The WPA Guide to Idaho by Federal Writers' Project

Author:Federal Writers' Project [Project, Federal Writers']
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, West (AK; CA; CO; HI; ID; MT; NV; UT; WY)
ISBN: 9781595342102
Google: lVTpCAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Published: 2013-10-31T03:38:02+00:00

Section b. POCATELLO to BOISE; 263 m.

This section of Tour 3 lies through the Snake River Valley and roughly parallels the river during most of its length. The road is hard surfaced throughout. Customary accommodations.

US 30 N goes north and west out of Pocatello. Upon the right 6 m. is the airport, and running north on the west side of it is a country lane.

Right on this lane is the MEADER TROUT FARM, 1 m., well worth a visit. Visitors are welcome but they must leave before sundown, for at this hour several huge savage dogs are freed to patrol the properties during the night. This plant has several ponds, and any time after spring spawning, hundreds of trout (chiefly rainbow) of all sizes are to be seen here, with so many in any pond that the water is black with them. These fish are fed chiefly with horseflesh, and in every year dozens of wornout hacks are slain and ground up and stored in the cold rooms of the farm’s hydroelectric plant.

To the right now, but not visible, is Snake River, which is tributary to the Columbia, but larger than it. Flowing a distance of 1000 miles and forming 42 per cent of the Columbia River system, it drains 109,000 square miles, including western Wyoming, all of Idaho except the north and the extreme southeastern corner, the northwest corner of Utah, the northeast corner of Nevada, eastern Oregon, and the southeast corner of Washington. The extreme length or breadth of its basin is 450 miles. For more than half its distance it flows through a gorge, and has already upon it and its feeders 80 reservoirs with a combined storage capacity of 5,700,000 acre-feet. In addition to these, there are 96 known but undeveloped sites with an estimated storage capacity of 7,746,000 acre-feet, and 70 hydroelectric plants which use less than one tenth of its potential power. It is fed by 56 rivers, 17 of which are regarded as major tributaries, and by 74 large creeks. Its source is in the southeast corner of Yellowstone Park at an elevation of 9600 feet. It flows southward through Wyoming to the Hoback River, where it swings westward into a deep canyon that runs to the Idaho-Wyoming Line. Its first 61 miles in Idaho lie in a canyon, but at Heise it opens upon the Snake River Valley, and for 200 miles to Milner is not deeply intrenched. At Milner it cuts a gorge for 200 miles to emerge again at Enterprise and flow over a plain to Huntington, where again for 189 miles it lies far below the surrounding terrain. At Lewiston it enters Washington and flows 141 miles to its junction with Columbia River at Pasco.

Geologists have varied opinions regarding the Snake River plains and the course the Snake River pursued prior to the great glacial period, for at places the original river bed is miles from its present site and is found even on the ridges of mountains, which points to tremendous upheavals of later dates.

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