Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles

by Standiford, Les

  While the latter argument is sometimes still raised by Mulholland’s critics, there are certain issues involved that would seem to go beyond personal feelings. Mulholland was always fearful of promising or delivering the city’s water to places from which it might have to be reclaimed. Even if the city did not need all the water to be stored in a proposed Long Valley Reservoir in 1923, it could need it someday. And taking it back would be a vastly complicated, even impossible process, for once the water was employed for a specific use in the valley, prevailing law would make it difficult for Los Angeles to reclaim it.

  A 100-foot dam costing little could be justified, but a 150-foot dam (especially one that in Mulholland’s mind required the payment of an extortionate $1 million for acquisition of the lands) was simply beyond the pale. To put it simply—and as even critic William Kahrl agrees—Mulholland never believed that a Long Valley Reservoir could supply both the demands of the Owens Valley and the City of Los Angeles in the long run. It could possibly be useful as a source of hydroelectric power, but given the obstructionist stance of private power companies in the valley, that seemed unlikely as well.

  Meantime, the steadily dropping water table had made pumping on city-owned lands farther south around Independence impractical, and the Public Service Commission redoubled its efforts to purchase more promising lands in the Bishop area. Finally, a group of property owners along the McNally Ditch, a sizable irrigation canal, agreed to sell their lands to the city for a price totaling more than $1 million. It might have marked the collapse of the Watterson Brothers’ attempts to stand against the city, except for the fact that the headgates to the McNally Ditch were located well north of the aqueduct diversion point at Charley’s Butte.

  Even if the McNally waters were turned back into the river, the owners of all the irrigation canals in between the McNally and the aqueduct intake, including the sizable Big Pine Canal, vowed to simply suck that water through their own gates. The practice amounted to theft, but among local ranchers it became a running joke that it was certainly good of the city to spend $1 million to solve their water shortage.

  For its part, the city devised an ingenious solution. Since the headgates of the Big Pine Canal lay on a spot where the Owens River took a slight jog to the east before turning again and continuing south, earthmoving equipment was sent out to a point just above those headgates. The intention was to dig a diversion canal across the narrow U of land and bypass the entry to the Big Pine Canal altogether.

  When the city’s intention became clear, a group of property owners hurried to the home of George Warren, Big Pine’s representative for water dealings. “We need to get an injunction,” one of the property owners shouted. Warren nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “We’re going to get a shotgun injunction.” With that, Warren led an armed group to confront workmen at the work site, and after a brief negotiating session the city’s equipment somehow found its way to the bottom of the Owens River and the workmen were on their way back south.

  It was a stirring victory, but one that proved short-lived. The city countered by reopening negotiations with property owners along the Big Pine ditch and by October 15, 1913, the largest part of Big Pine water was conveyed to Los Angeles, which had purchased 4,416 acres for a total of $1.1 million, or about $250 an acre, more or less the value of what prime irrigated land was selling for in the San Fernando Valley at the time. Though those who held out were never denied their historical share of irrigation water, the political situation in the Owens Valley had reached a tipping point. While some valley citizens consoled themselves with attempts to force city land agents into offering higher prices for lands, other residents were outraged by what they saw as stop-at-nothing tactics employed by an uncaring municipality intent on destroying life as it was known in the Owens Valley.

  With the acquisition of additional water rights in the Owens Valley having eased the immediate water crisis somewhat, Mulholland turned his attention for the remainder of 1923 and early 1924 to campaigning for the Colorado water project, as well as to projects involving improvement of the existing system, including plans for a sizable storage impoundment to be created by the St. Francis Dam. As a vote on the Boulder Dam project approached, a series of articles appeared in the San Francisco Call in late March and early April, calling attention to what was described as “the tragedy of the Owens Valley.” The writer, Court Kunze, married to a Watterson sister and former coeditor of the Owens Valley Herald, painted the citizens of the valley as being at the mercy of Los Angeles tyrants: Fred Eaton had been “ruthless” in his dealings with the valley people, Kunze declared, and Mulholland “has conceived himself in the role of a Pasha whose Armenian province was the Owens River Valley.” Still, Kunze said, all could be made right if only a 150-foot dam was built at Long Valley.

  It can only be imagined what Mulholland thought were the true motives of the writer, but the pieces proved popular and were reprinted widely throughout the state. Whether the articles were responsible for what happened next is impossible to determine, but one thing is certain: on May 21, 1924, the first salvo in what has been immortalized as the “Owens Valley Water Wars” was fired.

  LET THE BOMBINGS BEGIN

  AT ABOUT 1:30 IN THE MORNING, THE QUIET DESERTSCAPE in the Alabama Hills north of Lone Pine was rocked by an explosion. A 500-pound charge of dynamite blew away a 100-foot section of the concrete aqueduct, loosing river waters across the adjacent scrub lands, and bringing Mulholland quickly to the scene to survey the damage. The blast drew renewed attention to charges levied by the San Francisco Call, and Mulholland was reviled in Owens Valley papers with renewed vigor as “King of the Home Destroyers.” Though a reward of $10,000 for the saboteurs was offered, and the perpetrators were widely assumed to be disgruntled valley residents, no one was ever caught.

  Reports of the incident reminded readers that there had been negotiations between property owners in the Owens Valley and the city since 1913, and that there were about 5,000 residents in the more northerly portions there who claimed to be dependent for their livelihoods on Owens River water. An unidentified source within the city’s power bureau acknowledged the hardships that the loss of water might effect upon the valley’s agricultural economy, but chalked it up as a question that had to be answered by the dictum of the greatest good for the greatest number. “Individual owners can be compensated,” the source said, “but there is an essential conflict between the life of the aqueduct, which is the life of this city, and the agricultural prosperity of the Owens River Valley.”

  Mulholland told reporters that the real force at work in the Owens Valley was not desperation but greed. “There is a movement afoot to force us into acquiring rights in the Owens River Valley at prices which we have not been willing to consider,” the Chief said. “The real grievance in the valley is caused not by what we have bought but what we have declined to buy, and the real terror in the valley is not that we will acquire more but that we will turn to the Colorado River [to meet future needs].”

  In August, the Public Service Commission released a report showing that the city had become the owner of fully half of the irrigable land in the Owens Valley—about 27,000 acres—and that the total valuation of property in Inyo County had risen from about $2 million in 1905 to more than $10 million. Rather than “ruining” the valley, the report said, the city was actually improving it. In 1923, the city would be paying almost a quarter of all taxes received in the county, an amount equal to the total tax revenues in 1905, or $70,000.

  None of this did much to allay passions in the Owens Valley. On Wednesday, August 27, Lester Hall, a local attorney suspected of helping wildcat property owners sell to the city, dropped into a Bishop restaurant for dinner. Scarcely was he seated at the counter than a group approached. Hall, who’d already been threatened a number of times, reached for the pistol he carried, but he was too late.

  One man snatched his pistol away and another put an arm around his throat. In seconds, Hall was dragged throu
gh the restaurant doors and flung into the back of a waiting car that sped off into the desert south of town.

  Though no one spoke at first, there was no mistaking the meaning of the coil of rope that lay on the floorboards of the car. When the car, now part of a convoy, finally pulled off beneath a cottonwood tree on a deserted stretch just above Big Pine, about fifteen miles from Bishop, Hall was ready for the worst.

  He was dragged out of the car, and the rope was tossed over an overhanging limb. It was all made worse by Hall’s having recognized most of the men in the group that surrounded him, more than twenty strong by now. “For God’s sakes,” he said. “I’m 52 years old. I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. If you do this, it’ll be on your consciences the rest of your lives.”

  As a last resort, Hall, a member of a fraternal organization that included most of the men who surrounded him, made a gesture of distress meant to rally support from fellow members. There was a murmur from the group, and its leader stepped aside to confer with a pair of his lieutenants.

  After a moment that seemed for Hall to stretch forever, the ringleader, a man Hall had known for most of his life, approached. “We’ve told you to leave the valley,” the man said. “You haven’t, but you’ll have another chance. Are we clear?”

  They were more than clear. Hall was tossed back into the car and taken to Big Pine to the home of local Chamber of Commerce president George Warren. The next morning, C. C. Collins, the sheriff of Inyo County, came by to escort Hall to the railway station from which he made his way to Glendale, where he would spend the remainder of his days.

  When the story hit the papers, Los Angeles reporters approached Mulholland, who was scheduled to make a fence-mending trip, along with members of the Public Service Commission, to the valley the following Tuesday. Was the Chief thinking of cancelling his plans, reporters asked, given what had happened to Hall? Mulholland snorted. He’d been receiving threatening letters from the Owens Valley for years, he said, and he’d been assured recently that he would be killed if he went up there next week. If he let such things influence his behavior, he would never get anything done. “They wouldn’t have the nerve,” he added. He was going to the Owens Valley and that was that.

  At this Owens Valley summit, which took place on the twenty-year anniversary of the now sixty-eight-year-old Mulholland’s first trip to the region with Fred Eaton, George Warren, Hall’s savior and head of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Inyo, told the visitors, “We know if you take away the water from the land you have already bought and give Big Pine nothing in return, we are ruined,” he said. “We expect a square deal from the City of Los Angeles and believe we are going to get it.” Warren was referring to a hoped-for reparations settlement to Owens Valley businessmen who had been hurt by the exodus of settlers from the valley as a result of the city’s land buyouts. While property owners might indeed be satisfied to take the city’s money and run, Warren pointed out that local businessmen had no such option.

  In fact, by the city’s own figures, the Bishop area suffered a 20 percent decrease in population in the 1920s, causing six elementary schools to close and another six to be consolidated. Though the city began a program of leasing some farms back to tenants, the terms were for only five years, discouraging anyone with long-term interests and limiting most leaseholds to the planting of hay and alfalfa. Only forty-three such leases had been granted, and some businessmen and professionals complained that they had lost as much as 50 percent of their income. The hope was that the city would reimburse business owners for the present value of their property should future damage result from turning off water to ranches in the area.

  In addition, a consortium of local property owners urged that the city simply complete the purchase of all private land in the Owens Valley and put an end to all the uncertainty. “Our property values have depreciated to the vanishing point, insofar as any purchaser except the City of Los Angeles is concerned, and outside capital is no longer available,” a statement prepared by local banker Wilfred Watterson read. “Renewal of mortgages is no longer possible; the Federal Land Bank refuses absolutely to grant further loans; fire insurance companies have withdrawn from the field; our rural population is decreasing; farms are deserted; former homes untenanted are left to the ravages of the elements; school districts have lapsed; others are going; the number of teachers of course has decreased; and some of our best citizens have forsaken the valley on account of its problematical future.”

  Mulholland assured the group that the city was looking elsewhere for its future needs, including the Colorado River and a second aqueduct to Mono Lake, which drained the Sierra in the next valley north of the Owens, and he stated his sympathies for local residents. “The people are entitled to justice,” he said, “and justice they shall have.” In the end, it was determined that the Big Pine committee would put a specific reparations proposal together and submit it to the City of Los Angeles at a date in the near future.

  For a short period there was hope that a compromise might be worked out—the valley would have been willing to settle for a buyout of $8 million for all remaining private lands and a settlement of about $150,000 for businessmen, but Mulholland was opposed to paying that high a price for the land, owing to the fact that a goodly portion of it held no water rights and was thus virtually worthless. In his eyes, he was not obstructing the “justice” he had spoken of in Bishop, but was defending Los Angeles against unscrupulous individuals who wanted to profit at the expense of city taxpayers. The city’s counterproposal was to ensure a continuing water supply sufficient to irrigate 30,000 acres of valley land, perhaps 10 percent more than was currently supplied—but it was a proposition that residents there found “ridiculous.”

  The matter came to a head on November 16, a little more than a month before the dedication of the scenic Mulholland Highway linking Calabasas with the Cahuenga Pass near Hollywood. On that Sunday morning, a caravan of automobiles carrying about sixty Owens Valley citizens left Bishop to travel nearly sixty miles to the Alabama Gates just above Lone Pine. The men advised the guards at the intake that their presence was no longer required, a suggestion that was readily adopted. In short order, the group had swelled to more than a hundred, and cheers erupted as the gates were opened and the waters turned out onto the valley floor below. For the first time in a decade, the Owens River was once again coursing toward the flats where a vast lake had once stretched.

  When Sheriff Collins arrived at the scene, his request that the men leave had no effect, and Collins saw little hope of forcing the issue. Likely motivated by political expediency as much as by common sense, Collins telegraphed a plea to Sacramento, asserting “the party will disperse and bloodshed be averted only by arrival of State troops.” For his part, Governor Friend William Richardson said he would sleep on the request, suggesting that Collins could try a bit harder to handle the situation. While these political veterans jostled, the entire flow of the aqueduct, at least a full 5 million gallons an hour at that time of year, was being turned out on the desert floor at a cost to the city of about $10,000 a day. Though there was a three-month supply of water stored behind the Haiwee Dam, Mulholland quickly assured the citizens of Los Angeles, the situation was obviously serious.

  Assistant engineer Harvey Van Norman, who had been involved in trying to broker a compromise with valley interests, told reporters, “The group which seized the aqueduct today does not represent the majority of the people of the Owens River Valley,” but anyone who chanced by the scene might have thought differently. The occupying group quickly grew to 350, including a number of women, who came to cook, and their children, who soon were assembled into choirs and makeshift drumming bands. Barbecues were organized and, according to one report, even Sheriff Collins was spotted with a heaping plateful.

  Another report claimed that the town of Bishop was deserted, with a hand-painted sign planted at the city limits stating, “If I am not on the job you can find me at the Aqueduct.” Sheriff Collin
s claimed that he was not taking the situation lightly and issued a second call to the governor for troops. There were easily a hundred sawed-off shotguns stashed among the occupiers, Collins asserted, and unless outside help was sent, he said, “I believe dynamite will be used on the Aqueduct and the water supply of Los Angeles will be in the greatest peril.”

  By Wednesday, the leaders of the occupying force were themselves calling for the governor to send troops, telling reporters that they would “disperse without incident” if state militia came in, and the Inyo County district attorney embarked for a conference in Sacramento with Governor Richardson. In response, the governor wondered what kind of dire situation it was when the rabble-rousers themselves were the ones calling for the quashing of their efforts. Finally, he agreed to send State Engineer W. F. McClure to investigate the situation, but McClure’s most notable action was to join in at a barbecue that fed a crowd of 700.

  The standoff was finally resolved on November 21, five days after it began, when Los Angeles banker J. A. Graves proposed the formation of a mediation panel consisting of three state judges to resolve the claims of Owens Valley property owners and business-owners. With that, the leaders of the takeover agreed to disperse. The spillway at the Alabama Gates was closed, restoring the flow of the aqueduct water, and the occupying citizens went home. In short order, the Wattersons delivered their final proposal to the mediation committee: that the city pay $12 million for the remaining irrigable lands and $5.3 million in reparations claims. J. A. Graves took the Watterson demand under consideration, though he did tell reporters that one of the main questions in the committee’s deliberations would be whether any monies the city agreed to pay would go to farmers of the valley or to a “junta of capitalists” who did their farming through the newspapers and simply wished to cash in on speculative investments by dint of virtual extortion from the city.