On monument with wife Mary and infant Mortimer Perkins.

"The Palermo Colony: In February, 1888, the ditch system now known as the Palermo system was offered for sale. The cessation of hydraulicking had also made serious inroads on the income from that ditch. E. W. Fogg was approached in the matter. The firm of Perkins and Wise at that time owned about five thousand acres of land where Palermo now lies; and Mr. Fogg tipped off the fact to D.K. Perkins. Within twenty-four hours Perkins had made a deal for the purchase of the ditch. Perkins and Wise, in turn, sold the ditch and their lands to the McAfee Brothers, of San Francisco, and the Palermo Colony was launched. Through the McAfee Brothers, Senator George Hearst was interested in the colony and became a heavy investor. Source: History of Butte County 1918 by Geo. C. Mansfield, page 303-304.

"Navigation of the Feather: The navigability of the Feather River to Butte Ferry, eight or ten miles below Oroville, was proposed in a bill submitted to the legislature in 1883. In 1882, a number of enterprising citizens of Gridley had built a small steamer called "The Belle of Gridley," to navigate the Feather River for the purpose of carrying grain. The enterprise, however, was without success. In September, 1882, D.K. Perkins built a small boat, and employed a man to take sounding of the channel. He zigzagged down the river to Yuba City. The shallowest water was eighteen inches deep. The stream had an average depth of two feet." Source: History of Butte County 1918 by Geo. C. Mansfield, page 308.

"The Flood of 1881: On February 4, 1881, Oroville was visited by a disastrous flood. The water, at its highest, was reported to be as high as in the flood of 1862. The water works, the gas works, and one hundred twenty feet of the Feather River Bridge were washed out. Over the break in the river, a suspension bridge was immediately installed. There was high water all over the county, but Oroville suffered most severely from this flood. There had already been a severe rainfall, and the river, which had been in flood, had been falling for thirty-six hours when it began to rise again. There was a warm rain falling, the thermometer standing at sixty degrees. The river came up rapidly, and by the middle of the afternoon the water was in Montgomery Street. That street soon became a raging torrent, and the water rose to Bird Street, east of Myers Street. 'Immense timbers, logs, cabins, fences, hogs, chickens, furniture passed by in all stages of wreck,' said the Mercury in describing the scene. On Wednesday morning a huge lock struck the north pier of the bridge, shattering it badly. The Biggs stage, however, crossed the bridge safely. At three o'clock in the afternoon the pier gave way and the north end of the bridge fell with a crash into the river.

"Earlier in the day six men, D.K. Perkins, R. Lloyd, Charles Toland, W. Morgan, and two others, had gone to the gas works to save what could be saved there. They found their retreat cut off by the rapid rise of the river, and that six or eight feet of rushing water was between them and safety. A block and tackle was rigged up in an ineffectual attempt to rescue them. Then a flat-bottomed boat was procured, and Major Jones and Frank Peachy volunteered to man the craft. They tried several times before they could reach the imperiled men. Finally the six men, one at a time, slid by the cable to the boat, where the account says 'they were picked off' by Messrs. Jones and Peachy; and their rescue was thus effected." Source: History of Butte County 1918 by Geo. C. Mansfield, page 319

"In 1884, D. Perkins and James C. Gray started a cannery in Oroville." Source: History of Butte County 1918 by Geo. C. Mansfield, page 321.