A railroad man remembers camas diggers on Midnight Creek
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.
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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Sheriffs chase a red-haired stranger to the Pauline wheat fields
In May 1937 two sheriffs hunting a red-haired man in a Downey disappearance drove out to Pauline to see a young drifter two farmers had found, and turned back when he proved too young.
Arbon rancher calls the end of Idaho's eagle hunt a near crime
When Idaho's new game warden called off the state's drive against the golden eagle in the spring of 1937, Roy Lindley of Arbon, a longtime hunter, wrote to say the birds were the worst enemy the state's mountain sheep and goats had.
Road worker dies after plow pins him near Arbon as drifts close the valley
In the hard February of 1937 a young Fort Hall road worker died after a snowplow pinned him on the Pauline road, while valley people fed starving ducks and the drifts froze too hard for the plows.
A tractor takes Willis Bullock's leg, and a sleigh and a mail truck carry him out
When a road tractor crushed Willis Bullock's leg in snowbound Arbon Valley in February 1936, a county commissioner got him to Pocatello by sleigh and borrowed mail truck, and two years later a jury heard his $50,000 suit.
Government buys 2,000 Arbon Valley acres for the Fort Hall Reservation
In November 1935 a Pocatello paper reported that the United States had paid seven Arbon Valley owners for some 2,000 acres to add to the Fort Hall Reservation, and a day later it protested the lost taxes.
Fort Hall tells upstream settlers to leave the Indians' Bannock Creek water alone
In the hot, dry summer of 1935, with grain dying on the reservation farms, the Fort Hall agency ordered settlers at the head of Bannock Creek to give back the Indians' share of its water.
Arbon Ward marks thirty years, from meetings in the homes to an $11,000 hall
In 1935 the church historian traced how Arbon's Latter-day Saints grew from ten families meeting house to house in 1900 into a ward of 203 with its own bishops and hall.
Thieves strip the Crystal farmers' winter garage of its tires
In January 1935 thieves emptied a garage Crystal farmers shared for bad-weather parking, three men were soon under arrest, and a jury at American Falls convicted one of them of burglary that March.
Ren Evans, Arbon booster, mail carrier and bishop, dies at 65
When Ren Evans of Arbon died in 1934 his obituary ran only a few paragraphs, but the papers had followed him for a quarter century through a road campaign, a judgeship he never took up, a snowbound mail route, oil stock and a cheese factory.
Worn out by wheat, Arbon's road across the reservation waits for repair
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.
Arbon boy, 17, a junior at Pocatello High, dies in hospital
William Eugene Allard, 17, an Arbon boy in his junior year at Pocatello High and a son of the valley's first legislator, died in a Pocatello hospital in November 1933.
An Arbon Valley wheat farmer tells a federal jury of the Argonne
Fifteen years after the Argonne, Park Lusk of Arbon Valley sued the United States over a war risk claim and walked a Pocatello jury through the advance of September 1918.
Elk season opens on the Pocatello game preserve, and cattlemen worry
In 1933 Idaho drew 150 permits for old bull elk on the Pocatello game preserve, near the heads of Crystal and Midnight creeks, after years of farmers' complaints about elk in their fields.
Hannah Poppie, who followed her brothers to Arbon, dies in West Pocatello
Hannah Poppie came west from Kansas behind her Abter brothers, raised a farm family at Arbon and saw two sons off to the First World War before her death in West Pocatello in May 1933.
Agents go by sled to Crystal and bring back a still
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.
Ed Keeler, Arbon homesteader and road chairman, dies at 62
J. E. "Ed" Keeler, who homesteaded at Arbon in 1909 and grew some of the valley's best grain, took his own life at his farm in October 1932 after writing of money troubles.
Arbon farmer arrested for selling iced beer from his car at country dances
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 will close a school and pay its teacher less
In May 1932, with families leaving Crystal for Salmon, District 14 decided to run one school instead of two and lowered the Central teacher's wage to $66.50 a month.
George Stahl Butler, who homesteaded on upper Bannock Creek, dies at American Falls
George Stahl Butler, a Kansas homesteader whose Bannock Creek house held Arbon Valley's first Protestant Sunday school, died at American Falls in October 1931, leaving a widow, eight children, three brothers and three sisters.
Pneumonia takes Joe Evans, Arbon farmer and son of the T. B. Evanses
Joe Evans, an Arbon farmer and the son of T. B. and Susannah Evans, died of pneumonia in Pocatello on March 19, 1931, and Bishop Joseph Arbon led his funeral two days later.
Pocatello goes to Boise for Arbon's wheat road
In January 1931 Pocatello and Power County men set out for Boise to win federal money for Arbon Valley's wheat road down Bannock Creek, the start of a three-year push that the papers show ending with no money spent.
Elk in the haystacks, and a herd cut in half by poachers
When Arbon Valley farmers complained that elk from the Pocatello game preserve were raiding their haystacks, two committees went to count the herd, found it shrinking rather than swelling, and advised against a hunt both times.
Arbon Valley wheat growers pick a committee to join the Farm Board
In February 1930 about twenty Arbon Valley wheat growers set out to form a local under Hoover's Federal Farm Board, and several of the same men later sat on the valley's New Deal farm committees.
A Pocatello man finds the Sphinx of Idaho in Arbon Valley
From 1929 to 1934 Hyrum Kay of Pocatello kept writing the Tribune about a lone rock in Arbon Valley that showed the face of the Sphinx at sunset, a landmark he said valley settlers knew as the Old Man of the Valley.
Survey crew runs down a sheep-killing bear at the head of Rattlesnake Creek
In June 1899 men from Surveyor Sonnenkalb's camp cornered a silver-tip blamed for hundreds of dead sheep in an aspen thicket at the head of Rattlesnake Creek and killed it with a borrowed gun and a six-shooter.
Jerry Hatch packs the Arbon mail through the winter of 1928–29
When snow closed the reservation road in the winter of 1928–29, carrier Jerry B. Hatch carried the Arbon mail on his back, and a Crystal woman rode the last miles home beside it on a mail horse.
Rosa Bishoff, who came from Switzerland to Pauline, dies at 59
Rosa Bishoff, a Swiss immigrant of 1893 who raised her family at Pauline, died in Pocatello on December 6, 1928, at 59.
An old cattleman remembers Tom Sparks's herds and a sheepman shot near Sunbeam
In 1928 J. R. Munn recalled Tom Sparks's cattle on the Arbon and Crystal range, the Fleming sheep that crowded them, and the sheepman found shot near Sunbeam creek, a killing other papers place in 1894.
Pauline boy, 12, dies weeks after a ruptured appendix
Brought into Pocatello at 3:30 on New Year's morning 1928 with a ruptured appendix, twelve-year-old Earl Lewis of Pauline lived eighteen more days.