40 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



IMMENSE IRRIGATION PROJECT. 



LARGEST OF ITS KIND IN THE UNITED STATES, THIRD 

 LARGEST IN THE WORLD. 



It contemplates Reclamation of a Tract of Land a.s Large as State of 



Rhode Island, in Snake River Valley, Idaho. 



Will Cost Millions. 



The greatest irrigation project in the United 

 States, and the third largest in the world, is well under 

 construction in Idaho. It is under the management 

 of a corporation originating in Salt Lake City. The 

 plan contemplates an expenditure of approximately 

 $2,500,000, and the reclamation of 271,000 acres of 

 the best agricultural lands in the great Snake River 

 valley of Southern Idaho. 



The principal shareholder in this gigantic enter- 

 prise is Frank H. Buhl, the iron operator of Sharon, 

 Pa., who is the president. He is associated with P. 

 L. Kimberly, another wealthy man, and Walter G. 

 Filer, manager, from the same city, who is also the 

 vice-president. They have three western men, famil- 

 iar with irrigation and canal building, in the syndi- 

 cate. These are Colonel S. B. Milner and Frank 

 Knox, bankers of Salt Lake City, and I. B. Perrine, 

 of Blue Lake, Idaho, rancher. M. B. DeLong, of 

 Utica, N. Y., is the secretary and treasurer, Paul S. A. 

 Bickel, of Helena, Mont., irrigation engineer, is chief 

 engineer. 



holdings than this, and many of the farms will be of 

 the twenty-acre Utah class. The country is particu- 

 larly adapted to fruit raising and general mixed farm- 

 ing. Alfalfa is the chief forage plant, and grows to 



TWIN FALLS, IDAHO. 



A tract of land as large as the state of Rhode 

 Island is to be brought under ditch and make ready 

 for farming and fruit raising. The lands were form- 

 erly set aside for a National Park because of the 

 wonderful scenery. By a deal with the State officials, 

 who are taking advantage of the Gary Act of 1894, 

 making a donation of 1,000,000 acres of arid lands to 

 each State that will construct canals and have the 

 lands reclaimed, the great park will become a garden 

 of small farms and vineyards. 



The enterprise includes the construction of two 

 irrigation canals and laterals that will have a combined 

 length of over 1,000 miles. The main canal will be 

 sixty-nine miles long and eighty feet wide at the bot- 

 tom. It will carry a large river from the original 

 Snake channel. For the purpose a dam eighty feet 

 in height will be constructed across the Snake. Suffi- 

 cient water has been appropriated from the natural 

 flow of the big river to supply the canal and leave an 

 abundance for use by those owning riparian rights 

 farther down the stream. 



UNDER THE CAREY ACT. 



The Twin Falls Land & Water Company is the 

 title of the new corporation. Under the provisions of 

 the Carey Act only 160 acres of this land can be held 

 by one person. The company plans to have smaller 



STRETCH OF RIVER ABOVE TWIN FALLS 



perfection. The country is also a choice spot for 

 growing prunes, peaches and similiar fruits. 



The construction of these canals and laterals will 

 probably require a period of five years' hard work. 

 When completed, the system will be the most perfect 

 in existence in the irrigated world. It is planned, 

 later, to have electric car lines reaching every farm and 

 orchard, and when the country is settled, to secure 

 the rural mail system. Public telephones and all 

 modern conveniences are to be added to the comforts 

 of making homes under the canals. Some settlers are 

 now located on their lands, awaiting the coming of 

 the water ditch. The company announces that the 

 work will be pushed as fast as possible, until every 

 acre of the large tract has been placed under the canal. 

 Water rights are to be sold to actual users at reason- 

 able fates. This amount of land will support a 

 number of good towns, when once under cultivation. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 



The Snake river, or Shoshone river, has its head 

 around the National Park, Shoshone mountains and 

 Jackson's Hole, where there is perpetual snow, and 

 flows from Montana and the National Park through 

 Wyoming, into Idaho, through the foot hills for several 

 hundred miles, when it reaches the great American 

 desert of sage brush. This sage brush frequently 

 grows to the height of eight feet, but generally is about 

 three feet and so thick that it is inconvenient to walk 

 fast through it. A . peculiar thing is noticed on the 

 maps : west from the National Park in the foot hills, 



GRADING O\ BIG TWIN FALLS IRRIGATION CANAL. 



all the rivers sink and disappear. This is accounted 

 for by a large flow of lava which covers the Snake 

 river valley, which at different times, as one can see, 

 has been overflown by the lava from volcanoes in and 



