Pocatello and American Falls vie for Arbon Valley's wheat
When American Falls cut a new road into Arbon Valley in 1912 and drew off its grain, Pocatello's paper raised the alarm and an Arbon farmer came to town asking for a road over Trail Creek.
Early 1900s growth, 1900–1912.
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.
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Routine notices (meeting notices, reminders and classifieds) are left out of this list; find them under Notices.
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Two Whiting brothers of Crystal wed the same morning, each unaware of the other
On a December morning in 1912 two Whiting brothers from Crystal took out marriage licenses in Pocatello minutes apart, neither knowing the other was marrying.
A doubting father from Kansas comes around on Arbon vegetables
Told by the old-timers that nothing would ripen at his altitude, Arbon homesteader G. S. Butler ended up supplying them with potatoes and won over the Kansas father who had predicted his failure.
Valley women prove up claims of their own
Between 1911 and 1919 the land notices and valley columns of the American Falls Press followed Arbon and Crystal women as they proved up land in their own names, from wives' desert claims to a mother and her daughters on Cherry Creek.
Buist's postmistress fined, and the other towns that settled the south end
A five-dollar fine against Buist's postmistress in 1912 opens a look at the families who came to the south end of Arbon Valley from Brigham City, Garland and Spanish Fork as well as Mendon.
An Arbon rancher writes home from his mission and comes back to a dance
In the spring of 1912 the *Pocatello Tribune* followed Arbon rancher John C. Cairns from Dublin to Halifax and home again, where the valley met him with a supper and dance.
Arbon settler heads home to Kentucky as an immigration agent
When G. S. Randall of Arbon went home to Somerset, Kentucky, in December 1911, he went as a man who had made good, and the papers then follow the Kentucky families who came to the valley, stayed and left.
Four children of a Bannock Creek farmer come home to Fort Hall
In November 1911 four children whose father, known in Nevada as "Indian Mike," had once farmed on Bannock Creek as Jim Taggert were brought from a Nevada school to Fort Hall after the fight that killed most of their family.
Fort Hall opens the Bannock Creek road, with rules for drovers
In October 1911 the Fort Hall superintendent opened the Arbon–American Falls road down Bannock Creek to the public, with no camping or fires and escorts for driven stock.
Lightning misses Charles Orison, and the papers follow his family for eighty years
A near miss by lightning at Summit in 1911 is the first the valley papers say of Charles and Jean Ann Orison, whose family they followed between Arbon Valley and Logan until 1990.
An Arbon homesteader's daughter and a doctor's brother slip away on No. 6
In September 1911 Mattie Nunnelley left American Falls on the morning train with Herman Noth, and over the next eight years the Press followed the couple to a ranch at Arbon and to her early death.
Arbon's dry-land alfalfa wins the paper's blue ribbon
In September 1911 the *American Falls Press* awarded Arbon's dry-land alfalfa a blue ribbon in print, the high point of the valley's part in Farmers' Day, the farm show American Falls held each fall from 1908.
Nine threshers follow forty headers through the Arbon wheat of 1911
In 1911 the American Falls Press watched Arbon's wheat go from July guesses to steam threshers to wagon trains at the railroad, and an editor saw in six lines how far the valley had come.
State land selector finds Rattlesnake Creek land already ceded
In July 1911 Idaho's land selector looked over the Moonshine and Rattlesnake country for land for the state, and found that most of the good land on Rattlesnake Creek was ceded Fort Hall land.
Four men from American Falls drive around Bannock Peak in a day
On a Sunday in July 1911, four American Falls men put 127 miles on an automobile circling Bannock Peak, lunching off a well trough and calling on Arbon's pioneers as they came home through the valley.
Over the Moonshine divide, a shorter road for Arbon wheat
In 1911 the county surveyed a road from American Falls over the Moonshine divide to Arbon, and in 1912 American Falls cash and Arbon labor built a short cut, probably on that line, that drew the valley's wheat away from Pocatello.
Lower Arbon votes on one district and a school on Tom Evans' place
In June 1911 the lower Arbon valley voted on merging its school districts and building on Tom Evans' place, and by 1913 a Central school stood on Evans land as both schoolhouse and community hall.
Arbon talks of a townsite, with the village already taking shape
In 1911 Arbon had no town, but its newspaper columns told of a hotel, a store, a dance hall, a village blacksmith and butcher, and talk of laying out a townsite.
Winter flood drowns three Arbon children and takes the Bannock bridges
A January rainstorm in 1911 drowned three Arbon children and took the bridges on Bannock Creek; that spring Oneida County put new bridges to a bond vote.
On a stormy night, Arbon votes to join Power County
Arbon Valley voted three times between 1908 and 1911 to leave Oneida County for a new county around American Falls, and saw two bills fail before Power County was finally made in 1913.
Mrs. Jennie Price of Arbon carries the Republican nomination for county treasurer
In 1910 a homesteading woman from Arbon won the Republican primary for Oneida County treasurer, in a year when only women sought that office, and lost the fall race to Cora Dudley of Malad.
Newcomers outnumber the old settlers of Arbon Valley two to one
In September 1910 the American Falls Press found Arbon Valley's newcomers outnumbering its old settlers two to one and looked for a wheat crop twice the size of two years earlier.
An Arbon rancher brings big plans to Pocatello
In July 1910 an Arbon rancher came to Pocatello talking of a commercial club, an irrigation company and a Pioneer Day, and the *Tribune* put Arbon on its front page.
Four men drive out to view the Arbon road and walk home by dawn
In May 1909 a banker, a miller, an editor and a county commissioner set out by automobile to look over a proposed road to Arbon, and when the car gave out at Rattlesnake gulch they walked back to American Falls through the night.
Sixteen wagons carry Arbon wheat to the railroad at Michaud
In November 1908 sixteen Arbon teamsters hauled a carload of sacked wheat to the railroad at Michaud switch, and the American Falls Press printed every driver's name.
County crew starts a $300 shortcut from Arbon to American Falls
In November 1908 Wilson Barnard's crew began a $300 wagon road from Bannock Creek over the foothills to American Falls, meant to cut ten miles or more from the haul of Arbon's wheat to market.
Arbon Valley, a homeseekers' paradise, goes looking for neighbors
In the winter of 1908–09 Arbon's settlers and the American Falls Press advertised the valley's open land to homeseekers, and by spring newcomers were filing on it fast.
Mendon in winter, Arbon in summer: Cache Valley homesteaders follow the seasons
For a decade after 1908 the Logan town columns tracked Mendon and North Logan families north to Arbon and Buist homesteads every spring and back to Cache Valley every fall.
Arbon's dry farms thresh 35,000 bushels in 1907
In November 1907 two Arbon men told the American Falls Press that thirty-two families had threshed 35,000 bushels of grain, and named the best wheat fields and varieties.
Idaho Falls druggist's death sends word to a storekeeper at Arbon
When the Pocatello Tribune reported an Idaho Falls druggist's suicide in September 1907, its closing line about his brother's store at Arbon became the oldest printed trace yet found of the Payne store.