One family left for good. Parley H. Bailey, one of the Bailey brothers, was given a farewell party at the Central school on March 18 and sent his furniture to Pocatello to be shipped to Richmond, Utah, "where he goes to make his future home."

The columns never said how many families wintered away, only those their correspondents knew of, and their dates do not always agree: the Pauline column of March 19 already had a Mr. and Mrs. John Butler home from "an extended visit in the east," probably the same family, while the Arbon column dated the Butlers' return March 21.

On this site: the Arbon, Pauline and West Fork and Crystal area histories, the Daniels family, and the first mail route from Pocatello.