OXFORD – One of the oldest settlements in Idaho, Oxford was disenfranchised in a December 9 Franklin County Commission meeting.
One of the early houses built in the town of Oxford at the north end of town on Friday Jan. 10, 2025.
Robert Swainston, Franklin County Commissioner, said everyone from the mayor and council members approached the county and said maybe we should disincorporate the town. There is a process, and they followed it. Swainston said there wasn’t much opposition.
“We told them to make sure this is what you want to do before you do it,” he said. “It took them two three months to decide. They held a vote; they needed a super majority to do it, and it passed.”
County Clerk Camille Larsen said only the residents of Oxford could vote on the matter.
“There were 28 in favor and six against,” she said. “The county will take over care of the roads. They don’t have a water supply and no sewer, basically they turned their roads over to the county.”
She said the change doesn’t involve the cemetery. They have their own cemetery district. They also had no ordinances or building codes.
“They had a Mayor, Jared Barlow, and three city council members: Zach Cox, Gary Baker and one vacant seat,” Larsen said. “Now Oxford has no city government.”
The town made history in 2010 when it was named the fastest growing city in Idaho by the U.S. Census Bureau. Two people moved into town and it boosted its population to 50 residents.
The U.S. Census Bureau found Oxford posted a population growth to 4.2 percent that year while the rest of Idaho’s 200 cities had around 2 percent growth.
The once vibrant community 17 miles northwest of Preston, at its peak boasted a booming economy of commerce and significant opportunities. There were hotels, three general stores, a meat market, a billiard hall, saloons on the main street and other businesses that supported the town.
Founded in 1864 after the Bear River Massacre by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the early pioneers struggled to survive until the Northern Utah Railroad put in a terminal there in 1879.
Alexis Beckstead just finished a third edition of The Trail Blazer an early history of Franklin County.
Alexis Beckstead, former President of the Franklin County Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, just completed a third edition of the ‘Trail Blazer,’ a history of the county.
“Oxford was a railroad boomtown,” she said. “It also had the land office so everyone had to go there and register when they bought land in the county.”
With all the mining activity and cattle ranching along the Snake River, some of the freighting business came through the town until about 1973.
When the Utah Northern Railroad came to Oxford in 1879 it added a different element to the ten-block community.
“With the railroad ending at the town and the discovery of gold and silver mines in Montana, freighting became a bigger business,” Beckstead said. “Wagons carrying supplies to Montana brought in more commerce to Oxford.”
The ‘Idaho Enterprise’ was Cache Valley’s second newspaper and the first newspaper in Idaho, she said. The newspaper is still in print and is Malad’s only local news source.
It was a unique town built by Mormon pioneers, but the town had religious diversity with Methodist, Presbyterian and Josephites congregations.
“When the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882 passed, declaring plural marriage a felony, the other churches in the town seemed to cause problems with the members of the LDS church that practiced polygamy,” Beckstead said. “The stake president was arrested for helping one of his stake members escape. After that they moved all of the stake or leadership offices to Franklin.”
After the Edmunds Act the Idaho legislature passed the Idaho Test Oath in 1884 making it impossible for citizens wanting to vote or hold office that practiced polygamy or supported members of any organization that did.
The oath excluded any of the Mormons from participating in government. They sent Federal Marshalls to Oxford to focus on the capturing and prosecuting polygamists.
The land office moved to Blackfoot and the railroad terminal moved to Swan Lake and then on to Pocatello causing the population to begin to dwindle.
Harold B. Lee, who was born in 1899 in Clifton up the road a ways, became the Oxford school principal and teacher when he was 18 years old. He was there for three years. Later in life he became 11th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The town is now just a stop on the North Weston Highway with no goods or services, a railroad boomtown with a memorable history.