The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-12-29

miles from the homes of the settlers
from the parching land they found
Jackson lake and Jackson lake was
the opportunity. More blue prints
were made, more estimates were pre-
pared, more maps were traced and
thus was the Snake River Storage
Project" to impound the early snow
floods, to give more water 10 Mini
doka begun.
In the Grand Tetons.
Away over in Uinta county, Wyo.,
1888 feet above the sea, in Jackson
Hole, where the Grand Tetons tower
sheer 5000 feet above the placid, ice
cold waters of the lake, and shut
out the western sun-where the Gros
Ventres rugged, picturesque, sublime,
shadow the eastern shore with their
straight rock walls-came human en-
ergy, human determination, human
effort, backed with a half million dol
lars of government money, inspired
by the thought of the little homes
away down on the Minidoka project,
and begun to build another dam
this time a great lake should be held
back until the dry season should
come to the fields down where men
were tilling the soil. This time the
government spoke one short word
and that word Haste"
"Haste"-and a dam A feet high.
1915 feet long, across the neck Of
Jackson lake, where the South Fork
slips out to begin it's journey to join
the North Fork and become then the
mighty make river.
"Haste"-and 10000 cubic yards
of earth and rock and 5000 cubic
yards of concrete to be fashioned in
to a mighty barrier to the progress
of the waters sent down by summers
melting SHOWS and create a man-maGe
reservoir covering $4,000 acres ana
that too where winter locked the
hills and the river and the lake in
a grip of ice from October to early
June-where six feet of snow cov-
ers for months the earth and for
weeks the mercury sulks 35 to 40 de-
grees below zero. But the govern
ment had spoken-the settlers must
have water-and the men whose duty
it is to do things, to conquer, simply
obey.
Railroad is Built.
So, a road was built for 81 of the
81 miles to Jackson lake from Ash
ton, where the railroad came with
the things needed for the great work,
that freight teams might drag over
the mountains, machinery and food
and equipment. That the vast amount
of things needed for the mighty effort
might be assembled, even though in
the assembling the weary team to'led
up, up, and over the Teton pass
and in the fastness of the hills trod
for months on Is feet of snow
breathed the killing breath of frost
struggling over the SUBMITS and
down to the lake.
A town had to be built, for many
men we're needed and they must be
provided for. A saw mill was freight
ed in and set up and steam tow to
swing the logs across the lake to the
mill site, where a million and a half
feet of lumber vas cut, was launched
and on August 16, 1910, the mill
was started and actual work on the
Jackson lake dam, "the Snake River
Storage Project" was begun. The
goth day of November, 1911, just Is
months and four days later the
Jackson Lake reservoir, $4,000 acres
in area and with a holding capacity |
of 100000 acre feet, was a reality
And next summer when the dry
comes to the Minidoka coun-
the crops are calling for
more water, when the great Snake
river begins to lessen it's flow BECAUSE
of the manifold and immense de-
mands of the hundreds of thousand OF
fertile acres that its waters flush
then the cables on the 20 Taintor
gates in the Jackson Lake dam will
the gates will come up and
10000 second feet of stored water
will fill the South Fork channel to
it's brim at the outlet of Jackson
lake and rush down the river beo
to replenish the greater rlver-give
than ample moisture to every
acre.
1t sounds simple. You sitting be-
side your warm hearth with comforts.
with pleasures of home around you,
feel a glow of satisfaction that an
other big government enterprise has
been completed-that more Idaho
acres will produce vaster volume of
soil wealth, the state will be richer