Perrin, Robert

Robert Perrin was born around 1837 and served during the Civil War as the commander of an Alabama artillery battery that he personally recruited and equipped. After farming briefly following the war, he relocated to California and Fresno in 1869, where he purchased land, entered the sheep industry alongside Thomas E. Hughes, and introduced M. Theo. Kearney to the area. He co-conceived the upper San Joaquin River canal project to deliver water near Herndon and later became a controlling owner of the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company, helping secure water rights through the acquisition of the Laguna de Tache Grant.

In addition to developing canal systems and pioneering early forest conservation concepts in the 1880s and 1890s, Perrin helped establish the regional water delivery framework before selling his interests and moving to Arizona in 1894. Having previously explored the territory in 1877 despite hostile conditions, he acquired two large land grants in Arizona to expand into sheep and cattle ranching. He retired from active business around 1903, dividing his estate among his brother, Dr. E. B. Perrin, and his sisters, Mrs. S. A. Thornton and Mrs. F. B. Minor, before dying at the age of eighty-one on May 5, 1918, in Williams, Arizona.