Visit to Ritter Island…

Decades ago, there was a busy dairy on an island in the Snake River. The island has spectacular views of the many nearby springs erupting from the canyon walls of the Snake River Gorge. The dairy is now a State Park. I can picture it becoming a national historic site some day. The volume of water spilling out from the cliff faces is what prompted early settlers to dam some areas near this island to harvest electrical energy as that became popular. The springs here are particularly large so it made sense back then.

I was in the area staying in Hagerman, and I’d read many brochures that mentioned the 1,000 Springs area so I made time to visit. The area is only 8 miles away from Hagerman, the weather would turn out to be hot later in the day so I headed towards the island and arrived around 10 am.

As I wound my way down the road way from the top of the bluff down to the river, I could see a large spring off in the distance…

Captured a nice telephoto shot of the largest spring in the view I had. In the foreground is a commercial fish hatchery. It was August so no reason to visit that since there’s no fish this time of year.

Some of the works that provide the many turbines with rushing water. Individually, the springs aren’t all that large, so here they captured as much water as they could with a dam bordering several springs and channeled the water down to the spillways and then the turbines.Here is an older, what use to be a private power house, now owned by the state. Back in the day, there were many electrical pioneers that built their own facilities riding the wave of electrical popularity. There are springs nearly everywhere…naming the place 1,000 Springs probably isn’t that much of a stretch. That house in the foreground is on Ritter Island. The homes in the background are all on the other side of the Snake. All those springs created this tributary of the Snake and it feeds into it right here. That’s a lot of water from springs.And here’s some of the electrical works. This is a fully operational power generating plant so you’ll see workmen doing their job around here pretty often. In fact as I headed down the ravine towards the park, there were 3 repair vehicles blocking the road a bit that I had to dodge. They were restringing a power line.
Down at river level, there’s a nice park with parking and you walk over to the State Park across this bridge. It’s gotten too weak to support hundreds of vehicles during a typical day so it’s blocked to traffic now.Here’s one of the views you get from the edge of Ritter Island. Really nice here. And seemingly bug free today. Relaxing too.
And a telephoto shot.And walking along the side of the island, you have this view of the largest of the springs. This is the portion that was dammed for electricity generation and you see why they chose this spot as there’s a lot of force there. And the original farm house the owners built back in the ’20’s? I think? It was closed and locked up when I visited so couldn’t go inside. It is opened to visitors sometimes.
A better look at the building above the falls capturing the spring water to route it through the generators.And to the left of the main spring are many smaller springs just pouring out of the hillside. Pretty neat.It wasn’t that long ago that this was a working dairy farm. Echoes of the past are still here in these old buildings. I’m very happy the state made this a park to protect and preserve it for future generations. While I wandered around this farm, I couldn’t help but recall the many stories mom told of her youth spend on a farm much like this one. Getting up at 3 am to milk the cows in the cold, going back to bed, trying to sleep, getting up in the cold of the unheated farmhouse again to dress for more chores and than off to school. And all the chores after school that kept her and her 3 sisters busy until dinner. Sneaking a peek at her schoolbooks under the covers after being sent to bed (her adopted family thought that girls shouldn’t get an education except for rudimentary stuff). Her stories are why I NEVER felt the urge to ‘return to basics’ and try to get into farming. No thanks. But it was interesting to tour this old place. My mom would have felt right at home here. She described these sort of milking stations. And here’s a nice map of the area. I’m inside the dairy barn at the moment. All those white dots with the blue squiggly lines are springs. I started this self guided tour at the parking lot of course and I’m working my way towards the left side of the map where I’ll get a better view of the Minnie Miller Falls. There no trail around the island that I know of. I would have taken that if I had found a trail. The trail shown as a dotted line on this map is easy, improved, and ends with a view of the falls. Meanwhile, I’m still enjoying seeing the antiques here in the barn. Upstairs is the hay loft. It’s very clean now. I imagine it was a mess before the state took it over and cleaned it up. The structure is still in excellent condition. I couldn’t tell how much the state did to it but I could see some signs of minor restoration. The roofing is new of course.

One neat thing that happened in here is indicated by that hole over in the door at around the height of a door handle or lock.This hole in the door really looks like a little beast gnawed it in the door trying to get out. I imagine a rat or large rodent of some kind got scooped up by a farm hand in a bail of hay and tucked up into the barn. Not much food up here so the little bugger had to gnaw a hole to get out. And here’s the evidence. But s/he had a good view while working. Incentive to keep gnawing probably. So after walking along the creek on what is shown on that map as a dotted line, you end up here where there’s a rest spot for visitors to just sit and ponder this scene. Hundreds of gallons per minute of pure water just gushing out of the hillside. It’s no wonder there were so many Indians who traveled here every year. And no wonder the Europeans laid claim to the area as soon as they could suppress any resistance.

As I wandered the short trail, kept getting more unique picture opportunities.

And on the way back. On the right is the former grazing land for the cattle, then again, it could have been the area where they grew their cash crops. I forget.Stopped at the horse barn. All the tack was still here when the state took it over. Many of the antiques here are original to this farm.The ‘Castle’ form was required by the former owner of the island when the state asked to put in the power plant here. They didn’t want to look at some boring industrial building, so the compromise was the plant disguised as a castle.The porch would have been a great place to hang out on a nice day. This was a dairy farm so there would have been billions of flies and other insects hanging around so the screened porch would be a necessity. Some people might try to romanticize a dairy farm and long to be living on one…not me. Mom cured me of that with her true stories of life on a farm. The screened porch here is another reminder that it wasn’t all sweetness and light on a working farm. Most times it would be downright uncomfortable place to live and miserable place to work. Farms are unrelenting. There’s my car in the lot, and some kids enjoying the creek. They were having the best time. Ahh, the innocent pleasures of youth.And one last shot looking down river, they named this Ritter Creek so I imagine it’s flow is always towards the Snake, not the other way.  And back on the road, climbing the route to the top of the bluff. There’s a couple more areas of springs to stop and enjoy along the way.Looking back down onto Ritter Creek in the foreground, the Snake in the background. Many many springs just gushing out of the hillside. These are right next to the roadway. From those springs a look directly up the hillside to show how steep it is and how high.
A curious cave with what looks like a cement wall on one side. Maybe a long forgotten pioneer tried to harness this set of springs?And that was the end of my visit. I think I took around 2 hours to tour the place. Very much worth the effort to come here. What a beautiful place to live, I envy those that did and do.

Thanks for visiting and reading my posts! See you again next time.