The Water Wheels in New Plymouth, Idaho

This is the first one as your heading west. It sits a little off the road to the south.


A little closer view


Closer...



And here you can see how the Water Wheels actually work, bringing water up above the ditch and dropping it into a chute, that feeds into a tube, that goes to irrigate the fields.



This last photo shows how water goes out both sides of the wheel.

1 IDAHO STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY REFERENCY SERIES NEW PLYMOUTH
Number 984 January 1993

More than one Idaho community was founded as a model for an irrigated farm settlement, but New Plymouth is exceptional among them.

In 1894, a National Irrigation Congress that met in Denver that year decided to find a site where a small town could be developed to show how that kind of planning and accomplishment could best be done. Unlike many new townsite promotions that aspired to create large new commercial centers, this one would retain those advantages available in a small rural setting of several hundred people. After a survey of possibilities in eight western reclamation sites, a Payette Valley location was chosen.

Prominent leaders and planners from Boston, Cleveland, and Chicago arranged for prospective participants to assemble in Chicago to organize that venture in March, and by May they had a colony of 250 families enlisted to participate.

By September this group had reached and organized New Plymouth. In 1896, after only one year of planning, crops were planted and farming began.
A town plat was designed with a central arch, surrounded by one acre holdings for each family arranged around it. Then farms of ten to forty acres surrounded that center.

Parks and public buildings were interspersed among family holdings adjacent to New Plymouth's business center. All of that elaborate planning still is reflected in New Plymouth's eventual development. Later growth has somewhat exceeded New Plymouth's original specifications, but it retains its initial small town design and atmosphere. Because of its location in a fruit and vegetable area, New Plymouth--like Payette, Fruitland, Emmett, and other area communities developed a number of processing and shipping plants for prunes, apples, cherries, peaches, pears, grapes, and a variety of grains and vegetables. It achieved its purpose of demonstrating what model irrigated farming could do during an era before large state and federal projects got underway.

(This information has not been edited.)
Publications--450 N. 4th Street, Boise, ID 83702--208-334-3428

1. http://www.idahohistory.net/Reference%20Series/0984.pdf

The second water Wheel I was able to get some close up pictures of. It was very pretty with yellow daffodils growing in front of it, the perfect photo opportunity.



A close up view of the Wheel.

This is a picture of the third water wheel.

Geography

New Plymouth is located at 43°58%u203214%u2033N, 116°49%u203214%u2033W (43.970689, -116.820449)[1]. Which is about 45 minutes North of Boise Idaho, on the Interstate I-84, take exit 9 and head north on Hwy 30.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.7 square miles (1.8 km²), all of it land.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Plymouth,_Idaho

This are some pictures of the Fourth Water Wheel



Some a little closer...



Showing how they work, bringing the water up in trough's and dumping it out the sides as it gets clost to the top, gravity drops it into another trough, which gravity feeds out from the wheel in flumes to the tubes in the fields.



Into the trough...



Then out to the fields, you can see the flumes in the first picture.

The Fifth Water Wheel, I was not able to get a picture of on this trip. I need to get permission to go to it, as it is on private property that I believe belongs to the Noble Ditch Company. Most of the Canal Roads around the rural areas are private property. Mostly to keep people from damaging them, and to keep kids from swimming in them which is extremely dangerous.

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