A fire crew and scrap from the air: Arbon's home front, 1942
In 1942 Arbon farmers formed a fire crew, the county agent flew low over Arbon and Crystal looking for scrap iron, and an Arbon farmer gave his scrap money to the USO.
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Community blog · 2010–2020 · original publication order · stories from the old papers added since 2026
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John R. Breeze: a rescue at Guam and a Silver Star on Corregidor
In 1942 the papers twice named a Marine whose father lived at Arbon: John R. Breeze, honored for a 1940 rescue at Guam and then for bravery on Corregidor, where he was taken prisoner.
Arbon Valley men in uniform, 1941–1946
Enlistment lists, Logan society columns and a B-29 crew's mission log follow some of the young men of Arbon Valley who went into uniform in the Second World War.
Arbon Valley and Crystal sign up for electric power, 1940
Late in 1940 Arbon Valley and Crystal farmers met at the Pauline schoolhouse and signed up for a rural electrification project; an Idaho Power line followed in 1947.
Between stakes: the Arbon Ward from Curlew to Pocatello, 1940–1951
When the Curlew Stake was dissolved in 1940, the Arbon Ward moved to the Pocatello stakes; church notices follow it to its discontinuance in 1951.
Jerry Baker, Arbon rancher and Pocatello hotel man, dies, 1940
Jerry Baker of Mendon ranched at Arbon from about 1900, married George Arbon's daughter Mayme in 1918, and died in 1940 at the Pocatello hotel he ran.
An airplane sows grass seed on the range near Arbon, 1938
In late 1938 a Pocatello pilot sowed crested wheatgrass from the air over 8,000 acres of rough range between Arbon and Rockland, on land leased by Carl Rudeen.
A prize that cost $88.50: a land offer at Arbon, 1938
In 1938 a salesman told two Arbon farmers they had won a mattress, $35 a month for life and a piece of land, if each paid him $88.50 first.
Augusta Kulock of Arbon Valley dies, 1938
Augusta Kulock, the German-born widow of Frank Kulock, died at Pocatello in August 1938 after 28 years in Arbon Valley and was buried after a requiem mass.
Joe Arbon's irrigation well and the Michaud Flat test, 1938–1939
In 1938 Joe Arbon told a Pocatello committee he was watering 100 acres from a well, and Roy Lindley backed a Michaud Flat well project that found water in 1939.
Rebuilding the Mink Creek and Garden Creek Gap roads, 1937–1938
In 1937 and 1938 the Pocatello papers followed the realignment of the Mink Creek road to Arbon Valley and a WPA crew's rock cuts on the Garden Creek Gap road.
Camas diggers at the head of Midnight Creek, 1937
In 1937 a Pocatello man, objecting to an elk hunt, recalled Indians digging camas at the head of Midnight Creek about 1904 and the sheep-worn meadow he found later.
A red-haired stranger in the Pauline wheat fields, 1937
In May 1937 a manhunt from a Downey disappearance case briefly reached the Pauline wheat fields, where two farmers had met a red-haired stranger.
Roy Lindley of Arbon and Idaho's war on the golden eagle, 1937
In April 1937 Roy Lindley of Arbon protested when Idaho's new game warden called off the state's drive against the golden eagle.
A snowplow accident and frozen drifts: Arbon Valley, February 1937
In February 1937 a road worker on a Fort Hall crew died after being pinned by a snowplow near Arbon, valley people fed starving ducks, and drifts froze too hard for the plows.
Willis Bullock, a sleigh and a borrowed mail truck, 1936
A tractor clearing Arbon Valley roads ran over Willis Bullock's leg in February 1936; a commissioner got him to Pocatello by sleigh and mail truck, and a jury heard his suit in 1938.
Arbon Valley farms sold for the Fort Hall Reservation, 1935
In November 1935 the *Pocatello Tribune* reported that the United States had bought about 2,000 acres in Arbon Valley for the Fort Hall Reservation, and named the seven sellers.
Bannock Creek water: a warning to the upstream settlers, 1935
In the hot summer of 1935, with crops failing downstream, the Fort Hall agency told settlers at the head of Bannock Creek to leave the Indians' share of its water alone.
From branch to ward: the Arbon Ward's first thirty years
How Arbon's Latter-day Saints grew from a branch of the Samaria Ward in 1900 into a ward with its own bishops and hall, as the papers and the church historian recorded it.
Tires stolen from the Crystal community garage, 1935
In January 1935 thieves took the tires from a garage Crystal farmers kept for bad-weather parking; three men were arrested, and one was convicted of burglary that March.
Ren Evans of Arbon, 1869–1934, as the papers knew him
Ren Evans of Arbon died in 1934; his obituary and earlier papers follow him through a road campaign, a judgeship he never took up, the mail route, oil stock and a cheese factory.
Arbon's wheat road across the reservation, 1934–1939
From 1934 to 1939 the papers followed the effort to rebuild Arbon Valley's worn-out wheat road across the Fort Hall reservation, from a governor's inspection in 1934 to a senator's request in 1939 for $240,000 for a highway through the valley.
William Eugene Allard of Arbon dies at seventeen, 1933
William Eugene Allard, 17, an Arbon boy in his third year at Pocatello High and a son of the valley's first legislator, died in a Pocatello hospital in November 1933.
Park Lusk tells a federal jury of the Argonne, 1933
In 1933 Park Lusk, an Arbon Valley wheat farmer, brought a war risk suit against the United States and told a Pocatello jury of the Argonne advance of 1918.
The Special Elk Hunt on the Pocatello Game Preserve, 1933
In 1933 Idaho let 150 permit holders hunt bull elk on the Pocatello game preserve, whose high ground was said to hold the sources of Crystal and Midnight creeks, after complaints of farm damage.
Hannah Poppie of Arbon Valley dies in West Pocatello, 1933
Hannah Poppie, sister of the Abter brothers and mother of the Poppie family, came from Kansas to Arbon about 1909 and died in West Pocatello in May 1933.
A still on Rattlesnake Creek: the Vic Green ranch raid, 1933
In February 1933 federal agents went by sled to a ranch on Rattlesnake Creek near Crystal, seized a 50-gallon still and charged five men under the prohibition law.
J. E. Keeler of Arbon, settler and road chairman, 1909–1932
The 1932 death of J. E. "Ed" Keeler, an Arbon farmer since 1909, set beside what the papers had reported of his years in the valley.
Beer from a back seat: a prohibition arrest near Arbon, 1932
In July 1932 prohibition officers arrested George N. Judkins, an Arbon farmer, for selling iced beer from his car at Saturday night dances near the Arbon school.
Crystal cuts a teacher's pay and a school, 1932
In May 1932 Crystal's school district planned to close one of its two schools and cut the Central teacher's pay to $66.50 a month, as families were leaving for Salmon.