The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1893-07-22
The Bruneau Dam.

Owyhee Land and irrigation Company,
the projectors and builders of the big
Bruneau dam, has, with his wife and
boy, been spending few days in De-
Lamar, the guests of Mr.. T. W. and Miss
Ella Jones, and was caught by the NUa-
GET and interviewed In regard to the inn
portant enterprise of which he is man
ager. He says that the dam, which has
already been quite fully described in
the NUGGET, has been examined by COM
manency assured, and that it will grow
stronger every year as the bottom of the
river fills with deposits carried down by
the floods.
This much accomplished, the compa-
ny is now going ahead to utilize the wa
ters of the river by constructing the, ca
Tautphaus & Axe to construct sixteen
miles of canal on the south side of
Snake river, running above the extern
siye placer 6elds~o this side of the
river. Another branch of the canal
will later on be constructed, twenty
miles long, to cross Snake river to the
north side, crossing the river at point
where the stream is quite narrow and
where a rock island mid-stream makes
the construction of an aquaduct COM
paratively inexpensive undertaking.
This acquaduct will be built Of stone.
with Two sixty foot spans, and will be
the first structure of its kind in the
state.
The canal will carry out of the Bru-
neau river twentysix Thousand inches
of water, and there is rich agricultural
land enough under it to utilize every
inch of water upon ranchesi but as the
greater portion of the water can be much
more profitabiy used in working the
rich gravel placers located on either
side Of the river, than fors the cnl.ivs-
ton of alfalfa or fruit, Col Wing has se-
cured from The company an option for
the purchase of twenty thousand inches
of water, and has, with other parties,
secured extensive placer claims, and is
now arranging to go East for the pur-
pose of organizing a company with capi-
tai to undertake placer mining on a
scale never before attempted on Snake
river. The extent of the gravel deposits
along this portion of the river, and
their known riches is almost fabulous,
but the extreme fneness of much of the
gold being such that it will almost re-
problem of saving large percentage of
the values difficult one to solve. How
ever the study that has been given to
Improvements in suiees, and the fact
that the heavy black sand in which the
greater part of the gold in these placers
is carried, can be separated and saved
ployed solution of the problem has
now 30 nearly been reached, that i'm
mense profits are assured where water
is as abundant and available as in this
instance. IL is fair then to presume
that we may, before two years more are
gone, see in Owyhee county rival to
our greatest quartz mines in the produc
lion of the placers under the canal con-
trolling the waters of the Bruneau river.
Col. Wing mentions with almost un-
bounded praise, the enterprise and per-
sistence of Mr.. w. V, Phillips, of Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, the president of
the company, to whose capital and in
auence the Inauguration and accom-
plshment of this great enterprise is al
most solely due. That gentleman in
the face of disaster which swept away
the results of three years. labor and
heavy expenditures, kept right on un-
ii success has been won. He may prop |
erly be called the pioneer eastern rep
resentative of western irrigation enter
prises, and the ultimate success of this
undertaking will doubtless attract hither
much more eastern capital.
AS a matter of local pride we may add
that Col. Wing speaks in fattering
terms of the skill of one of our loca
mechanics, Mr.. T. W. Jones, who laid
out the work of framing, and superin-
tended the setting of the three humid
red Thousand feet OF timbers used in
the dam
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