By way of Brigham, the valley's mail took weeks to reach Crystal
In 1914 a letter from American Falls to Crystal rode 239 miles of rail through Brigham City and Malad, and the valley kept petitioning until a Pocatello route came in 1916.
Community development, 1913–1929.
News, remembrances, and stories of Arbon Valley from two sources: the newspapers that reported the valley from the 1890s on, and the ArbonValley.com community blog of 2010–2020.
Browse these articles
Routine notices (meeting notices, reminders and classifieds) are left out of this list; find them under Notices.
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Arbon homesteader recalls digging through the snow to pitch his tent
In 1914 Ed Hooker told the Pocatello Tribune how he had shoveled down through several feet of snow and ice for a tent site when he came to Arbon Valley, where he homesteaded until 1917.
Kitchen fire leaves a Rattlesnake Creek homesteader living in a tent
In July 1914 the Pocatello Tribune asked readers to help Mrs. Elizabeth Jackson, homesteading on Rattlesnake Creek, whose house had burned with everything in it.
Frost takes the Bannock Valley wheat after a spring of high hopes
A June frost in 1914 cut down the Bannock Valley wheat after the best spring anyone remembered, yet by winter the valley had still shipped its grain by the carload.
Arbon farmers join the Equity and hope for an elevator of their own
Arbon Valley dry farmers joined the Farmers' Society of Equity in 1913, and for four years the cooperative talked of a grain elevator for the valley that the papers never show being built.
Power County goes dry, and the count waits on Arbon
Power County voted to forbid the sale of liquor on May 20, 1914, 698 to 626, with Arbon going dry by three votes and Crystal by two, and the official count held up a week waiting for Arbon's returns.
Arbon boosters vote a right of way for a railroad on posts
In the spring of 1914 Arbon farmers offered a right of way and $1,000 a mile in bonds to a promoter whose grain cars would hang from a single rail on posts, but no line was ever reported built.
Skis, surprise parties and barbed-wire telephones in Arbon, 1914
At the end of a snowy winter in 1914, an American Falls store's monthly paper carried the Arbon news, almost certainly from Mrs. E. A. Logan, and the American Falls Press reprinted it.
Arbon votes down the county road bonds
In January 1914 the new Power County asked its voters for $125,000 in road bonds, with a trunk road promised from Arbon, and the valley turned them down.
Arbon homesteaders prove up, and neighbours vouch for neighbours
From 1909 to 1914 the land-office notices in the American Falls Press tracked Arbon Valley homesteaders turning claims into titles, with neighbours standing witness and contests over claims nobody lived on.
Arbon Valley wheat fills the road to the railroad in 1913
In the valley's first harvest under Power County, the papers followed Arbon's wheat from the threshers to the railroad, through a farmers' co-operative, a call to Tulsa and three crop counts that never agreed.
Santa comes to the Central school with gifts for 125 Arbon children
On Christmas Eve 1913 Santa Claus brought presents, candy, nuts and oranges to 125 children at Arbon's Central school, and dances and sleighing parties filled the holiday week.
A kitten, a creek and thirty-three years of Sunday school
From 1913 to 1928 children of Arbon, Pauline and Buist wrote stories for the Sunday School's magazine, while Cora Sorensen of the Summit end spent thirty-three years teaching the youngest class.
A minister sends a hill of wheat and a report from Bannock Valley
In the summer of 1913 a Congregational minister mailed a hill of dry-farmed wheat from Arbon with a report on the valley's crops, land and people, while he set about starting its first two Protestant churches.
From Arbon, B. W. Rice counts the grain and the farmers who grow it
Writing from Arbon the day after a divided Fourth of July in 1913, B. W. Rice sized up the valley's grain and named its farmers one by one, and within days two Congregational churches were organized there.
Bannock Creek ranch hand vanishes after selling hogs in Pocatello
In June 1913 John Ryan, a hand on the Evans and Daniels ranch on Bannock Creek, sold a load of hogs in Pocatello, left his team in a shed and dropped out of sight.
Settlers over the Mink Creek divide want pasture, not elk
In June 1913 homesteaders south of the Mink Creek divide fought sheep permits on the Pocatello forest reserve, and when someone proposed turning it into an elk refuge, T. B. Smith wrote to the paper that the settlers needed summer grass, not game.
Arbon hears the Short Line is surveying a branch down Bannock Valley
In June 1913 a man from Arbon brought word to Pocatello that Short Line engineers were surveying a branch railroad over the Malad divide and down Bannock Valley.
A North Logan family finds its summer farm at Arbon
For nearly twenty years the Logan papers followed Jack King of North Logan to his Arbon dry farm and home again, through a dry 1931, a hopeful 1932 and the death of his wife Ruby that August.
New county's commissioners spend four days on Arbon Valley roads
In May 1913 the commissioners of the new Power County spent four days looking over roads at Crystal and Arbon, opening a season of petitions, a rival offer from Pocatello and a change of road overseer.
Pocatello merchants press for a Trail Creek road to win Arbon's wheat
In 1912 and 1913 Pocatello's businessmen and the Arbon farmers pledged money for a road over the Trail Creek divide, until a reservation right of way and a shortfall of cash stopped it.