Water to the angels

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

of Los Angeles by Les Standiford

Meagan WarnckeWUPP Section MeetingApril 22, 2016

Image courtesy of amazon.com

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William Mulholland

• Born in Belfast, Ireland in 1885• Arrived in Los Angeles in 1877• Oversaw the laying of the first iron water

pipeline in Los Angeles in 1880• Named superintendent of the Los Angeles Water

Department when it was established in 1902• Named chief engineer in 1911 when the

Department was renamed the Bureau of Water Works and Supply

http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw2054.htm Original

photo by the ''Los Angeles Examiner'' in 1924

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Water Issues• Los Angeles River was the primary source of

water, but it came with seasonal scarcity and times of torrential flooding.

• Mullholland believed that improved storage reservoirs, avoiding waste, and conservation would make the river a more reliable source.

• Since his arrival to Los Angeles in 1877, however, the population had quintupled.

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Politics• Some said the city should build its own waterworks,

but only the Los Angeles City Water Company (private company created in 1868 by three L.A. businessmen) was authorized to sell the river’s water

• The company’s lease expired in 1898, but it would take 4 years for negotiations between the company and the city to play out.

• From this, the Los Angeles Water Department was created in 1902, naming Mulholland its superintendent.

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The LA City Waterworks System buildings (January 18, 1898)

Image courtesy of: http://waterandpower.org/museum/LA's_Early_Water_Works_System.html

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Mulholland as Superintendent• 2 principal items on his agenda:– Construction of a underground storage facility above

the Glendale Narrows– Installing meters on every customer’s line

• Once the pumps for the storage facility were online it was quickly discovered that excess water from the lines were being discharged through faulty gates into the system’s sewer lines.

• 9 million gallons of water were being lost each day.

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Beginnings of the Los Angeles Aqueduct

• Mulholland reached out to Fred Eaton, ex-mayor of Los Angeles, who had always had the idea of bringing water down from the Owens River into Los Angeles

• They set out several times to survey the land to see if the idea would work.

• On the 2nd trip they brought reporters, the city clerk, and some of the L.A. councilmen.

• Mulholland and Eaton both agreed that geography would make it easy for the water from Owens River to travel the 235 miles to Los Angeles by the force of gravity pulling it down the mountains.

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Surveying the Land

Image courtesy of: http://waterandpower.org/museum/Mulholland_Biography.html

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US Bureau of Reclamation• Created in 1899 by Congress (and then called the

Reclamation Service) as a subdivision of the U.S. Geological Survey.

• Charged with investigating the use of irrigation in arid regions of the country to easy drought conditions.

• Owens Valley citizens quickly applied for such a project and argued that all public lands in the valley that could benefit from the project be withdrawn from any claim by private interests.

• J.B. Lippincott (employee of the Bureau) was in charge of the potential Owens Valley project.

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Gaining Water Rights to Owens River• Mulholland and Eaton had to work quickly on gaining

the water rights to the river as well as buy the land along the river and land in Long Valley that would be needed for a storage reservoir.

• Some believe that Lippincott was aware of this and “stepped aside” for Mulholland and Eaton to be able to purchase the land.– He was collecting consulting fees from the city for the

survey of Southern California water sources– Used Eaton as a resource evaluating various applications for

rights-of-way across public lands in the Long Valley.

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Joseph B. Lippincott, Fred A. Eaton, and William Mulholland(1906 Los Angeles Times Photo)

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Construction Begins• After the bond election passed in June of 1907

by a margin of 11 to 1, construction began on the aqueduct in 1908.

• Construction was divided up into 11 divisions and a cement plant.

• The number of men who were on the payroll the first year was 2,629 and peaked at 6,060 in May 1909.

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By The Numbers• The original project consisted of:

– 24 mi (39 km) of open unlined canal, 37 mi (60 km) of lined open canal,

– 97 mi (156 km) of covered concrete conduit, – 43 mi (69 km) of concrete tunnels, 12.00 mi (19.31 km) steel siphons, – 120 mi (190 km) of railroad track, two hydroelectric plants, three

cement plants, – 170 mi (270 km) of power lines, – 240 mi (390 km) of telephone line, – 500 mi (800 km) of roads, – later expanded with the construction of the Mono Extension and the

Second Los Angeles Aqueduct.

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TransportationTransportation was largely by mule power when the Los Angeles Aqueduct was under construction. This photo taken in 1912 shows a 52-mule team hauling sections of aqueduct pipe. Work on the aqueduct was started on September 20, 1907.

(Los Angeles Public Library)

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ConstructionThree men stand inside one section of pipe to be used on the L.A. Aqueduct--one man stands outside. The pipe section is at least twice as high as the men standing inside. It was built by Treadwell Construction Co., Midland.

(Los Angeles Public Library)

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ConstructionA view of early pipe used for building the L.A. Aqueduct to Owens Valley, done between 1907 and 1913. The aqueduct was considered the 2nd greatest engineering accomplishment of its age, after the Panama Canal. Here men are working with a large pipe being buried in a trench. (1910)

(Los Angeles Public Library)

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“There it is. Take it.”The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power historic film on the construction and

opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct

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Water Wars• California Water Wars: series of conflicts between the city of Los

Angeles and farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California.

• By the 1920s, so much water was diverted from the Owens Valley that agriculture became difficult.

• This led to the farmers trying to destroy the aqueduct in 1924. • Los Angeles prevailed and kept the water flowing. • By 1926, Owens Lake at the bottom of Owens Valley was

completely dry due to water diversion.• The 1974 film Chinatown was inspired by the California Water

Wars and features a fictionalized version of the conflict as a central plot element.

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St. Francis Dam• Mulholland's career effectively ended on March 12, 1928,

when the St. Francis Dam failed twelve hours after he and his assistant, Assistant Chief Engineer and general manager Harvey Van Norman, had personally inspected the site.

• Mulholland took full responsibility for what has been called the worst US civil engineering disaster of the 20th century and resigned at the end of 1929.

• "Whether it is good or bad, don't blame anyone else, you just fasten it on me. If there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, I won't try to fasten it on anyone else.”

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St. Francis DamImage courtesy of:Stearns, H.T. USGS - http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/show_picture.cgi?ID=ID.%20Stearns,%20H.T.%20664

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St. Francis Dam

Image courtesy of: http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/DoSearch?databaseID=968&index=w&terms=00009829

Standing section with fragments from east side of dam

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Later Life• Mulholland formally retired in November 1929

and spent the rest of his life in relative seclusion, devastated by the tragedy.

• In retirement, he consulted on the Hoover Dam and Colorado River Aqueduct projects.

• He died in 1935 and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, alongside Los Angeles Aqueduct chief electrical engineer Ezra F. Scattergood.