Page 2 - mcgroarty1923aqueduct

CHAPTER XXIII

THE AQUEDUCT

In my book, ''California," published by the Grafton Publishing Corpora-
tion, I made the following statement :
' 'The story of the Owens River Aqueduct is the story of a great city
builded on a desert that one day awoke to the very serious fact that it must
stop growing or find more water for its uses. The city did not desire to
stop growing, but there was no more water anywhere within sight that it
could obtain. It had utilized to the utmost limit every drop of water in
every stream to which it had a right. The city that faced this grave problem
was the City of Los Angeles."
And also, here again, in order to discuss the present and to forecast the
future, we find ourselves compelled to revert to the past-that beautiful
and mighty past when were laid the cornerstones of the commonwealth, and
when California's career among civilized communities was begun. Where-
fore, I ask the indulgence of my readers to quote again from my book
"California":
"In considering the present and future greatness of California, the
imagination constantly reverts to the first attempts that were made at civili-
zation and commercial progress. One who knows and loves the story of
California can never behold the great irrigation ditches which wake to living
bloom the vast stretches of opulent plain and valley without seeing, as in
a dream, the first uncertain waterway which J unipero Serra projected in
the Mission Valley of San Diego. As one speeds now ·upon the shining
highways that link towns and-cities together from end to end of the Golden
State, memory stirs in the loving heart, the dream of days when the
Mission hospices, with their flocks and herds on the hillsides, and the Indian
neophytes chanting in the harvest fields, awaited the welcome traveller on
the King's Highway. And thus J unipero Serra stands forth the first and
greatest character of which California yet can boast-her first missionary,
her first merchant, the first of her empire builders."
It is difficult to believe that Southern California, before the coming of
white men, was really a desert. But that is what it was. It is now a great
garden and lush with bloom, its agricultural and horticultural products
running into many millions of dollars in a commercial way annually. But
when the mission of San Gabriel was founded in 1771, and the pueblo of
Los Angeles founded ten years later, water was the least plentiful thing to
be found · between the Tehachapi and San Diego. The rivers and streams
of the country were then, as now, dry streaks of sand throughout the long
hot summers.
When Los Angeles was founded in 1781 there was in sight a quantity
of water available for domestic and farming purposes sufficient only to meet
the needs of a small community. And everything was all right in this respect
272