Floodpath

by Jon Wilkman

  Mulholland speaks at the dedication of the Owens River Aqueduct, November 5, 1913. (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power)

  The big moment arrived, and the Chief unfurled a banner. Movie cameras cranked as cannons thundered a round of salutes. Men stationed at the top of the Cascades turned two giant wheels to open the spillway gates. After an anxious pause, water emerged and tumbled down the concrete chute. Surrounded by cheers, Mulholland turned to Los Angeles mayor Henry Rose. Gesturing toward the northern mountains and the distant source of the city’s man-made river, the Chief concluded with a simple but dramatic flourish: “There it is. Take it!”20 A brass band ended the ceremonies by playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”21

  It was the greatest day in William Mulholland’s fifty-eight years. He had come a long way from his roving Irish youth and first job as the Zanja Madre ditch tender. Los Angeles, too, was dramatically different from what it had been in 1877, the year young Bill and his brother first rode into town.22 In 1914, Mulholland received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of California. Thirty-seven years before, working his way up the California coast on a sailing ship as a common seaman, entering San Francisco Harbor he had glimpsed the Berkeley campus under construction.23

  After the completion of a man-made river, improbable Los Angeles was poised to become a major American city. To city boosters, the path ahead promised only growth and continued success. However, other forces—social, political, economic, technical, environmental, and personal—would take William Mulholland and Los Angeles to an unexpected destination, hidden deep in San Francisquito Canyon.

  4.

  Holding Back the Future

  When it was completed, the Owens River Aqueduct was the longest liquid transport system in the world, providing Los Angeles with five times more water than the city needed.1 Because of the efficiency of Mulholland’s gravity design, the flow was not only abundant, it was inexpensive. Even before the man-made river delivered its first cupful, other Southern California communities lined up to take swigs. Some city leaders favored building new distribution systems and selling or leasing the surplus. After a brief attempt to remain neutral, Mulholland said no.

  Since the water flowed into a reservoir in the San Fernando Valley, which at the time wasn’t part of Los Angeles and largely owned by real estate syndicates controlled by Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler, and their insider cronies, critics questioned the Chief’s motives and integrity. Mulholland argued that selling or leasing the surplus would put Los Angeles in the position of turning off spigots to other cities if L.A.’s supplies ran low. He was willing to share only if communities agreed to be annexed to Los Angeles, accepting the benefits while adding to the tax base.

  As for the decision to end the Aqueduct in the San Fernando Valley, the Chief’s justification was hydraulic. He argued that a reservoir constructed on the high ground of the north slopes of the Valley was well situated for future gravity-driven distribution. He acknowledged that water from the Aqueduct could increase local agricultural production, but it also filtered into a vast underground aquifer that replenished the Los Angeles River.

  The Chief bristled at insinuations that he was a tool of Otis and his oligarchy, but the San Fernando Valley was among the first “outside” communities to vote in favor of annexation with Los Angeles. Overnight, the city doubled in size as other eager or reluctant towns agreed to expand L.A.’s girth.2 In 1900, the City of Angels comprised forty-three square miles. As a result of seventy-three separate annexation votes, by 1930 the total was 442.3 As one California historian put it, “A major American city had become materialized through engineering, vision, greed, and ferocious force of will.”4

  The Intake of the Owens River Aqueduct (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power)

  By 1914, controversy over Mulholland’s Aqueduct diminished, but the project had yet to face an especially powerful adversary. In January and February, intense rainstorms hit the Antelope Valley, north of Los Angeles. Flash floods undercut concrete supports beneath a two-mile-long section of steel sag pipe and caused it to buckle. As water escaped, the pipe imploded. Most engineers declared the failure a loss that could require a year or more to fix. Mulholland refused to give up so easily.

  Repairs to the support system and conduct were made, and the Chief ordered water turned on. As the pressure increased, the dents began to move, pushing upward until the pipe was round again. It had been estimated that a complete replacement would have run $250,000. The Chief’s approach cost $3,000.5 It was another money-saving accomplishment to add to his legend as the kind of tightfisted public servant that businessmen, taxpayers, and Progressive politicians respected and admired.

  Despite Mulholland’s relatively cheap and successful solution, he knew that weather was never finally defeated. On January 21, 1916, heavy rainfall took a toll on another water project unconnected to Los Angeles and the Owens River Aqueduct—the Lower Otay Dam in San Diego County. It had been designed by a real estate developer, not an engineer. After heavy rains, the rock-fill structure, which included an unusual steel plate, broke apart in five minutes, releasing three billion gallons of water that rushed to the Pacific Ocean, taking the lives of thirty people. Six days later, after another eight to twenty inches of rainfall, the south abutment of the nearby Sweetwater Dam failed, resulting in eight deaths.6 Some blamed the destructive downpours on Charles Hatfield, a self-styled rainmaker hired by the San Diego City Council. Hatfield claimed his secret mix of chemicals could produce cloudbursts. True or not, the rains came, and they were devastating.

  William Mulholland wasn’t interested in Hatfield’s chemicals; he was concerned by the Otay Dam’s design: “This was a very oddly constructed dam,” he told a reporter. “I consider it a very radical departure from any recognized type of dam construction … an experiment.”7 The Chief was unwilling to cast blame before a full investigation was complete, but implied he would never build such an unusual and potentially unsafe structure.

  In response to the twin San Diego County failures, in 1917 California State Engineer W.F. McClure was granted authority over all dams higher than ten feet and all reservoirs that contained more than three million gallons. Exceptions were given to structures used to manage mining debris and dams and reservoirs regulated by California public utilities, which were under the authority of the State Railroad Commission. Most important for autonomy-minded Bill Mulholland, dams planned and built by large municipalities that maintained their own engineering departments were exempt.8 This meant that, given enough funding, cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco could build large dams when, where, and however they wished.

  In San Francisco, another Irish immigrant, Michael Maurice (M.M.) O’Shaughnessy, was city engineer. In 1914, a year after Mulholland celebrated the opening of the Owens River Aqueduct, O’Shaughnessy was supervising construction of the Hetch Hetchy water and power project, which included a 156-mile-long aqueduct and a reservoir that flooded a portion of Yosemite Valley. Unlike his Los Angeles counterpart, the San Francisco engineer was a graduate of the Royal University of Ireland, but the two men shared a dedication to municipal ownership and disdain for oversight and interference from the State Engineer. In a memo written in 1928 to justify his independent attitude, O’Shaughnessy belittled McClure’s experience with dams, declaring, “I did not care to be subject to his capricious rulings.”9 William Mulholland wholeheartedly agreed.

  Constructed with no state supervision and only initial independent consultation, the Owens River Aqueduct experienced problems, but they were quickly repaired. In the first years of service, the apparent success of Mulholland’s pipeline confounded critics. Despite ominous predictions, after initial testing there were no catastrophic failures. Without losses from excess evaporation, water traveled the 233-mile-long journey safely. No one was sickened by pollution or stricken with typhoid fever. Even the level of discontent in the Owens Valley appeared to subside. And the benefits to Los Angeles had hardly beg
un.

  In 1917, Powerhouse 1 went online in San Francisquito Canyon. Now, along with a new source of water, L.A. had a supply of municipally owned electricity. With little need for the services of Southern California Edison, the city offered $12 million for SCE’s local facilities. The private utility wasn’t pleased to lose the business, but it had little choice. Edison continued to serve customers beyond the borders of Los Angeles, and shared transmission lines with L.A.’s Bureau of Power and Light, but public-private competition for hydroelectric resources didn’t end, particularly in the area around the Owens Valley.

  As L.A.’s water and power infrastructure became increasingly complex, the Board of Los Angeles Public Services Commissioners announced plans to reorganize administrative operations. Two separate agencies were defined, the Bureau of Water Works and Supply (BWWS), with Bill Mulholland in charge, and the Bureau of Power and Light (BPL), under the leadership of Ezra Scattergood.

  Mulholland was sixty-one, an old man for his day. With respect and the future in mind, the Chief’s friend, BWWS Board Chairman R.F. Del Valle, wrote a report that speculated about the future: “As much as we regret it, the time will come when our chief engineer, Mr. Mulholland, whose place we can never hope to equal with a man of his capabilities, may consider that his life’s greatest work is ended and may sever his business relations with the department.”10 Retirement? The Chief said he’d think about it. When it came to water, it was hard to imagine Los Angeles without him, and no one had the will or power to change that. Making it happen would require more than a reshuffled bureaucracy.

  William Mulholland had full confidence in his ability to manage whatever the future would bring. He had spent his entire career racing change. It wasn’t long before the pace picked up. Again, L.A. was growing faster than expected. More water was needed from the Owens Valley. When the Chief drilled wells in city-owned land, Valley residents were alarmed. Without the secret dealings of 1905, Los Angeles faced a very different political and economic environment. If local landowners and business interests believed they had been taken once, they were determined to make sure it didn’t happen again.

  Most of the city’s initial purchases were marginal land, used to graze livestock, not grow crops. The soil was alkaline and the growing season short. As a result, many subsistence farmers and ranchers were more than willing to sell. By the early 1920s, Los Angeles representatives of the BWWS Right of Way and Land Division wanted to acquire irrigated property, which was more valuable. With W.B. Mathews leading the negotiations, representatives of Los Angeles hoped for a comprehensive deal. The city was most interested in Long Valley, which included property owned by Fred Eaton.

  Located in an area at the northern headwaters of the Owens River, Long Valley was considered an ideal location for a dam and large reservoir, important components of Mulholland’s plans to store as much water as possible to manage flow through the Aqueduct and to provide backup during years when the Sierra snowpack was less than adequate.

  If Los Angeles could make a deal, Mulholland agreed to consider a plan to allow surplus from the Long Valley Reservoir to be made available for local ranching and agricultural irrigation.11 Valley interests were led by Inyo County activists Wilfred Watterson and his younger brother Mark, prominent bankers from the town of Bishop.

  The Watterson family came to America in 1869 from the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea between England and Northern Ireland. In California, William Watterson, Wilfred and Mark’s father, operated a successful sheep-ranching operation. In 1896, Wilfred purchased a small hardware store in Bishop and turned it into a profitable enterprise. The store had the only safe in town, and customers felt secure depositing their savings there. This led to the establishment of a formal bank, headed by Wilfred as president and his brother Mark as treasurer/cashier. By the 1920s, the brothers’ banking business was a trusted and influential Inyo Valley institution, with six branches, and they had expanded into other enterprises, including mining operations and a local Ford automobile dealership.12 If the Owens Valley had a social, political, and business establishment comparable to L.A.’s oligarchy, it was the Watterson family.

  The Watterson brothers in the family bank. Mark far left; Wilfred, second from left (Eastern California Museum)

  It wasn’t surprising that Owens Valley residents listened when the brothers urged a strong stance against Mulholland and the City of Los Angeles. The Wattersons intended to close L.A.’s access to the upper Owens River, and perhaps even turn off the spigot to the entire Aqueduct. Mark, the more gregarious of the brothers, was good at organizing support, but he followed his older sibling’s strategic lead.13

  Wilfred and his allies came up with a scheme to join individual landowners into a single, locally controlled irrigation district located above the Aqueduct intake. Such a united front would stymie Mulholland’s plans to exercise L.A.’s legal rights to acquire upper Owens Valley river property and water rights. To provide the money needed to make this happen, Valley residents enthusiastically approved a $425,000 bond issue.

  Fred Eaton also wanted to maximize his leverage with the city. He already had sold a portion of his Long Valley land, but he set conditions before he’d release the rest. Mulholland wanted to build a 100-foot-high dam to create a reservoir. Eaton wanted a 150-foot-high structure, which would flood more of the former L.A. mayor’s property. He hoped to coerce Los Angeles into paying top dollar for the land needed to build the larger reservoir. Mulholland, still feuding with his old mentor and friend, insisted the terrain could only support a 100-foot-high dam, even though other engineering studies disagreed.14 The situation became a standoff between two determined and stubborn men.

  Faced with Eaton’s recalcitrance, while he was building the Aqueduct, Mulholland continued plans for a reservoir at Haiwee Meadows, about sixty miles south of the intake. Divided into two basins, the Haiwee Reservoir was designed to hold enough water to supply the city for eighty days.15 When it was finished, Haiwee was the largest reservoir in California. But owning Long Valley would have given Mulholland much more storage and supply-management capability.

  In the early 1920s, with obstinacy between representatives of Los Angeles and the Owens Valley, negotiations were going nowhere. Some Los Angeles city leaders, including legal counsel W.B. Mathews, were willing to accept the possibility of independent arbitration, but Mulholland had had enough of what he considered intransigence and opportunism. When buyers for Owens Valley irrigation district bonds proved to be elusive, the Watterson brothers’ idea stalled. Hopes for a dam and reservoir at Long Valley, capable of supplying water for Los Angeles as well as Valley ranchers and farmers, drained away.

  In 1924, as drought conditions continued, the flow through the Owens River Aqueduct diminished. Output dropped 50 percent compared to levels in 1922. Mulholland accelerated a dramatically expanded control and conservation strategy. He launched a large-scale program to build dams and water-storage facilities closer to Los Angeles, far from the uncertainties of the Owens Valley, and south of the treacherous San Andreas earthquake fault. The Chief’s ambitious schedule called for the completion of seven new dams and storage basins before the end of 1926.16

  Mulholland’s response to L.A.’s growing water needs was even more far-reaching. He was looking beyond the Owens Valley. As early as 1923, he made an unpublicized survey of the water and power potential of the Colorado River. Searching for a site for a large dam and reservoir, and a route for another aqueduct, Mulholland knew the Colorado wouldn’t be easily tapped. In 1905, when real estate interests dug a canal to irrigate the Imperial Valley, east of San Diego, the river rebelled. During a heavy downpour, a flood ran unchecked for twenty months, creating a saline lake known as the Salton Sea.

  Despite this lesson in history and hydrology, the Chief and the City of Los Angeles weren’t the only parties interested in exploiting the resources of the Colorado River. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had begun to imagine an ambitious plan to harness the Colorado and transform
the American Southwest. Large dams played an essential role in the Bureau’s vision. The Roosevelt Dam, built in Arizona in 1911, was one of the first. When cost overruns plagued the project, private-enterprise advocates increased their outspoken opposition to government involvement in water and power development.17 Thirteen years later, facing similar anti-government antagonism in Los Angeles, Mulholland kept his eyes on the Colorado River and sharpened his focus on the bottom line.

  Harry Chandler, the most prominent leader of the Los Angeles oligarchy, knew the value of a dollar, and he was adept at playing the angles between public and private interests. After the death of Harrison Gray Otis in 1917, Chandler assumed control of the Los Angeles Times. If the crusty General represented the rawboned Los Angeles of the nineteenth century, Harry Chandler was a more subtle power broker, just as tough as his bombastic father-in-law and even more devoted to the future of the City of the Angels and the profits made possible by an expanding twentieth-century supply of water and power.

  Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler (left) greets rival newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection)

  In 1923, the Times owner was a key player in an investment syndicate to develop a housing tract in the hills above Hollywood. A year later, a huge advertisement was erected to introduce and pitch the project. It consisted of a single word spelled with fifty-foot-high letters: HOLLYWOODLAND. Made from flimsy plywood and supported by telephone poles, the sign could be seen for miles across the flatlands of Los Angeles. To attract more attention, Chandler had another bright idea. He surrounded the HOLLYWOODLAND letters with flashing electric lights, making his unusual billboard visible day and night.18