No doctor within forty miles: influenza at Arbon, autumn 1918
In October 1918 the Spanish influenza reached Arbon Valley weeks after its only doctor had left; the American Falls Press followed the sick, the dead and the helpers week by week.
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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The Humphreys of Crystal, and the sons who left the dry farm
Horace and Roy Humphrey farmed at Arbon and Crystal from the 1910s, and Horace's Arbon-born sons later worked as far away as Barrow, Alaska, and Promontory, Utah.
A herd district for Arbon Valley, July 1918
In July 1918 the Power County commissioners took up a petition from Arbon Valley residents for a herd district, and with no one objecting, created it on July 27.
Half a million bushels and no railroad: the 1918 wheat haul
In 1918 Arbon Valley expected nearly half a million bushels of wheat with the railroad 25 to 35 miles away, and its call for motor trucks reached the national trade press.
Four Nunnelley sisters, nurses from Summit, 1913–1920
Four daughters of W. A. Nunnelley of Summit became nurses; the papers followed them through a Navy enlistment, the 1918–19 influenza and a diploma at Logan in 1920.
Arbon grain "not damaged in the least": Pocatello answers back, 1918
In June 1918 the Pocatello Tribune called the Nonpartisan League's charge that Pauline wheat had rotted "rank fiction," a month after its own report that some of it had spoiled.
The Pauline wheat pile and the Nonpartisan League, 1917–1918
Wheat bought in 1917 sat in an open pile at a Pauline grain platform into 1918, and the Nonpartisan League took its spoiling to Herbert Hoover.
When the Bannock Creek lands were allotted, 1911–1922
As the Fort Hall lands on lower Bannock Creek were allotted, a new road was built to Michaud, Pauline farmers leased allotments, and by 1922 inherited allotments were for sale.
The Red Cross War Fund Night at Arbon, Pauline and Crystal, 1918
On May 20, 1918, Arbon, Pauline and Crystal opened the Red Cross war fund drive, with a cake auction at Arbon and Crystal's quota met in a single night.
Wintering out: Arbon Valley families leave and come home, 1917–18
In the fall of 1917 many Arbon Valley families left their farms for the winter, a few stayed by choice, and in March 1918 the valley columns counted them home.
The women who led Arbon Valley's Relief Societies
The papers caught the valley's Relief Societies at their meetings, socials and dances, and obituaries printed decades later name the women who had led them.
Old Jim Hill: Arbon Valley's war on a rolling weed, 1917–1918
In 1917 and 1918 Arbon Valley's wheat farmers fought Jim Hill mustard, a rolling tumbleweed, and the Press's roving farm writer let the weed tell its own side.
Turkey Red at $1.81: Arbon Valley's wartime wheat of 1917
In 1917, the year America went to war, Arbon Valley's dry-farm wheat came through hail, heat and mustard to a thin harvest that sold at wartime prices of up to $1.95 a bushel.
The Logan Temple fire and an Arbon wedding, December 1917
Eddie Davis and May Mathews of Arbon came to Cache Valley to marry in the Logan Temple in December 1917, found it burned, and married in Salt Lake City instead.
Sophia Andersen of Mendon, mother of the Arbon Andersens
Sophia Andersen of Mendon, Utah, never homesteaded in Arbon Valley, but the papers of 1929–1939 show her Arbon children and grandchildren coming home to her house.
Horses and the first tractors in Arbon Valley, 1916–1922
From a 10-20 tractor plowing 350 acres in 1916 to a Fordson on a 1921 sale bill, the papers show the first tractors at work beside Arbon Valley's big horse teams.
A valley of log cabins: canyon timber in Arbon and Crystal, 1917
In 1917 the American Falls Press's farm writer found Arbon Valley full of log cabins built from canyon timber, and reported ranchers going back to the canyons for wood when coal ran short.
Ten cents, two cows and a greased pig: the J. R. Baileys of Arbon
In 1917 the American Falls Press profiled J. R. Bailey of Arbon, who had come with ten cents and two cows; in 1940 he and Annie marked fifty years married, recalling a greased pig.
Hy Secrist and the wheat thieves at Pauline, 1917
In November 1917 a Pauline wheat buyer followed a stolen load by lantern, and Deputy Sheriff Hy Secrist waited for the thieves behind a telephone pole.
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 Lusk brothers and the Bailey sisters of Pauline
Brothers Dave and Park Lusk of Pauline married sisters Anna and Erma Bailey of Arbon; the papers followed them through the First World War, Erma's death in 1922 and the obituaries of 1952–1960.
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.
D. J. Bowen tells the Pilgrim how Arbon began, 1917
In October 1917 the American Falls Press printed D. J. Bowen's account of the 1892 search for water, his 1893 aspen-log cabin and Arbon's first post office.
Bugle calls at midnight: the valley sends off its draft men, 1917
In the fall of 1917 Arbon and Crystal held farewell dances for the first valley men called in the draft, and the American Falls Press followed them to Camp Lewis.
The Pilgrim on foot: a roving writer in Arbon Valley, 1917
In the fall of 1917 the American Falls Press's roving farm writer, the Pilgrim, walked the roads of Crystal, Pauline and Arbon and wrote down what he met along the way.
An aeroplane in the night sky over Arbon, 1917
In September 1917 the Arbon column of the American Falls Press reported that neighbors had seen an aeroplane fly over the valley one night, twelve years before the first airplane on record there.
Before the draft: Arbon Valley's volunteers of 1917
In 1917, before the draft reached them, young men of Arbon and Crystal enlisted at Pocatello, Salt Lake City and Portland, and the papers named them one by one.
Crystal's telephone line to Pocatello, 1917
Crystal settlers set light poles toward Pocatello in the winter of 1917 with Commercial Club money, and by July the line was joined to Mountain States at a fifteen-cent toll.
A June snowdrift and a broken bridge: the roads to town in 1917
In 1917 a deputy sheriff was stranded six hours in a June snowdrift, a mail carrier forded floodwater and a Portneuf bridge broke under a load of Crystal grain.
The Jenks family's years at Pauline, 1909–1923
Obituaries printed decades later and short items in the papers of the day trace the Jenks family from Weston to Pauline, at the valley's north end, and away again.