David Blossom, Canal Engineer
An important man in the making of the Aberdeen-Springfield Canal
7/8/20262 min read
If you had to isolate one man as being the keystone of the American Falls Canal's success (now the Aberdeen-Springfield) you might name Vermonter D.H. Blossom, the engineer who came to the enterprise along with Glenn Bothwell and Robert McConaughy, the administrative geniuses of the canal (who, like many business moguls at that time, worked behind the scenes and left little public trace that we can resummon today). They came to southeast Idaho in 1905 to transform the American Falls Canal construction from a floundering, short-on-capital project into the completed and functioning irrigation system we now know.
Blossom oversaw the project for five years, then was enlisted to manage the canal as it was renamed and handed over to the shareholding irrigators in 1910. He would continue to be involved into the thirties, even as he also worked at the Lost River irrigation project, the Peoples' West SIde (AKA Highline) extension through the lavas northwest of Moreland, the King Hill irrigation project, and mining enterprises in Nevada. Oh, he also served as a city engineer at Salt Lake for a period of time.
Blossom would be given credit by the descendants of John DeGiulio (the 'Bank of Pingree') as being instrumental in DeGiulio's success. The two of them became friends during Blossom's stint managing the canal, with Blossom identifying properties coming up for auction due to the Depression and other failed efforts by early homesteaders. DeGiulio was able to buy many of these properties which he then transferred to others, often bankrolling their purchases.
Blossom's omnipresence in the area inspired his fictional namesake in my novel 'Big Southern'. His imaginary doppelganger's life witnesses the building of the 'Skeen' Canal and the change in the countryside that eventually turned a desert into a sprinkler-irrigated sprawl covering hundreds of thousands of acres. His travels take him to the Big Southern, to the flats before the reservoir overcomes them, to the Snake River Plain at Taber and Rising River as technology overcomes elevation to irrigate the fertile desert.
Both the fictional and real Blossom were bachelors for a goodly portion of their lives, though the fictional Daniel Blossom never married (and had his flings) while the real David Blossom tied the knot late in his life (he was 59) with Florence Snevely, the rowing coach for the Connecticut women's college team. They lived in Florida through the nineteen-fifties before their deaths.
