The long wait for Arbon's telephone line, 1913–1915
Arbon Valley organized its own telephone company in 1913 and talked over barbed wire while it waited for the long-distance line from American Falls, which arrived in December 1915.
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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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.
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.
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.
The railroad that never came to Arbon Valley, 1914–1922
From 1914 to 1922 Arbon Valley farmers petitioned the Short Line, pledged a dollar an acre and backed one railroad plan after another, but no line was ever built.
The Davis store at Arbon, 1914–1931
The papers' view of Ed and Esther Davis's general store at Arbon, kept until 1931: the freight trips, Mrs. Davis at the counter and the store as a landmark.
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.
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.
Henry Shandrew's clean wheat in a smutty year, 1915
In 1915 Power County's new agent found no smut in Henry Shandrew's Arbon wheat while smut spread through the valley, and a plant from a field near Arbon became a bunt-immune wheat.
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.
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.
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 spring malady: Arbon Valley farmers buy cars, 1915
In 1915, a year after frost took most of the valley's wheat, Arbon farmers began buying cars; by June the South Arbon column counted about fifteen in the valley.
Two solid townships of wheat: Arbon Valley's crop of 1915
Late spring rains, the valley's first combines, short-handed crews and dry-season fires: the American Falls Press followed Arbon Valley's wheat harvest of 1915.
John Payne, Arbon's unofficial mayor, 1915–1917
In 1915 the American Falls Press jokingly called pioneer John Payne the mayor of Arbon; its notes show an old railroad engineer turned dry farmer, justice and county candidate.
Keeping the sheep out of Arbon's canyons, 1920
In 1920 Arbon farmers formed a range association to keep the sheepmen's bands out of the canyons; a deputy rode the ranges, and sheepmen were arrested and tried.
From Yellville, Arkansas, to Buist: Mathew and Louise Bird
A Buist homesteader who went east on a mission in 1915 married the Arkansas convert he had baptized, and her brother later came to farm at Arbon.
Peter M. Larsen: summers at Summit, winters in Mendon
For decades the papers followed Peter M. Larsen, a Mendon schoolteacher, between his Cache Valley home and the family ranch at the Summit end of Arbon Valley.
Ed and Hannah Snyder and the Arbon rural mail route
Hannah Evans, a widowed Arbon homesteader, married Ed Snyder in 1915; by 1920 the Snyders were carrying the valley's rural mail, a route Ed's obituary says he held for 23 years.
The Wards between Malad and their Arbon farm, 1915–1986
The papers follow the Ward family between Malad and their Arbon Valley farm from 1915 to 1986, when all three of Elmer and Susan Ward's surviving children were of Arbon.
Homesteads on the mountain ranges: Arbon Valley in 1915
In 1915 the *American Falls Press* recorded Arbon Valley homesteaders filing in Knox Canyon and on the ranges, drilling wells, building houses and selling out.
Ida Featherston, a Kansas bride at Arbon, 1915–1916
Married at Pocatello in 1915, Ida Featherston died at Arbon in May 1916 and was sent home to Kansas for burial; that fall her husband sold out at the valley's first farm auction.
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.
Debates and a suffrage tableau: Arbon's literary society, 1915–16
Through the stormy winter of 1915–16 Arbon's Central School Literary Society met on Tuesday nights for recitations, a literary paper and debates, one of them on a high school for Arbon.
Isabelle Noble and the Noble children of Pauline, 1915–1921
Between 1915 and 1921 John and Fanny Noble, who kept the store at Pauline, lost four children, among them Isabelle, 12, who had clerked in her father's store.
The long road to the doctor: Arbon Valley's sick and hurt in 1915
In 1915 Arbon Valley's sick and injured were carried to doctors at Malad, Pocatello and Ogden, or a doctor was sent for; in December the long-distance telephone arrived.
The Arbon road controversy: a road across the reservation, 1915
In 1915 Power County paid to build its stretch of the valley's road north across the Fort Hall Reservation before allotment could close the way, and the bill set off a county quarrel.
Over the mountain to Malad: the valley's south end in 1915
In 1915 the South Arbon news column followed hogs, grain, machinery and patients over the mountain road to Malad, the town the valley's south end relied on.
Jailed at Malad and taken for a West Virginia fugitive, 1915
In 1915 Oneida County officers jailed L. E. Howell of South Arbon at Malad on a forgery charge; suspected of an old West Virginia murder, he was soon cleared of it.