Two Power County old-timers name an orphan mountain range
In January 1928 two of Power County's oldest residents were asked to name the nameless mountains between Arbon and Rockland valleys, and they chose Rock Creek range.
Articles.
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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State's elk raid Arbon Valley haystacks, and a cowboy is hired to move them
Elk calves the state turned loose near Crystal grew into a herd of hundreds that wrecked fences and haystacks, until a Crystal rancher complained in 1927 and a cowboy was hired the next winter to keep them off the farms.
A power line up Arbon Valley worries the telephone company
In spring 1927 crews hauled poles through Arbon Valley mud for a power line from American Falls to Utah, and the telephone men braced for what it would do to their wires.
Arbon Valley farmers bring in a big wheat crop and haul it out in giant trucks
In the dry summer of 1926 Arbon Valley harvested one of the biggest wheat crops in its memory, early, and its farmers bought big new trucks to haul it to the railroad at Schiller.
Derrick falls at the Arbon well, and five men walk away
In 1926 the Gem State well at Arbon drew crowds, blew gas through its plug, was said to carry helium and lost its derrick; by autumn the company was in receivership.
A Horse Island girl takes the school beside the Arbon oil well
In the fall of 1925 Lila M. Wade of Horse Island had charge of District 12's school at Arbon Center, beside the oil well, and nearly seventy years later her obituary remembered her in Arbon's one-room schools.
Arbon's former postmistress and mail carrier answer in federal court
In October 1925 the woman who had kept the Arbon post office was arraigned at Pocatello over $419.06 in missing funds, and the man who had carried the valley's mail was fined $100 for turning mail sacks into grain bags and saddle blankets.
Arbon Navy man Jesse Keeler buried at Pocatello with Legion honors
Four years after he went into a veterans' hospital in Washington, Arbon homesteader and Navy volunteer Jesse Keeler came home to Pocatello for a funeral with taps and a Legion salute.
Six women at the south end form the Sunshine Canyon club
In the last days before the 1924 election, six women at the south end of Arbon Valley formed the Sunshine Canyon club and met each week to talk over the vote, child welfare and the lives of great women.
Smut blast burns the Hatfield threshing outfit in Arbon Valley
In August 1924 a smut explosion on the Ray Hatfield place in Arbon Valley burned Clive Hatfield's threshing outfit, 75 sacks of wheat, a wagon, a derrick and a stack.
Lusk steps aside, and an Arbon pioneer runs for the county board
Perry Lusk of Pauline took the Arbon Valley's seat on the Power County board in the Democratic sweep of 1922, then declined to run again in 1924, leaving the pioneer T. B. Evans to contest it.
Arbon Valley signs up 213 cows for a cheese factory
In the spring of 1924 Ren Evans signed up 23 Arbon Valley farmers and 213 cows for a cheese factory backed by Ernest Brog of Driggs, but whether it ever made cheese is unknown.
Crystal taxpayers fault their road district as mail and grain wear down the Mink Creek road
In 1924 Crystal's taxpayers complained of the highest road and school tax in Power County and poor mail service, while the valley's mail and wheat kept wearing down the mountain road to Pocatello.
Arbon Valley men come to Pocatello to talk of joining Bannock County
Eleven years after Arbon Valley voted itself into Power County, a delegation came to Pocatello in March 1924 to talk of joining Bannock instead, and in 1939 the idea surfaced once more.
Oil rig beside the Arbon school draws crowds, then drills on for five years
In 1924 the Gem State Petroleum Co. set what was billed as Idaho's biggest oil rig beside Arbon's Central school, and for five years the valley watched it bore toward oil that never came.
Pauline City, the crossroads that hoped to be a town
A doctor's office, two stores and a grain warehouse gave Pauline hopes of becoming a town, and by 1923 its schoolchildren were cheering for "Pauline City."
Crystal's schoolchildren report a settlement packing up
Writing for the American Falls Press in the winter of 1923–24, Crystal's pupils predicted their settlement would be "almost deserted" and then reported, week by week, who left and who stayed.
Arbon Valley schoolchildren turn reporters for the Press, 1923–24
For one school year the American Falls Press ran weekly news written by the pupils of Arbon Valley's country schools, misspellings included, and the first of it came from Pauline.
The county superintendent comes to the valley's schools by grain rack and on foot
In October 1923 Power County's school superintendent, Mrs. Cora Darling, lived for two weeks among the country schools of Arbon Valley and Hawkins Basin, getting from one to the next by stage, grain rack, borrowed car and her own two feet.
Rival buyers bid up the valley's wheat at Schiller
In October 1923 rival buyers bid up wheat at Schiller, the valley's railroad siding, and into the spring teams and trucks hauled the crop there, 26 miles from Pauline.
Arbon surprises Mrs. T. B. Evans, its telephone central since the start
In 1923 Arbon's telephone patrons threw a surprise party for Susannah Smith Evans, who had kept the valley's post office, store and switchboard, led its Red Cross and registered its voters.
Sacks, not bushels: Arbon Valley's wet, weedy wheat harvest of 1922
After a season of spotty fields, daily rains, weeds above the grain and town men who lost their nerve, Arbon Valley's warehouse took in 29,008 sacks of wheat, a figure the paper first printed as bushels.
A lantern in a pothole gives away a still at Sunbeam
Days before the 1922 Roundup, a lantern led two Power County officers to a copper still hidden at Sunbeam, where a young Kentuckian was caught at work and charged with his uncle, a Pauline farmer.
A Summit homestead harvest, and a farm that lasted a century
In 1922 J. Parley Sorensen ran two headers on the Summit homestead he had proved up in 1914, land his descendants the Thompsons still farm and that Idaho named a Century Farm in 2024.
A Mendon couple's dry farm at Arbon, and the long road between
For nearly three decades Gwen and Lucille Hardman and their children went back and forth between a homestead on the Summit above Arbon and their hometown of Mendon, Utah, and the family kept the ranch going after Gwen died in 1937.
In the 1922 thaw, Ed Snyder splits the Arbon mail route
When the spring thaw of 1922 left Arbon's roads too rotten for a team, rural carrier Ed Snyder split his route with his stepson, part of more than twenty years the Snyders gave to the valley's mail.
Arbon post office moves to the Bailey farm, and nearly closes
In 1922 the Arbon post office left its building by the Central school for J. R. Bailey's home and came within weeks of closing, the latest turn for an office that had followed its keepers since 1898.
Lost in a blizzard, Frank Kulock dies within sight of home
Coming home from Pauline with the mail on February 11, 1922, Frank Kulock lost his way in a blizzard and froze to death in his own field, where his wife found him three days later.
Arbon road district loses its cash in a bank failure as the big wheat crop rolls
In 1921 Arbon Valley's own highway district lost its cash in a Pocatello bank failure, just as a big wheat crop had to be hauled to the railroad over bad roads.
Eight pupils from three families fill a one-room school near Crystal
In December 1921 the Press printed a picture of District No. 6, a one-teacher school between Pauline and Crystal whose eight pupils came from three families and soon wrote their own news.