The ghost town of Chesterfield

Chesterfield, Idaho has been called a ghost town, but it is not a gloomy place. In fact, the abandoned town serves as an important doorway to the past in southeast Idaho.

Jack Jensen, one of the town’s curators, took the better part of a morning this past August to show my daughter, Alisa, and I around Chesterfield and tell us about the town’s history. Jensen’s ancestors were among those who settled the town, and he is a member of the Chesterfield Foundation which has been involved in the town’s restoration since 1980.

As early risers at a recent family reunion in Lava Hot Springs, Alisa and I decided to explore the area and headed northeast following the signs to Chesterfield to see what kind of ghost town it was. I’m not exactly sure what we expected, perhaps some tumble-down clapboard buildings along one dusty street like the set of a western movie.

What we found in the foothills of the Portneuf River Valley was a small, silent village of restored sturdy homes and barns with the farm machinery seeming to be waiting for the return of the hands that would put them to use. A windmill turned lazily in the wind, but where were those who would drink the water it pumped?

Alisa and I spent some time walking around the town and I pointed out the uses of some of the antique farm machinery that was much older than what my grandpa Floyd taught me to use on his farm when I was a boy. But here at Chesterfield the purpose and mode of operation of some of the machinery remained a mystery to us.

Then we ran into Jensen at the town’s chapel block and he interrupted his work and offered to show us around. From the church we went to the museum in the old Brick Store. Using the historic photographs and artifacts in the museum to illustrate, Jensen said the town’s community was founded upon the elements of home, church and school when the town was established in the 1880s by pioneer settlers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

However, unlike other “Plat of Zion” Mormon pioneer communities with a tight town center of streets and blocks on a grid pattern, the location’s topography and its relationship to the local needs of agriculture led Chesterfield to develop in a more spread-out fashion.

Historically, the “Plat of Zion” arose from the religious thought of the LDS prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, whose idealized view of a community of Christians was an outgrowth of their New England backgrounds.

Yet here in Chesterfield we see the self-concept transplanted from verdant New England, to the wind-swept plains of the high Western desert. The basic grid is there, if you look, even if some of the roads curve a bit to adapt to the hilly location. But the farms were small enough that there was still a distinct sense of community.

“There’s no place like it in the country,” said Jensen. “There’s no place that has this many restored buildings. There are 20 of them that are restored with the original town site. All of them but one are in the original locations.”

The chapel of the LDS Chesterfield Ward, as local congregations are known, has pride of place on a prominent hill. Nearby is a similar sized building, a recreational hall for community gatherings. At right angles to those two buildings stood the school, having burned to the ground in a fire many years ago. The restoration foundation has plans to rebuild it in order to make a complete replica of the town in its heyday. There is also a stable with railings outside for tying up horses that pulled the pioneers wagons and buggies.

Some of the early homes still existent are dugouts and cabins, but then there was a progression to the next stage of development in the town. Many of the homes were constructed with the same kind of light brown brick that had been made in a local kiln. Cooperation and independence were necessities in the isolated community.

During the writing of this article I asked Alisa for her impressions of Chesterfield.

“What surprised me most about Chesterfield is the fact that the individual families banded together to restore the town,” she said. “That takes a lot of cooperation, planning and selfless sacrifice. I’ve been to other ghost towns and most of them feel a bit eerie. In Chesterfield the restorers talk about their ancestors and how they lived, and many also mention feeling their ancestors’ presence still, but as a very spiritual, uplifting experience. If you’re looking for somewhere off the beaten path to spend a peaceful afternoon, Chesterfield is the place.”

So what happened to the town? We asked Jensen to shed some light on the town’s abandonment. It wasn’t obvious to us, such as in other ghost towns like Virginia City, Montana, which we visited earlier in the summer. Many such Western towns were founded on mining, and the communities went into decline when the gold and silver played out.

Jensen said Chesterfield faded out gradually from a combination of economic downturns, harsh winters and the pull of an easier life in the city. But he said those with family ties and roots in the town were reluctant to let the town and its memories die.

The website www.historicchesterfield.org explains their efforts to preserve the town and tells much rich detail about its history. The foundation has also produced a book entitled “Chesterfield: Mormon Outpost in Idaho,” which is available for checkout at the Brigham Young University-Idaho library in Rexburg.

“We have many people who make the comment that they feel something special in Chesterfield,” Jensen said. “We feel it, too. We feel that the old Pioneers are still looking over the old town site.”