Elmira and Delone Smith, two homestead daughters at Summit
Two daughters of the Summit homesteader E. G. Smith, as the 1915 South Arbon columns saw them and as their obituaries remembered them seventy years on.
From the Old Papers
Stories of Arbon Valley retold from the newspapers that reported them: the American Falls Press and other papers of the homestead years, and later ones. Each quotes the paper and links to the original page.
Browse the original records
Community blog · 2010–2020 · original publication order · stories from the old papers added since 2026
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Red suits and Sunday ball: Arbon Valley baseball, 1915
In 1915 Pauline, Central, Crystal and the "Daytonites" of South Arbon played Sunday baseball, and Pauline took the field in red suits paid for with the help of a dance.
Logs at the mill: Arbon Valley's building year of 1915
In 1915 the Arbon columns of the American Falls Press followed the valley's canyon sawmills through a busy season and the new houses that went up across the valley.
When Bannock Valley was cattle range, 1879–1909
How the papers saw Bannock Valley as stock range, from the killing winter of 1879–80 and the stockmen of 1888 to the sheep trails of 1903 and 1909.
William Allard of Arbon and the 1914 race for the Legislature
In 1914 the Arbon homesteader William Allard won the Republican primary and the November election, becoming Power County's first member of the Idaho House.
By way of Brigham: the fight for a valley mail route, 1914–1916
In 1914 mail from American Falls to Crystal went 239 miles by rail through Brigham City and Malad; the valley petitioned until a Pocatello route came in 1916.
Ed Hooker dug through the snow to pitch his tent at Arbon
In 1914 Arbon homesteader M. E. Hooker told the Pocatello Tribune he had dug through several feet of snow and ice to find a place for his tent when he moved to the valley.
Fire on Elizabeth Jackson's homestead near Crystal, 1914
In July 1914 the Pocatello Tribune reported that a homesteader on Rattlesnake, Mrs. Elizabeth Jackson, had lost her house and everything in it to fire and was living in a tent.
The frost year: Bannock Valley's wheat crop of 1914
After a hopeful spring, frost struck the Bannock Valley wheat in June 1914; the papers followed the loss, a plea for lower taxes and the harvest that still came.
The Farmers' Society of Equity and an elevator for Arbon
Arbon Valley dry farmers joined the Farmers' Society of Equity in 1913, and from 1914 to 1917 the cooperative planned a grain elevator for the valley that the papers never report as built.
Wet or dry: how Arbon and Crystal voted on liquor in 1914
Power County voted to forbid the sale of liquor on May 20, 1914, 698 to 626; Arbon went dry by three votes and Crystal by two, and the official count waited on Arbon's returns.
A railroad on posts: the Double-P monorail plan of 1914
In 1914 Arbon farmers pledged a right of way and $1,000 a mile in bonds for a single-rail grain line on posts, but the papers record nothing built.
Arbon in the Sheep Store News: late winter and spring, 1914
In 1914 an American Falls store's monthly paper carried Arbon news, probably all from Mrs. E. A. Logan: skis, surprise parties, barbed-wire telephones, a thaw and a new store.
130 to 18: Arbon votes down the county road bonds, 1914
In January 1914 Power County voted on $125,000 in road bonds that promised a trunk road from Arbon; Arbon voted 130 to 18 against, and the bonds failed.
Proving up at Arbon: the land-office notices, 1909–1914
How Arbon Valley homesteaders turned claims into titles from 1909 to 1914, from the land-office notices: the neighbours who stood witness, and the contests over empty claims.
Great Change at Arbon: the wheat harvest of 1913
The papers followed Arbon Valley's 1913 wheat from the threshers to the railroad, with a farmers' co-operative, delegates to Tulsa and three crop counts that disagree.
Christmas 1913 at Arbon's Central school: a tree for 125 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.
Arbon Valley's Sunday school children and Cora Sorensen, 1913–1946
Valley children wrote for the Sunday School's magazine from 1913 to 1928, while Cora Sorensen of the Summit end taught the youngest Sunday school class for thirty-three years.
A minister's portrait of Bannock Valley in 1913
In 1913 a Congregational minister sent a hill of wheat and a report from Arbon on the valley's crops, land and people while starting its first two Protestant churches.
B. W. Rice's letter from Arbon and two new churches, 1913–1914
In July 1913 B. W. Rice wrote from Arbon about the valley's grain and its farmers, one by one; that month two Congregational churches were organized there.
John Ryan vanishes after selling hogs in Pocatello, 1913
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.
Elk Preserve or Summer Pasture? The Mink Creek Divide, 1913
In June 1913 settlers over the Mink Creek divide protested sheep on the Pocatello forest, and a letter writer answered a plan to make it a game preserve: the settlers needed pasture, not elk.
Surveyors for a Bannock Valley branch line, 1913
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.
The Kings of North Logan and their Arbon dry farm, 1913–1932
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.
Four days in the valley: Power County's first road season, 1913
In May 1913 the new Power County's commissioners spent four days viewing roads at Crystal and Arbon, the start of a season of petitions, a Pocatello road offer and a new overseer.
Pocatello's campaign for a Trail Creek road to Arbon, 1912–1913
In 1912 and 1913 Pocatello merchants pressed for a road over the Trail Creek divide to win Arbon Valley's wheat; pledges came in, but cash and a reservation right of way stalled it.
American Falls and Pocatello court the Arbon wheat trade, 1912
In 1912 a new road brought American Falls businessmen into Arbon Valley, Pocatello's paper sounded the alarm, and an Arbon farmer asked Pocatello for a Trail Creek road.
Two Whiting brothers of Crystal marry on the same day, 1912
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.
Arbon potatoes and the Kansas father who changed his mind
Dry-land potatoes from Arbon in 1909, and a homesteader whose garden proved the old-timers wrong and won over his doubting father from Kansas, as the American Falls Press told it.
Women who proved up: Arbon and Crystal land claims, 1908–1919
Land notices in the American Falls Press name valley women proving up claims of their own, from Arbon wives' desert land to a mother and her daughters on Cherry Creek near Crystal.