blackfoot-valley

way 141 north of Helmville where it follows the long crest of a glacial moraine for a couple of miles.) The area might be referred to as the Blackfoot-Nevada Flats since both streams have created them, or the Helmville Flats after the nearby town; or as we informally call them here, simply “the flats” when this is already understood. The trickle of earliest permanent setllers who came to the valley in 1867-1870 included the names Geary, Coleman, Helm, Hoephner, O’Neill, Smith, etc, with families and relatives. This was not a flood of people, but in ensuing years their numbers were steadily augmented. The Powell County book notes the taking up of homesteads in the Helmville area in 1871 by John W. Blair, and in 1872 by the Alvin Lincoln family, Mrs. O’Gara with her three sons, John McArrison, the William Bartlett family, John Quinn, Vincent Pixfer, one Bootlier, and Jim Ogden (for whom Ogden Mountain, seven miles east of Helmville, is named). Although there was yet no town, this was becoming the main area of concentration for Nevada Valley settlers, and Helmville was soon to take an official existence when Henry Helm married Mrs. O’Gara and his request to authorize a post office with the name of Helmville was approved by the postal administration in Washington, D.C. During the rest of the 1870s and 1880s more settlers came, little by little augmenting the numbers and variety of people in the area. A considerable proportion of Helmville’s settlers were Irish, some 118