CHAPTER 3: WHISKEY'S FOR DRINKING

It has washed through the valley since the Pleistoce.

Pakiser, L. C., et al. Structural Geology and Volcanism of Owens Valley Region, California—A Geophysical Study. United States Department of the Interior, 1964, paper 438, https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0438/report.pdf

…in the Mono Basin sixty miles north of Bishop…

Hydrology and Soil-Water-Plant Relations in Owens Valley, California. United States Geological Survey, 1998, p.45-46, https://ca.water.usgs.gov/archive/reports/wsp2370/d-hydrolsys33-72.pdf

…collecting water that would otherwise fill Mono Lake.

Lowe, Jet. Los Angeles Aqueduct, From Lee Vining Intake (Mammoth Lakes) to Van Norman Reservoir Complex (San Fernando Valley), Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA. Washington, D.C. Notes on the photograph held by the Library of Congress.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.ca3095.photos/?sp=55

The tunnel runs south to Grant Lake…

This source refers to Grant Lake’s status as a manmade reservoir:

“Grant Lake.” Mono County Economic Development, Tourism and Film Commission, https://www.monocounty.org/places-to-go/lakes-rivers-creeks/grant-lake/

Past a final reservoir at the south end of the valley…

Hydrology and Soil-Water-Plant Relations in Owens Valley, California. United States Geological Survey, 1998, p.45-46, https://ca.water.usgs.gov/archive/reports/wsp2370/d-hydrolsys33-72.pdf

…the river fills two pipelines, one added in 1970…

“Los Angeles Aqueduct Centennial.” Intake Magazine: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Nov. 2013

…the other finished in 1913 and ten feet in diameter…

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016, p. 213

In the end snowmelt from the Eastern Sierra travels 380 miles…

Original aqueduct was 233 miles long:

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016, p. 25

150 miles added (beginning at the Mono Basin) in the 1930s:

“The L.A. Aqueduct at 100.” Los Angeles Times, 5 Nov. 2013, http://graphics.latimes.com/me-aqueduct/

…deep enough to ferry steamboats to silver mines on its shores…

Chalfant, Willie Arthur. The Story of Inyo: Revised Addition . W.A. Chalfant, 1933, p. 290

After Los Angeles drained the lake in 1926…

Reheis, Marith C. “A Human-Induced Dust Problem.” Owens (Dry) Lake, California, United States Geological Survey , https://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/geology/owens/

...particles of arsenic and desiccated mining chemicals billowed from the billowed from the bed.

Gill, Thomas E., et al. “Elemental Geochemistry of Wind-Erodible Playa Sediments, Owens Lake, California.” Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, vol. 189, no. 1-4, 2002, pp. 209–213., doi:10.1016/s0168-583x(01)01044-8

…kicked up some of the most hazardous dust storms in the world.

Goudie, Andrew S. “Desert Dust and Human Health Disorders.” Environment International, vol. 63, Feb. 2014, pp. 101–113., doi:10.1016/j.envint.2013.10.011.

Also:

Cahill, Thomas A., et al. “Saltating Particles, Playa Crusts And Dust Aerosols At Owens (Dry) Lake, California.” Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, vol. 21, no. 7, 1996, pp. 621–639., doi:10.1002/(sici)1096-9837(199607)21:7<621::aid-esp661>3.0.co;2-e

“the finest watered portion of the lower half of the state”

Price, John A., et al. “The Expedition of Capt. J. W. Davidson from Fort Tejon to the Owens Valley in 1859.” Ethnohistory, vol. 24, no. 3, 1977, p. 294., doi:10.2307/481716.

…water that, unobstructed, would cover this valley in green…

“…What Groundwater Problem?” Owens Valley Committee brochure, 2015, https://owensvalley.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/GWbrochure10.pdf

…is metered by the city. In dry years Los Angeles cuts them off altogether.

Murphy, Deb. “Mono County Headed to Court against LADWP Irrigation Policy.” Sierra Wave Media, 8 Aug. 2018, https://www.sierrawave.net/mono-county-headed-to-court-against-ladwp-irrigation-policy/

…someone put up a sign just north of Bishop: LOS ANGELES CITY LIMITS.

Wood, R. Coke. The Owens Valley and the Los Angeles Water Controversy; Owens Valley as I Knew It. Chalfant Press, 1973, p.4

…we share Hamlet as a favorite…

Prosser, Richard. “William Mulholland: Maker of Los Angeles.” Western Construction News, 25 Apr. 1926, p. 43–44

…and the opera…

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016, multiple mentions

…baseball.

Hughes, Addison. “A Modern Caesar: ’Bill’ Mulholland, Genius, Super-Man.” Los Angeles Times, 9 Nov. 1913, p.10

He said, “Damn a man who doesn’t read books.”

Prosser, Richard. “William Mulholland: Maker of Los Angeles.” Western Construction News, 25 Apr. 1926, p. 43–44

…in a park in Los Angeles on the site of his old wooden shack.

Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press, 2000, p.30

Catherine Mulholland’s source: The Intake periodical published by the Department of Water and Power, January 1933

Growing up poor…joined the British Merchant Navy, and came to America.

Ibid., p. 6, 9, 10

Working in a logging camp…stowed away on a ship bound for Los Angeles.

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016, multiple mentions

He was twenty-two and he went by Bill.

Spriggs, Elisabeth Mathieu. “The History Of the Domestic Water Supply Of Los Angeles,” masters thesis, History Department, University of Southern California, 1931, p. 67–68, 74

Los Angeles was a pueblo of nine thousand…

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016, p. 45

…called a “starving cow town” by one historian…

Eastern Sierra history audio recording disseminated on CD by the Paiute Shoshone Cultural Center in Bishop, CA

…a “vile little dump” by a newcomer…

Wheeler, Mark. “California Scheming.” Smithsonian Magazine , Smithsonian Institution, 1 Oct. 2002, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/california-scheming-69592006/

“…I loved it so much,” he said of the unruly Los Angeles River, which ran through the pueblo and fed into the sea…

Drawing from Mulholland’s autobiographical sketch, quoted in the following source:

Spriggs, Elisabeth Mathieu. “The History Of the Domestic Water Supply Of Los Angeles,” masters thesis, History Department, University of Southern California, 1931, p. 67

…watched a horse pace in circles, guiding a drill bit into the clay of the Los Angeles Basin, turning dust onto his shoes.

Sources on well-drilling techniques likely utilized by Mulholland, given the time period and type of well:

Work Horses at Pioneer Power, Pioneer Productions , http://www.pioneerpowershow.com/horses.html.

Also:

Well Drilling School, courses: History of Well Construction. .pdf accessed online by the author.

…cities and economies similar to those of the East could not be sustained in the West.

Rabbitt, Mary C., et al. “The Colorado River Region and John Wesley Powell.” Professional Paper 669, United States Department of the Interior, United State Geological Survey, 1969, doi:10.3133/pp669a, https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0669/report.pdf

…newly completed Transcontinental Railroad…

Brown, Jeff L. “Civil Engineering Magazine.” Uniting the States: The First Transcontinental Railroad | Civil Engineering Magazine Archive | Vol 82, No 7, 2012, https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/ciegag.0000564

…accused Powell of fraud.

Wilber, C. D. Great Valleys and Prairies of Nebraska and the Northwest. Omaha: Daily Republican Print, 1881, p.71

The boosters enticed settlers with cries of “Rain follows the plow!”

Smith, Henry Nash. Rain Follows the Plow: the Notion of Increased Rainfall for the Great Plains, 1844-1880. 2nd ed., vol. 10, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1947, p. 169-193, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3815643

…rain did happen to increase for a while in the late nineteenth century…

Seager, Richard, and Celine Herweijer. “Causes and Consequences of Nineteenth Century Droughts in North America.” Drought Research, The Earth Institute at Columbia University, http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/nineteenth.shtml

One year after his arrival, he got a job tending irrigation ditches in Los Angeles…

Spriggs, Elisabeth Mathieu. “The History Of the Domestic Water Supply Of Los Angeles,” masters thesis, History Department, University of Southern California, 1931, p. 67–68

Mulholland lived in a shack…

Prosser, Richard. “William Mulholland: Maker of Los Angeles.” Western Construction News, 25 Apr. 1926, p. 43–44

…with a smoky stove.

Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press, 2000, p.30

…dragged a rake across the bottoms of canals, earning ten dollars a week…

Hughes, Addison. “A Modern Caesar: ’Bill’ Mulholland, Genius, Super-Man.” Los Angeles Times, 9 Nov. 1913, p.10

…“a beautiful, limpid little stream, with willows on its banks.”

Spriggs, Elisabeth Mathieu. “The History Of the Domestic Water Supply Of Los Angeles,” masters thesis, History Department, University of Southern California, 1931, p. 67

Perry promoted him to foreman.

This story about William Mulholland is recounted in the following sources:

Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles by Les Standiford, p.37-38

William Mulholland—Engineer, Pioneer, Raconteur by J.B. Lippincott, American Society of Civil Engineers

William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles by Catherine Mulholland

…called the Zanja Madre, the Mother Ditch, and from there into smaller streams and trenches.

This system is described in the following sources:

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

William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles by Catherine Mulholland

The river and its ditches dried up in drought…

Fear of a water famine is reported on in the following source:

Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press, 2000, p.25

…roared with winter rain, tumbling boulders through streets, washing out train tracks and bridges, overflowing sewers…

Los Angeles Herald, 13, 14, 15 Mar. 1905

…bursting reservoirs…

Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press, 2000, p.25

C. Mulholland cites reservoirs bursting as described in the Los Angeles Star, January 8, 1878, and August 9 and 23, 1878

…collapsing houses…

Los Angeles Times, 23 Nov. 1900

…drowning or crushing Angelenos…

Los Angeles Herald, 14 Mar. 1905

…“so offensive to the taste and smell, as to be not only undrinkable, but positively nauseating.”

“The Foul Water.” The Evening Express, 23 July 1877

Waterborne illness flared.

“Our Water Supply.” Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 1890, p.4

Fish and rotting plants flopped out of the pipes…

The Evening Express, 20 June 1884

…“enough to drive every temperance man to drinking beer or whiskey straight.”

Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press, 2000, p.54

Stories circulated of a bloated man and a mule floating in a reservoir.

“The Foul Water.” The Evening Express, 23 July 1877

Promoted to superintendent of the city water company by 1886…

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016, p. 44

…the need for water might be checked by shooting the spokesman for the chamber of commerce…

ibid. p.64

…an aqueduct the world called impossible…

ibid.

He advanced from ditch-digger to superintendent in eight years.

ibid. p.44

“the greatest good for the greatest number.”

ibid. p. 73, 79

The thirty-nine hundred workers and thirteen hundred mules…

ibid. p. 209

Standiford cites Osborne “Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct” p. 217 and “Compete Report” p.263

…that built his aqueduct finished under budget and ahead of schedule.

ibid.

Also:

Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 2013

…the second-largest city in the country, the thirteenth in the world.

Zhao, Simon Xiaobin, et al. “Megacities, the World’s Largest Cities Unleashed: Major Trends and Dynamics in Contemporary Global Urban Development.” World Development, vol. 98, Oct. 2017, pp. 257–289., doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.04.038

…Mammoth Mountain is an active volcano…

“How Is a Volcano Defined as Being Active, Dormant, or Extinct?” Volcano World. Oregon State University, http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/how-volcano-defined-being-active-dormant-or-extinct

Also:

Program, Volcano Hazards. “Volcano Hazards Program CalVO Mammoth Mountain.” United States Geological Society, USGS, https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mammoth_mountain/

Mary Austin came to Owens Valley fourteen years before construction began on Mulholland’s aqueduct.

Lanigan, Esther F. Mary Austin: Song of a Maverick. University of Arizona Press, 1997, p.48

“Is all this worthwhile in order that Los Angeles should be just so big?”

Austin, Mary Hunter. San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Sept. 1905

We could not remember, nor had we even seen pictures of this valley covered by green.

Acres in production in Owens Valley: 30-40,000 at turn of the century, then rose to 65,000 by 1910

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016, p. 219

…they took two cases of dynamite, blasting caps, and twenty feet of fuse.

The story of the teenaged bombers on this and later pages is from:
Sahagun, Louis. “Man Who Bombed Los Angeles Aqueduct Reveals His Story.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 30 Oct. 2013, https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-c1-aqueduct-bomber-20131030-dto-htmlstory.html

…who attacked the pipeline nine times between 1924 and 1927.

The author made this count by adding up all dynamiting recording in William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles by Catherine Mulholland. C. Mulholland cites newspapers from the time and LADWP records.

…valley folks camped for five days…

Los Angeles Times, 17-21 Nov. 1924

In 1924 seven hundred people gathered at the gates.

Vaughan, Jones. “Peace Moves Started in War over Aqueduct.” Los Angeles Times, 20 Nov. 1924, p. 2

…water coursed back to its old home.

Facts about the occupation of the gates from this paragraph:

Los Angeles Times, 17-21 Nov. 1924

“I know there are at least one hundred sawed off shotguns in this territory…”

“Anarchy Rules in Inyo County.” Los Angeles Times, 19 Nov. 1924

“…Women as well as men are ready to shoot in defense of their homes.”

ibid.

…the valley people set up camp and threw a party.

Los Angeles Times, 17-21 Nov. 1924

“…You are welcome as long as they last.”

Walton, J. “Picnic at Alabama Gates: The Owens Valley Rebellion 1904-1927.” California History, vol. 65, no. 3, Jan. 1986, pp. 192–206., doi:10.2307/25158389

…1.3 million in winter, 1.5 million in summer…

Information provided to the author by local Mammoth Lakes tourism organization Visit Mammoth.

That night in 1976 it rose waning gibbous…

“Phases of the Moon.” U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department, http://aa.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/aa_phases.pl?year=1976&month=9&day=14&nump=50&format=p

...“the lurking power of the outlaw.”

Meloy, Ellen. Ravens Exile: a Season on the Green River. University of Arizona Press, 2003, p. 191

…spitting up long-buried basalt and sand and silty clay…

Bulletin 118. Bulletin 118, California Department of Water Resources, California's Groundwater, 22 Dec. 2016, https://water.ca.gov/LegacyFiles/groundwater/bulletin118/docs/Bulletin_118_Interim_Update_2016.pdf

“Cattle that died of anthrax still lie on the ground.”

Austin, Mary Hunter. San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Sept. 1905

…“a kind of cannibal soup, flavored with the carcasses of the lower animals.”

“First Blood in Water Trouble,” Owens Valley Herald, 6 Mar. 1927, p.1

…someone shot an arrow strapped with a stick of dynamite into the William Mulholland Memorial Fountain…whoever launched the dynamite was never caught.

Sahagun, Louis. “Man Who Bombed Los Angeles Aqueduct Reveals His Story.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 30 Oct. 2013, https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-c1-aqueduct-bomber-20131030-dto-htmlstory.html

The groundwater beneath Owens Valley is not replenished, so its levels drop.

From an annual report on monitoring and other work performed by ICWD and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP):

The Owens Valley Monitor Report. Inyo County Water Department, Jul. 2006.

…after the water left, Mulholland became the King of the Home Destroyers.

Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press, 2000, p.288

C. Mulholland cites local periodicals of the time.

Also:

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016, p. 224

…“exploitation as usual.”

“Owens Valley Committee Responds to LA Mayor Garcetti: Letter Submitted by the Owens Valley Committee.” Sierra Wave, 22 July 2016, http://www.sierrawave.net/owens-valley-committee-responds-to-la-mayor-garcetti/

The local air pollution control district negotiates constantly with the city regarding the dust that billows from the lake bed.

“100 years later, the dust settles in the Owens Valley.” Los Angeles Times, 15 Nov. 2014, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-owens-valley-settlement-20141116-story.html

Here at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, deposits of sediment and earth splay…

Vorster, Peter. “The Development and Decline of Agriculture in the Owens Valley.” Water Usage: Sociology/Economics, p. 273. Department of Landscape Architecture, http://www.wmrc.edu/resources/docs/wmrs4-5-4.pdf

…for the summer.

Information from the preceding paragraph:

Steward, Julian H. “Autobiography of Two Owens Valley Paiutes.” University of California Publications in American Archeology and Ethnography , vol. 33, no. 5, 3 Feb. 1934, pp. 423–438., https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucp033-006.pdf

…work in white households.

Information from the preceding paragraph:

Bauer, Jr. William J. “The Giant and the Waterbaby: Paiute Oral Traditions and the Owens Valley Water Wars.” Boom: A Journal of California, vol. 2, no. 4, Jan. 2012, pp. 104–117., doi:10.1525/boom.2012.2.4.104, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/boom.2012.2.4.104?origin=JSTOR-pdf

In other words, whoever is using the water first retains a right to that water.

California State Water Resources Control Board. “The Water Rights Process.” SWRCB.gov, https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/board_info/water_rights_process.html

…exchanged land for the freedom to govern themselves and use certain areas according to tradition.

Hirsch, Mark G. “1871: The End of Indian Treaty-Making.” American Indian Magazine, The Smithsonian Institute, summer/fall 2014, https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/1871-end-indian-treaty-making

…eighteen treaties “of friendship and peace” were negotiated but never ratified.

Heizer, Robert F. 1972. “THE EIGHTEEN UNRATIFIED TREATIES OF 1851-1852 BETWEEN THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS AND THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.” Archeological Research Facility, University of California, Berkeley, 1972, http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/arfs003-001.pdf

Then, in 1871, Congress put a stop to treaty making…

…and so the Paiutes drifted in limbo, without clear land and water rights, first use forgotten.

From a series of conversations between the author and Anna Hohag during the fall and winter of 2018. Hohag is a citizen of the Bishop Paiute Tribe and a California attorney with certificates in Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy and Water Policy.

….“should be abandoned for reasons of conservation of water…and particularly to prevent contamination of water supplies.”

From letters written by Roy Nash (Field Representative) to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs regarding Owens Valley, May 2, 1933, held at the University of California Los Angeles, http://digital.library.ucla.edu/aqueduct/sites/default/files/LSC_1241_b123_f22_007.pdf

An attorney for the secretary of the Interior Department visited Owens Valley in May 1932…

Walker, Chantal R. “Piyahu Nadu - Land of Flowing Waters: The Water Transfer from Owens Valley to Los Angeles 1913-1939,” masters thesis, University of California Los Angeles, 2014, p. 37

“I am impressed as to the apparent lack of interest by Los Angeles in their welfare.”

Crampon, Louis C., Special Attorney to the Secretary (of the Interior). “Memorandum for the Secretary: The City of Los Angeles and the Indians of Owens Valley, California.” , to the Secretary of the Interior, 14 June 1932.

…Owens Valley Paiutes formed a committee and wrote to the mayor of Los Angeles, noting that the city had rendered the valley “a barren waste.”

Walker, Chantal R. “Piyahu Nadu - Land of Flowing Waters: The Water Transfer from Owens Valley to Los Angeles 1913-1939,” masters thesis, University of California Los Angeles, 2014, p.53

DWP sought the consolidation of the Paiute people so that their needs for water might infringe less on what the city intended to remove.

From the “Report on the Conditions of the Indians in Owens Valley, California” issued by A.J. Ford, Right of Way and Land Agent, E.A. Porter, Deputy Land Agent, and C.D. Call, Appraiser, to the Department of Water and Power of the City of Los Angeles, June 30, 1932, p.74

In 1932 Paiute lands around Bishop were reduced from 67,000 to 875 acres.

The source for the land reduction is the Record of the Executive Order 5843, April 28, 1932: “Withdrawal of Public Lands in Aid of Legislation and Revocation of Executive Order No. 1529 of May 9, 1912.”

Accessed via University of California Santa Barbara American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-5843-withdrawal-public-lands-aid-legislation-and-revocation-executive

The source for the current size of the Bishop Paiute Reservation is information on display in the Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center in Bishop, California.

These days tribal members are still taking Los Angeles and the federal government to court over water rights that were stripped and never restored.

From public forums and meetings the author has attended in Owens Valley, as well as conversations with Teri Red Owl, Executive Director of the Owens Valley Indian Water Commission, and Harry C. Williams, community historian.

The mud pumped into the well applies hundreds of pounds of pressure…

Beaumont, Edward A. Exploring for Oil and Gas Traps. American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 1999.

The veins of his city existed as maps only in his mind.

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016,

…but more than that, he labored with a goal greater than a dug trench or a clear stream, greater than money or social position.

This is evident in multiple sources about William Mulholland, including all of the biographical sources referenced throughout this book.

Until 1926 Bishop’s Main Street…for the ban of alcohol.

Descriptions and facts come from images found in the following sources:

Vaughan, Pam, and Brendan Vaughan. Images of America: Bishop. Arcadia Pub., 2011

OwensValleyHistory.com “Early Bishop,” http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/bishop_residents2/page48c.html

The Album: Times and Tales of Inyo-Mono, Vol. 1 #3, July 1988, “A Frontier Family” by Ashley Kinney, accessed by the author in the archives of the Eastern California Museum

In 1906, just before construction began on the aqueduct, Mary Austin sold her house and told Owens Valley goodbye.

Date of construction on aqueduct beginning:

Standiford, Les. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles. Ecco, 2016

Austin sold her house:

Hoffman, Abraham. “Mary Austin, Stafford Austin, and the Owens Valley.” Journal of the Southwest, vol. 53, no. 3-4, 2011, pp. 305–322., doi:10.1353/jsw.2011.0007

“…the cruelty and deception smote her beyond belief.”

Austin, Mary Hunter. Earth Horizon: Facsimile of Original 1932 Edition. Sunstone Press, 2007, p.308

“…They can’t drive me out.”

Wiles, Otis M. “CAMP AT AQUEDUCT GATE IS CENTER OF FAMILY LIFE.” Los Angeles Times, 20 Nov. 1924

“…maddening meekness which seems to surrender and rises up over night.”

Austin, Mary Hunter. San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Sept. 1905

“…It was always produced for important funerals.”

Austin, Mary Hunter. Earth Horizon: Facsimile of Original 1932 Edition. Sunstone Press, 2007, p.249

“What have I come to? What if this thing should catch me?”

ibid. 186

“…where people ambled on streets and knew one another.”

“CADILLAC DESERT: THE AMERICAN WEST AND ITS DISAPPEARING WATER.” KTEH-TV, 1996.

“He wouldn’t like it.”

From a private letter Catherine Mulholland wrote to David Carle, which he included in his book:

Carle, David. Water and the California Dream: Historic Choices for Shaping the Future. Counterpoint., 2016, p.102

…beaches that charge admission…

Parvini, Sarah. “Paradise Cove in trouble again for charging for beach access.” Los Angeles Times, 2 July 2016, https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-adv-malibu-beach-access-20160629-snap-story.html

…got a job as an aqueduct and reservoir keeper with DWP.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power online records

They suggest that with water, Owens Valley might not be the country that drew my parents together for love of its strangeness.

Carle, David. Water and the California Dream: Historic Choices for Shaping the Future. Counterpoint., 2016, p.102

…because 1 percent of lands in Inyo County are privately owned, while more than 90 percent are controlled by federal agencies.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. 2019. Final Mitigated Negative Declaration: Long-Term Routine Maintenance Activities for Waterways in Inyo and Mono Counties. State Clearinghouse No. 2017121042

…was created because Los Angeles had a need to keep the land undeveloped and its water unclaimed.

Mayo, Morrow. Los Angeles. A.A. Knopf, 1933, p.236

“…which belongs to the hunter.”

Info in preceding paragraph from:

“…It is like the wild animal. It has to be captured.”

“The Water Question: The Speeches of Hon. M.T. Allen and Judge Anderson” Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 1892

A woman sang “California, Hail the Waters!”

“Silver Torrent Crowns the City’s Mighty Achievement,” Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 1913, p. 14

Water from the aqueduct…the detonation of aerial bombs

Los Angeles Times, Nov. 6 2013

Mulholland threw a hand toward the cascade and spoke immortal words. “There it is,” he said. “Take it.”

“Silver Torrent Crowns the City’s Mighty Achievement,” Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 1913, p. 14

All his life he kept a vial of Owens River water, collected from that first gush.

Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press, 2000, p.137

“I saved its life once,” he said. “I wonder if it is conscious of my presence today.”

Spriggs, Elisabeth Mathieu. “The History Of the Domestic Water Supply Of Los Angeles,” masters thesis, History Department, University of Southern California, 1931, p. 69-70

Em GallagherApril 3, 2020