About this account · first posted December 30, 2018
Written for the original ArbonValley.com by Jacob Andersen. Memories and documents quoted in the account belong to the people who wrote them. This is the website publication date, not the date of every event described. References to “today” belong to the original account.
The Lusk name is associated with one of the earliest claims in the Bannock Valley. Before the area was officially opened for homesteading, many settlers set up squatter's rights that they later acquired officially through the Homestead Act. John Winters Lusk Jr. had a Possessory Claim in the Big Meadows (West Fork Area) in 1889. He also acquired water rights on the South Fork of Rattlesnake Creek in 1889. He and his wife Annie both later acquired homestead claims, which were completed in 1913. Idaho wasn't even a state until two years later.
John's brother, Perry Park Lusk, also homesteaded in Arbon Valley in 1909, having purchased an existing ranch there in 1906.