Born in Birmingham, England in 1854, John Shelton Howard was the seventh child out of eleven. John’s family were early converts to the LDS Church. After suffering persecution in their home land, John and his family immigrated to the United States in June 1864 to join the main body of the church in Utah.

John married Josephine Johnson in 1878 and supported his new wife by working as a farmer and carpenter. As was the custom among some church members, he also took a second wife, Sarah Ann Downs, in 1884. In 1890, federal law banned plural marraige, making John a law breaker and subject to arrest.

At the urgent request of Josephine whom he did not have children with he took Sarah and their two sons from Utah in 1889, he went by "John Shelton" rather than John Howard because Idaho bounty hunters were looking to arrest polygamists; if "unlawfil cohabitation" could be proven, the law sent a man to prison in Boise.

After arriving at Willow Creek, fifteen miles northeast of Eagle Rock (now Idaho Falls), John Shelton purchased sixty acres from a local farmer and restarted his life. After various hardships since the first winter in Idaho, from caring for sick neighbors, to preparing the dead for burial by using his skills as a carpenter to make caskets out of whatever lumber he could scavenge, compassion came naturally to John and his wife Sarah. They rendered the same service to the community during the flu epidemic in 1918 and at other times throughout their lives. Sarah eventually was made a midwife and in over 300 births, never lost a mother.

By 1892, there were enough church members in the area to create a regular LDS ward, and "John Shelton" was asked to serve as Bishop. It was to be named the Shelton ward in his honor. At that time he decided to come clean and began to use his actual sir-name, Howard, but the name Shelton stuck to the Church and the community. John S. Howard was Bishop for 26 years, much loved and made many friends all over the valley. John traveled to many communities to help build bridges, homes, and churches.

In 1909, the community decided that it was time for a new meeting house, which was completed in 1914.

John "Shelton" Howard died from a three-day illness in 1923. Many throughout the valley came to honor him. Sarah lived fifteen more years and passed away in 1938. Josephine adopted a daughter and later remarried.

The meeting house was decommissioned in 1976 for a year before the new LDS building burned down. The church used it for another year and then sold it in 1978, where it became a saddle shop. After decades of changing ownership, and being renovated, the Shelton was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2004 and also recognized by the daughters of the Utah pioneers. This old stone meeting house became what is known today as the Historic Shelton. Purchased and once again renovated by Lesley and Ervin Hatch in the summer of 2016 to continue it’s use for the community as a bed and breakfast and events venue.