Crystal.
Pictures of Crystal: its buildings and homesteads, the families who lived there, and the land patents that made the homesteads theirs. On the valley map: Ceded reservation land opened June 17, 1902 (first entries October 1902); Bradley using Rattlesnake Creek water by 1902; most land entered 1909–19. 2 photographs · 5 land patents · 10 newspaper clippings.
Families at home
Family pictures the records place in Crystal.
View photograph ↗The Bengtson-Hayden and Jensen families at the Jensen place, Crystal, about 1934–38
Eighteen relatives of John Hayden gathered outdoors at the Jensen place in Crystal. Names as labeled on the copy at FamilySearch, several marked uncertain: Tony?, John, Martin?, Carl E., ?, Anna Jensen, Colleen?, Joanna?, Emma, Oscar, Delsa, Walt, ?, Syver Jensen, Carl Sr.?, Dora, Marjorie, Ben.
FamilySearch (uploaded by a relative)
View photograph ↗John, Dora, granddaughter Neva, and Ben Hayden
John, Dora, granddaughter Neva, and Ben Hayden
From: John Hayden & Dora Ingeborg Torgersen ↗Land patents
Federal patents to homesteads in Crystal, in date order.
View photograph ↗Homestead patent to John O. Johnston, 1910
Federal land patent signed February 7, 1910 (BLM serial IDBL 0001975). Shown: the top of the first page.
Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records (public domain)
View photograph ↗Homestead patent to Frank W. Swim, 1913
Federal land patent signed August 1, 1913 (BLM serial IDBL 0001257). Shown: the top of the first page.
Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records (public domain)
View photograph ↗Homestead patent to John W. Butler, 1913
Federal land patent signed May 26, 1913 (BLM serial IDBL 0001258). Shown: the top of the first page.
Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records (public domain)
View photograph ↗Homestead patent to John A. B. Hayden, 1919
Federal land patent signed March 11, 1919 (BLM serial IDBL 0014605). Shown: the top of the first page.
Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records (public domain)
View photograph ↗Homestead patent to George W. Bradley, 1924
Federal land patent signed April 4, 1924 (BLM serial IDBL 0031710). Shown: the top of the first page.
Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records (public domain)In the old papers
Clippings of newspaper articles about Crystal, in the order they were printed. All the clippings ↗
View photograph ↗Two Whiting brothers of Crystal wed the same morning, each unaware of the other
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.
From: Two Whiting brothers of Crystal wed the same morning, each unaware of the other ↗
View photograph ↗By way of Brigham, the valley’s mail took weeks to reach Crystal
In 1914 a letter from American Falls to Crystal rode 239 miles of rail through Brigham City and Malad, and the valley kept petitioning until a Pocatello route came in 1916.
From: By way of Brigham, the valley’s mail took weeks to reach Crystal ↗
View photograph ↗A Crystal teacher starts something with a hot lunch on Clifton Creek
In 1915 Lola Skartvedt began cooking hot noon lunches with her pupils in a bare shack school on Clifton Creek near Crystal, and the county paper said the idea should spread statewide.
From: A Crystal teacher starts something with a hot lunch on Clifton Creek ↗
View photograph ↗Crystal, hidden up Rattlesnake Creek, is a valley strangers cannot find
Six years after it was a new settlement wanting a school, Crystal had about 150 families in a basin so well hidden that the American Falls Press said strangers could not find the road in.
From: Crystal, hidden up Rattlesnake Creek, is a valley strangers cannot find ↗
View photograph ↗Crystal settlers finish their own telephone line to Pocatello
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.
From: Crystal settlers finish their own telephone line to Pocatello ↗
View photograph ↗Smiling through the lean years, the Humphrey brothers thresh twenty bushels at Crystal
Brothers Horace and Roy Humphrey kept smiling through good years and bad on the dry farms of Arbon and Crystal, and two of Horace’s Arbon-born sons later made their way to Barrow, Alaska, and Promontory, Utah.
From: Smiling through the lean years, the Humphrey brothers thresh twenty bushels at Crystal ↗
View photograph ↗Crystal sits its returned soldiers down to dinner
With the last of Crystal’s soldiers home from the war, W. C. and Cora Snyder gave the men, their families and their friends a Sunday dinner at their home in September 1919.
From: Crystal sits its returned soldiers down to dinner ↗
View photograph ↗Eight pupils from three families fill a one-room school near Crystal
In December 1921 the Press printed a picture of District No. 6, a one-teacher school between Pauline and Crystal whose eight pupils came from three families and soon wrote their own news.
From: Eight pupils from three families fill a one-room school near Crystal ↗
View photograph ↗Crystal’s schoolchildren report a settlement packing up
Writing for the American Falls Press in the winter of 1923–24, Crystal’s pupils predicted their settlement would be “almost deserted” and then reported, week by week, who left and who stayed.
From: Crystal’s schoolchildren report a settlement packing up ↗
View photograph ↗Crystal taxpayers fault their road district as mail and grain wear down the Mink Creek road
In 1924 Crystal’s taxpayers complained of the highest road and school tax in Power County and poor mail service, while the valley’s mail and wheat kept wearing down the mountain road to Pocatello.
From: Crystal taxpayers fault their road district as mail and grain wear down the Mink Creek road ↗Family albums from Crystal
The families the valley map places in Crystal.
Bradley family
George Willard Bradley
Hayden family
John Hayden, Dora Ingeborg Torgersen Hayden, Walter Theodor Hayden and 1 more
Swim family
Frank William Swim, John William “J. W.” Butler, George Stahl Butler
Johnston family
John O. Johnston
Fannin family
Delsa Fannin Hayden
Daniels family
Thomas D. Daniels Jr., David Moroni Daniels, George Daniels Sr. and 2 more
Help put names to these pictures.
Many of these photographs still need names, places and dates. If you know who is in one, open it and choose “Help identify this photograph”. If your family keeps photographs of the valley, the archive would love to see them.