The 1967 Arbon Valley reunion and the families who had moved away
A 1967 notice called Arbon Valley's former residents home for a reunion; old papers and obituaries show where five homestead families had gone.
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Community blog · 2010–2020 · original publication order · stories from the old papers added since 2026
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Twenty pupils, three graduates: Arbon's two-room school, 1967
In May 1967 all twenty pupils of Arbon's two-room school were to take part in graduation as three boys finished the eighth grade, and the pupils began gathering a history of the valley.
Minnie Green of Cherry Creek, Crystal, turns 100, 1967
Emma "Minnie" Green, a Pocatello medium said to have advised Ben Ross, turned 100 in 1967; her profile recalled her ranch at Crystal and Gumbo Hill.
From the Bailey ranch to the county agent's office: Mary Renberg
In 1967 a Pocatello paper marked Mary Bailey Renberg's 33 years in the Bannock County extension office and printed her memories of growing up on the Bailey ranch at Arbon.
From the kitchen switchboard to dial phones: Arbon Valley, 1953–1966
For fifty years every Arbon Valley call went through one switchboard in the old Evans house; in 1965 the valley paid to have it replaced by dial telephones.
Maurice Poppie, Arbon Valley farmer from 1909, dies in 1965
Maurice Poppie, who came to Arbon Valley from Kansas with his family in 1909 and homesteaded and farmed there for decades, died in Pocatello in November 1965.
Luther M. Estep of Pauline and Arbon, 1915–1965
Luther M. Estep came from Kentucky to Pauline in 1915 and lived in Arbon Valley until his death in 1965; the papers trace his fifty years there.
Richard Christensen killed when his combine overturned, 1965
Richard S. Christensen, 47, a Brigham City dry farmer, was killed on September 24, 1965, when the combine he was running tipped over on a hill in Arbon Valley.
Joe Arbon at ninety: the first furrow, remembered in 1965
Days before Joe Arbon turned 90, a Pocatello paper printed his memories of the valley's first years; earlier reports show his golden wedding, a mix-up in court and his wife's death.
Lorenzo M. Evans of Arbon, Ren Evans's eldest son, dies in 1965
Lorenzo M. Evans, eldest son of the Arbon pioneer Ren Evans, farmed in the valley most of his life, ran a potato warehouse and died on June 24, 1965, at 67.
Pocatello's Farm-City tour of Arbon Valley, 1965
In June 1965 Pocatello businessmen breakfasted with Arbon Valley farmers and toured the valley from Sod Williams's ranch, and a reader then scolded the Journal for its report.
Head-on in the snow: a Thanksgiving collision near Crystal, 1964
On Thanksgiving Day 1964 an Arbon family's car and a Pocatello family's car met head-on in a snowstorm north of Arbon; eight went to the hospital, and a lawsuit followed.
Mel Bailey's wheat and the first crop spraying from the air
In 1946 or 1947 Arbon farmer Mel Bailey hired Pocatello pilot Curley Wilson to spray his weedy wheat from the air, the first job of Wilson's crop-spraying business.
Newell Lishman, Arbon's first rural mail carrier, 1891–1964
Newell Lishman homesteaded under Bowen's Peak, carried Arbon's first rural mail route and died in 1964; his obituary says a canyon near Arbon was named Newell Canyon for him.
Agnes Burns Hartley's first school, at Crystal
In 1963 a retired Rockland teacher told fellow educators she had begun at Crystal; in 1915, as Agnes Burns, she had taught the tiny school in Crystal's Thacker neighborhood.
A young visitor killed by a farm wagon in Arbon Valley, 1963
On July 4, 1963, Lynne Wisecarver, 11, of Sacramento, died after she was thrown from a horse-drawn wagon at her grandparents' farm in Arbon Valley.
Jean Daniels Evans and the country store at Pauline, 1963
A Journal writer found Jean Daniels Evans keeping the store at the Pauline crossroads, and her father, T. C. Daniels, recalled the store of the 1930s.
Two charter planes lost: the Aztec on the Hayden ranch, 1963
Two Pocatello charter planes were lost on a stormy night in March 1963; one crashed on the Ben Hayden ranch north of Crystal, killing its pilot and passenger.
Bannock Creek hunters take a mountain lion near Bannock Peak, 1963
In January 1963 Merle Meyers, his sons Jerry and Jay, and Kenneth Pevoe killed a big female mountain lion held to blame for sheep losses near Bannock Peak.
Bunnie Johnson and the Arbon 4-H foresters, 1961–1963
In 1962 an Arbon girl known as Bunnie won a 4-H forestry award and a trip to Chicago, a year after the valley's forestry club drew praise at the state fair.
The Arbon Valley Property Protective Association, 1962–1964
In 1962, after winters of break-ins at empty ranch homes, Arbon Valley ranchers formed a protective association under Sod Williams, posted $250 reward signs and planned a winter watch.
Joseph Roberts pulls a crop-duster pilot from the wreck, 1962
When a crop-dusting plane crashed and exploded in Arbon Valley early on July 21, 1962, Joseph Roberts pulled the pilot out; the crash set off a range fire.
Floods cut off Arbon Valley, March 1962
In late March 1962 snowmelt floods washed out the roads into Arbon Valley, the power and telephone failed, and mail carriers crossed a broken highway on planks.
Bannock Creek floods close the Arbon road, 1957–1963
Between 1957 and 1963 Bannock Creek kept flooding the road from Highway 30 to Arbon Valley; in February 1962 two washouts cut it and the school bus from Arbon stopped.
Crystal homesteaders Jay and Marcena Whiting mark 50 years, 1961
Fifty years after Jay and Marcena Whiting went to homestead at Crystal, their twelve children planned a golden wedding reception in Pocatello for the weekend of the Whiting reunion.
A pilot killed near Bannock Peak, northwest of Pauline, 1961
In a rainstorm on March 24, 1961, a Utah pilot who had just taken off from Pocatello was killed when his plane came down near Bannock Peak, about five miles northwest of Pauline.
William N. Jones: a Pauline homestead, then the American Falls dam
W. N. Jones came from Dayton, Washington, homesteaded near Pauline, then worked on the American Falls dam and the moving of the town.
The first Andersens of Arbon in their last years, 1956–1964
Pocatello's paper marked the last years of the Mendon brothers who settled at the head of Bannock Creek: John's golden wedding in 1956, Otto's death in 1960 and Ezra's in 1964.
Clyde Jenson's Stradivarius in Pocatello, 1960 and 1969
In 1960 Clyde Jenson of Arbon Valley lent a violin called a 1704 Stradivarius to a symphony soloist in Pocatello, and in 1969 he was to play it himself.
Arbon teacher Neil Miller hurt on the Mink Creek road, 1960
On May 23, 1960, Arbon teacher Neil S. Miller, 65, was thrown from his truck on the Mink Creek road, and more than two hours passed before anyone found him.