The Glenns Ferry water tank reads, "A hometown community, where the past meets the future."

This weekend, campgrounds were packed. Fish jumped and almost begged to be caught. Deer walked along trails, uncharacteristically calm around people.

Huge swans adorned the Snake River. But the young women dressed as members of Native American tribes on painted horses reminded people that historical artifice loomed on the horizon.

Approximately 1,500 people descended on Three Island Crossing State Park in Glenns Ferry for the annual re-enactment of Oregon Trail pioneers figuring out how to cross the Snake River.

It's a weekend-long commemoration, that began Friday with live music and food in the park and continues through church services being held in the park this morning.

The most prominent feature of the weekend, the river crossing, took about 30 minutes Saturday morning.

Pioneers used two of the three islands as guides and break points in order to cross until Gus Glenn finished the construction of a ferry in 1869, making it unnecessary to do things the old-fashioned way.

That hasn't deterred the Three Island Crossing Committee - which, for the past 23 years, has organized re-enactments of the traversed obstacle.

A team of outriders on horses and mules surrounded a horse-drawn covered wagon.

They waited and watched on the south side. Several hundred people waited for them on the other side.

Terry Parish, who calls himself "announcer, the narrator, whatever," used a PA system to yell across the river to wagon driver Roy Allen, "Now get in."

After some hesitated pauses, they entered the river. Parish provided play-by-play announcing duties, using words like "dadgummit" and cryptic Old West phrases such as "belly up on my duck."

After maneuvering around one of the islands, an outrider and his mule were quickly submerged. Rescue crews from the Coast Guard and the Elmore County Sheriff's Office rushed to save them.

A man in the crowd dismissed it, suggesting it was staged when he muttered, "Reality TV" and walked away.

But, though it wasn't clear to observers or organizers at the time, the mule died.

"The last I heard everything was fine. I just heard that a rider went off his horse," Park Manager John Frank said.

"It was a mule. We lost a mule today," Three Island Crossing Committee Chairman Dale Smith said.

Jean Allen, another member of the committee, offered details of the mule's demise.

"They practiced - the mule and Dave Dineen. He was the rider, and he's fine. It was just one of those fluke things," she said. "The rescuers were right on top of it, trying to get hold of the mule, but it was too late."

The mule hadn't practiced the full crossing before.

"It had been in the deep water, though," she said.

"As soon as their noses get in the water, they think they're going to drown," Parish said. "You get into a panic mode, but you just have to get off him and let him swim. You can't hang on to him like that guy did."

A week ago, during practice, a horse - called Torpedo - died, but it had nothing to do with crossing the river.

"She died from eating something in the water - some kind of parasite-carrying bug that lives in the moss," Parish said.

Most people didn't know about the mule and enjoyed food, live music, and the re-enactment of an Old West shootout."

The Hammett Valley Gunfighters set up a bar scene, complete with a woman dressed in, to put it euphemistically, saloon clothes. Men dressed as authentic cowboys drank fake shots and pretended to play cards as two similarly dressed men entered, exchanging the following dialogue:

Parish explained the relevance and importance of the event weekend event.

"We've lost people from the pioneer generation, and we're losing people who have a connection to it," he said. "Modern culture needs to realize how difficult life was - and we need to get the stories right."

Damon Hunzeker can be reached at (208) 420-4697 or dhunzeker@magicvalley.com.