186 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
In 1890 John Wesley Powell tried to convince
Congress that the future of the West hinged on the
management of its limited water (page 162). Though
Congress largely ignored Powell’s warnings, Southern
Californians paid attention, for they knew firsthand
that Los Angeles could not grow without an imported
water supply. The history of California is, to a great
extent, the history of its water. Among the first to
realize this was Frederick Eaton.
Eaton became the superintendent of the Los
Angeles City Water Company in 1875 at the age of
nineteen. He served alongside William Mulholland,
who shared his conviction that Los Angeles was
destined to grow despite its aridity. And grow it did:
in 1900 Los Angeles had 100,000 residents, and within
four years that figure had doubled. Eaton convinced
Mulholland that the only way to sustain the city was
to locate a reliable source of water. They settled on
the Owens River, 250 miles due north of Los Angeles.
The Owens River rises out of the Eastern Sierra
near Yosemite, and flows south through a valley
bounded on the east by the White Mountains. The
area was initially settled and farmed by the Paiute
Indians, who were displaced by white farmers in the
latter half of the nineteenth century. These settlers
relied on the river to build the towns of Bishop, Big
Pine, Independence, and Lone Pine. The federal
Bureau of Reclamation believed that the agriculture
of the Owens Valley could expand even further with
improved irrigation.
Eaton, however, saw things differently. He
believed that the water of the Owens Valley was
wasted on local farming, and would be better used
to slake the growing thirst in Los Angeles. In 1904
he and Mulholland formed the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power and began to
surreptitiously secure rights to the Owens River.
In 1905, with the support of the Board of Water
Commissioners, they rapidly purchased land and
water rights in the valley. Their ultimate goal was
both ambitious and outlandish: first take control of
the water, and then pass a bond measure to build
an aqueduct to transport the water to Los Angeles.
The voters approved the measure, and construction
began in 1907.
WATER FOR LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light,
utility bill, 1922