The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1897-11-16
ONE MANS ENTERPRISE
AND THE REMARKABLE TRANsFoR.
NATION 1T BROUGHT ABOUT.


A hole has been transformed into n
veritablc paradise "A hole i'm the
ground is what most people called
the place before Perine began his work
OF transformation. Some. with wider
How of language, called it the Devils
Corral IL is on Snake River. i'm
southern Idaho, twenty miles south of
the little town OF Shoshone, and five
miles down the river below the Grent
Shoshone Falls. The "hole" is about
700 feet deep, and embraces GOO or 500
acres of bottom surface
For ages and ages this Devils Cor
raj has just been staying there. silent.
ghaStly, unknown The prehistoric
people, and, | fancy, the Indians of
later date, passed around it when fish
lug along the Snake River The more
daring white man looked Mt it. gave n
name, and made money out of other
white men by bringing them along TO
see 1t. One adventurous parsonage.
about n half-white man. decided that
down III the depths of this great lasin
beside the river there ought To be gold
Accompanied by an Indian wife or two
aud half n dozen children, he clam
bered down, located mine and began
to work it. His progress is not worth
recording
burt ferrine, young man from In
diana, seeking his fortune i'm the west
came ont TO see the Great Shpshone
rails and to see this satanic corral. He
clambered down the cliff To where the
miner was. He was not impressed hv
the mine, but he was impressed by the
situation and general appearance of
this rock walled basin His first
thought was: "The north wind can
never find it's way down here. This
place ought to he transformed into n
ranch or truck garden or a fruit
farm.
Upon closer examination he found
That II the rocks were rolled out Of the
way, and the miscellaneous bushes
around were grubbed up aud burned.
there would he several hundred acres
of very choice soil In the highest
parts of this big basin he discovered.
connected together, two glorious cold
water lakes. They were forty to fifty
feet deep, aud they two covered about
an acre of space. They were as clear
as crystal, as blue as the sky above
them, with white sand glstening in
the bottom, and very lively trout of
the mountain sort darling through
them. From these lakes the entire
basin could easily be irrigated
Against the undertaking was the al
most imcalculable amount of work nee
essary to clear and level and irri9ate
the land; the uncertainty rs TO what
the winters that brought snow six feet
deep over all the plains above might
do down here, and the possible power
of the north wind to find it's way down
after all. As an additional menace to
the undertaking, there stood giant lava
walls, towering above from 800 to 800
feet, and sloping from mn angle of
seventy degrees to a straight perpen-
dicuar.
He went away and advised with his
friends about it, They told him he
was crazy. Without exception, they
laughed at the idea of putting this
great "hole in the ground" to any
useful purpose They said that even
the solitary miner was alf-witted or
he wouldn't try to get gold dust out Of
there. But he decided to put his
opinions to the test, and bought out
the claim of the miner so as TO have
all the hole TO himself He surveyed
the place, and found that it contained
400 acres that could be worked or re-
claimed. He homestea1ed n part of
the land and made a desert entry of
the balance.
Then he began the work Of transfer
nation. He managed to blaze out
along the rocky descent a trail down
which pack animals could travel, and
it may be we'll to remark just here that
the little mules and the little burros
used in this country can almost climb
tree or walk into n we'll TO do the
work necessary down in this corral,
MIR. Perrine had 90 have wagons, scrap
ers, harrows, plows, powder and dyna-
mite aud all sorts of things 10 work
with that even pack animals couldn't
carry. These had TO be let down with
ropes over perpendicular lava wall
of 600 feet. They we're so let down.
Think for n few little moments Of the
care aud work that this required.
Bnt TO get a road up that 700 feet Of
miscellaneous precipice was the puzzle.
PerrIne had done some surveying aud
n little railroad engineering back in
| Indiana, and he thought he could
build road here BY the use Of much
dynamite, more powder, all the arts Of
removing rock that wouldn't be re-
moved, aud n paradoxical amount Of
persistent work, the road was graded
and built II does much winding i'm
| and out, mp aud down, back and forth.
| aside and across, and ut general
glance it has moro the appearance Of a
stairway than OF a road Yet two-horse
and four-horsc teams easily travel H.
and the traffic that goes mp it aud
down NJ is marvel to the beholder.
Going down this road excites n very
pleasing feeling One cannot sec
! more than twenty steps ahead Now
the horses seem approaching q rocky
wall; now yawning precipice Sud
J denly, without any warming whatever,
the wagon halts almost pcrpeudicularly
| above the beautiful Blue lakes One
could dive into them, so straight are
they below, but it would be dive of
several hundred feet. and II is ride
of several hundred winding yards 60
get beside them These are queer