An Early Italian settler to Pingree
A Mormon Italian in Pingree at the turn of the twentieth century
7/8/20261 min read
A very early settler in Pingree, Henry Lucherini (the photo is of Henry and his wife Millie) was the rare Italian immigrant—born in Tuscany in 1863—who was of the LDS faith. Proving up on his acreage in 1905, he was the first homesteader on land a mile east of the Tilden Bridge, 160 acres along the north side of what is now Crumley Road.
Lucherini became interested in area acreage when the Peoples Canal becam operable in 1899, when he wrote Canal President Benjamin Cluff. He asked about getting land soon to be irrigable by the fledgling canal. Cluff, vetting the inquiry, asked the Bingham County Land Agent, Lorenzo Thomas, about Lucherini's status. Thomas wrote back that "Mr. Lucherini is a poor man, having no means whatever," adding that "he is perfectly honest" and if he failed he would surrender his contract without litigation.
Lucherini immigrated to the U.S. at the age of seventeen, went West to Salt Lake in 1889 where he procured work, converted to Mormonism two years later, then helped to build the Brigham Young Monument and the Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake LDS Temple. He also made all the decorations that hung from the ceilings in the Ogden Tabernacle. He moved to Idaho in 1898 and was ordained High Priest in 1903, presiding over the Riverside Ward Branch for a time, according to family records—though other reports say he was the head of the Rich Ward (now known as Pingree). Joseph Merrill succeeded him at Rich in 1906, about the time he sold his holdings in Pingree. He parted withi his land for $14 an acre—not much more than the value of the water rights.
Having enough of farming, Lucherini ran a laundry business in Blackfoot before moving to Preston and running a similar enterprise there.
