Divided back, unused postcard, circa 1911 – 1915. Publisher:  Wesley Andrews, Baker, Oregon. Series or number 305.

Price:  $12.00

 I. B. Perrine’s Blue Lakes Bridge

Started in 1910 and completed in 1911, is the steel bridge seen in this postcard, spanning the Snake River at Blue Lakes. It replaced I. B. Perrine’s ferry and was known as I. B. Perrine’s Blue Lakes Bridge or Perrine’s Bridge, and was a toll bridge until Perrine’s building costs were recovered. It was closed to the public in 1921. Ira Burton Perrine was a renowned fruit rancher and is credited as having founded Twin Falls, Idaho.

Below, a clipping from The Oregon Daily Journal, October 1910, informs readers that the piers for the new bridge were completed, and the work on the structure would soon be undertaken by a Minneapolis company. According to the article, the bridge’s length was going to measure 600 feet.

Watermelon in the desert and where was Blue Lakes?

Below, two newspaper clippings:   On the left, a partial clip from The Evansville Press, September 1906, on Perrine’s mineral-rich fruit ranch where fruits too numerous to mention were grown in the volcanic soil. On the right, a partial article from The Minneapolis Journal, September 1903, and the best description found online of Blue Lakes. According to the unknown journalist, Blue Lake was not a town, but a post office established for the fruit farmer, whose ranch was referred to as Blue Lakes, located about four miles below the Shoshone Falls on the Snake River, north of the city of Twin Falls, and who’s name derives from the two almost pond-size bodies of water, so poetically described below, as “….blue with a blueness that defies description…….the water is sparkling, transparent indigo shading into purple….”  And the million-dollar question in 2017:  Are the lakes still there? (Hopefully someone will comment and let us know.)

Sources:  “Bridge The Snake At Blue Lakes.” The Oregon Daily Journal (Portland, OR). October 30, 1910. Sunday, p. 5. (Newspapers.com)

Matthews, Mychel. “Hidden History:  First Perrine Bridge.” MVMagicValley.com. July 7, 2016. (Web accessed November 18, 2017).

I. B. Perrine. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._B._Perrine (accessed November 18, 2017).

Gardner, Gilson. “Romance Of An Idaho Eden.” The Evansville Press. (Evansville, IN). September 28, 1906. Friday, p. 4. (Newspapers.com).

“An Idaho Romance.” The Minneapolis Journal. September 26, 1903. Saturday, p. 5. (Newspapers.com).