USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs : also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 50
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The next move was to call an election to vote on an issue of $1,500,000 bonds for the pur- chase of land and water rights in the valley and to begin the preliminary work on the aque- duct. There was some opposition to the bond issue, but a report setting forth the imperative necessity for an increased water supply and in- dorsing the Owens river project signed by W. J. Washburn, Willis H. Booth, A. B. Cass, William D. Stephens, Jacob Baruch and Fred A. Hines, men in whom the people of the city had confidence, practically neutralized the opposition and the vote for the bonds was over ten for, to one against. This election was held September 7, 1905.
Next a consulting board of eminent engineers was employed to examine the merits and feasi- bility of the project. This board consisted of Frederick P. Stearns, of the Isthmian Canal Commission, John R. Freeman, expert on hy- draulics, and James D. Schuyler, expert on construction of dams; all were men of wide experience and high standing as engineers.
This board in a report made December 25, 1906, fully indorsed the project as feasible and reported that a supply of at least 20,000 inches could be obtained from the city's holdings in Owens river valley.
This board estimated the entire cost, purchase of land and water right and cost of construction
of the aqueduct at a fraction less than twenty- five millions dollars. One million five hundred thousand dollars in bonds had already been issued. On the 13th of June, 1907, another bond election was held to vote upon an issue of $23,000,000 .. The vote for the bonds was in about the same ratio as at the former elec- tion-ten for, to one against.
Beginning with the first issue of bonds the Board of Public Works, composed at that time of James A. Anderson, Albert A. Hubbard and David K. Edwards, had control of the under- taking. The Board of Water Commissioners, who had inaugurated the work and had made the first expenditure of money, co-operated with the Board of Public Works and were con- sulted by that board. An advisory committee was appointed from the two boards. William Mulholland held the position of chief engineer, J. B. Lippincott, assistant chief, and W. B. Mathews was head of the legal department. There were several changes in the membership of the Board of Public Works during the prog- ress of the aqueduct.
The preliminaries for the great undertaking had now been arranged and the money for it made available. The immensity of it might well appall the stoutest heart. Of human oppo- sition, there was little. Only the wailings of a few pessimists and the whinings of the man- afraid-of-taxes. The horse thief Indians, who once ranged over the route from San Fer- nando to Owens river valley, along which it was proposed to build the aqueduct, and stole horses by the thousands and massacred trav- elers, had long since been sent to their celes- tial paradise, the happy hunting grounds-the Indian heaven.
It was the obstacles that nature had placed that confronted Commander-in-Chief Mulhol- land and his staff. A torrid climate at one season of the year and an arctic climate at another. A waterless desert, that at a mo- ment's notice might be deluged by a cloud burst, and an arid country that produced noth- ing for the subsistence of man or beast. The entire length of the aqueduct from the point where the water is taken from the river about thirty-five miles above Owens Lake to the reservoir at the head of San Fernando valley is two hundred and twenty-five miles. Get- ting ready to begin work was one of the most
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important items of expense. The proposed route of the aqueduct was nearly all over gov- ernment land. An act of Congress passed in June, 1906, gave the city of Los Angeles the right of way over public lands. Fifty-seven camps were organized along the line of the aqueduct. Roads had to be made to these for the transportation of material and food sup- plied for the men.
The cost of transportation was greatly re- duced by a traffic arrangement with the South- ern Pacific Railroad. That road built a broad gauge line from its main road at Mojave to connect with the narrow gauge line in Owens valley. Permanent work was begun on the aqueduct in October, 1908, and was pushed with vigor. The most difficult portion to construct was the section known as Jawbone cañon. This consisted of a series of tunnels and conduits aggregating about eighteen miles. To accel- erate the work premiums were offered to the squads operating the drills for the fastest work in tunnel driving. The world's record was beaten by several of the teams. Six hundred and four feet were bored in one month in Eliza- beth Lake tunnel. The bonus paid in addition to the regular wages of the men increased the daily wage about thirty per cent and decreased the cost of driving per foot from ten to fifteen per cent. This bonus system resulted in some instances in the payment of individual laborers as high as $168 in one month. While this was very satisfactory to the men who received the reward, it caused disappointment and dissatis- faction to other workmen.
The feeding of the men was a big undertak- ing. It was let by contract to Joseph Desmond. Complaints against the quality of the food pro- vided were numerous and investigations fre- quent. During the progress of the work be- tween July, 1908, and June, 1912, there were over 210,000 different men employed. During the year 1909 the wage average per month was $64,215. The expenditures at times during the height of the work reached $600,000 per month. The magnitude of the work of build- ing the aqueduct was not comprehended by the average citizen at the time of its construction. It was only the experienced engineer who could take it all in. S. T. Henry, associate editor of the Engineering Record, and himself
an experienced engineer, spent several weeks along the line of the aqueduct watching the work and taking notes.
He says: "I do not believe that the people of this city fully appreciate the magnitude of this project. With the Panama Canal ranking first, this is the fourth largest engineering project of the day in America. It is remark- able in many ways. You have established ditch records as well as tunnel records, and I be- lieve, if a standard of the kind could be set, you would establish records for the spirit of organization and lack of jealousy. This spirit of organization and team work is one of the most interesting features of the aqueduct work. It is this spirit that has resulted in driving so fast through the hard rock of Elizabeth Lake tunnel and laying 4,000 feet of cement ditch work every month in each division."
E. E. Meyer, government engineer of the island of Java, Dutch East Indies, who passed four days in a tour of inspection of the aque- duct, said : "I have inspected storage reservoirs and aqueducts all over the world, in fact have made a special study of that class of engineer- ing, yet nowhere have I seen them so neatly and economically worked out as here."
Arthur P. Davis, chief engineer of the United States reclamation service and builder of the Roosevelt Dam, said: "For wisdom of plan, excellence of construction and economy of exe- cution, the Owens River Aqueduct is one of the most ably handled works in the world.
"The city of Los Angeles is fortunate in having in charge of this great work such thor- oughly wide-awake and efficient men. Mis- takes have been made, of course; that natur- ally attends any human endeavor, but they were slight ones and quickly corrected."
Horace Ropes, a consulting engineer of Los Angeles city, and constructor of the western aqueduct of the Boston Metropolitan District, after a five days inspection trip said : "The boldness of the whole scheme impressed me, and the remarkable execution of the plans sur- prised me and gave me additional respect for the ability of Engineer William Mulholland. Eastern engineers, if they had been called here, would have said that the project was impos- sible. The country is severe and the hardships appear almost insurmountable. But Mr. Mul- holland and his associates have taken the bit
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in their mouths and built a monument to the city and to themselves.
"In my opinion the aqueduct has been con- structed for a reasonable consideration. The same work done in the east would have cost a great deal more, and it will last. The work has been well done. Any person who has a knowledge of similar engineering feats will say that the project has been a wonderful success."
Notwithstanding these high opinions of the work and the economical methods of conduct- ing it expressed by expert engineers there were criticisms of it; there were investigating com- mittees appointed by authority and self ap- pointed. There were voluminous reports made and published. The aqueduct question figured in political campaigns and self constituted ex- perts from the stump denounced the project and the projectors, but Mulholland and his sup- porters, unmoved by the tempest in a teapot raised by the petty politicians, pursued the even tenor of their ways until the work was completed.
Wednesday, November 5, 1913, was dedi- cated to the celebration of the completion of the aqueduct. Thirty thousand people went up the San Fernando valley in all manner of con- veyances to the mouth of the aqueduct to wit- ness the turning on of the water.
Thursday, November 6, 1913, was devoted to the dedication of Exposition Park. Three years before Miss Mary S. Bowen, in the presence of a large assemblage, had christened the old Agricultural Park, Exposition Park, using water from Owens river brought in a bottle over desert and plains.
The corner stone of the Armory was laid with Masonic ceremonies and the fountain in the center of the sunken garden of the park that in the future will spout Owens river waters was formally dedicated by Senator John D. Works in a fitting tribute to the two great institutions which the dual celebration com- memorated.
CHAPTER XLV
THE BAY OF SAN PEDRO UNDER THE RULE OF SPAIN AND MEXICO
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the discoverer of California, was also the discoverer of the Bay of San Pedro. The inaccuracy of Cabrillo's reckoning of latitude throws doubt on the day of the discovery. All that we know positively is that it was some day in October, 1542, fifty years, perhaps, to a day after the discovery of America by Columbus.
Cabrillo named it Bahia de Los Humos y Fuegos-the Bay of Smokes and Fires. The land was obscured by a thick cloud of smoke by day and fires gleamed on the mountains by night. This occurred every autumn. The In- dian by accident or design set fire to the long dry grass that covered the plains, and the wind carried it where it listed. The Indian was no fire fighter, and a fire once started burned until it died out for want of fuel. It is fortunate for us that Cabrillo's name for the bay did not
become fixed upon it. It would have been neither convenient nor euphonious.
The next explorer who visited the bay was Sebastian Vizcaino. He paid no attention to the names that Cabrillo had given to the bays, capes and islands of the California coast. Whether he did not know the names given by Cabrillo or that he wished to obtain the honor of their discovery are questions that cannot be settled now.
Vizcaino anchored in San Diego Bay, No- vember 10, 1602, sixty years after Cabrillo had entered it. Vizcaino named it for his flagship. Cabrillo had called it the Bay of San Miguel. After a stay of ten days, on the 20th of Novem- ber, the explorers resumed their voyage up the coast. A sail of eight days against a north- west wind brought them to an island which they named Santa Catalina, for the saint's day on which they discovered it. While beat-
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ing up the coast against a head wind they had put into a bay which they named the Ensenada of San Andres, the bight or inlet of Saint Andrew.
The cosmographer Cabrera Bueno discovered an error had been made in naming the bay. The 26th of November, the day they entered the bay, was the day sacred to St. Peter, bishop of Alexandria, martyred in the third century, not to St. Andrew. Bueno locates on the map of the coast that he made, the little island now known as Deadman's Island, but did not name it.
Vizcaino's explorations were made in the in- terest of the Philippine trade, which became an important factor in the commerce of the South Seas, as the Pacific Ocean was then called. He was sent by order of the King of Spain to dis- cover harbors where the Manila galleons might put in for wood and water and repairs after their long voyage of two thousand leagues from Japan to the California coast. For more than a third of a century before Vizcaino's voyage the scheme of exploring the coast of California for harbors of refuge had been agitated by the viceroys and the officials of New Spain, yet nothing had come of it. Nor was anything done for more than a century later.
One hundred and sixty-seven years passed after Vizcaino's ships sailed out of San Pedro Bay before another ship's keel cut the waters of Cabrillo's Bay of Smokes and Fires. Then the mission ship San Carlos, bearing supplies for the founding of San Diego, which had missed that port and sailed up to the Santa Barbara channel, then drifting down the coast searching for the port of its destination, cast anchor in the San Pedro Bay. Continuing its voyage, it drifted into San Diego Bay scurvy- afflicted, and ere the plague had run its course all of its crew but two had been buried at Punto de los Muertos or Dead Man's Point.
Whether the ships bringing the King's me- morias (remembrances) for the Missions an- chored in San Pedro Bay, I have found no record. The supplies for the Missions of San Gabriel and San Fernando doubtless were landed there. With crude and cumbersome
means of transportation-the wooden-wheeled carreta-it would have been almost impossible to convey these supplies from Monterey or San Diego.
The first foreign vessels to seek the trade of California came from a nation unborn and a land unsettled when Vizcaino was exploring California's bays and harbors. These were the Yankee smugglers' crafts. The first of these vessels that appeared on the California coast was the ship Otter of Boston, commanded by Ebenezer Dorr. Dorr's ship carried six guns and a crew of twenty-six men. She anchored at Monterey October 29, 1796. Dorr had been cruising in the vicinity of Monterey for nearly a week, evidently taking the lay of the land and calculating the chances for trade in the future.
Dorr obtained a supply of wood and water on presenting a passport from General Wash- ington signed by the Spanish consul at Charles- ton, South Carolina. He asked permission to land some English sailors who had secretly boarded his vessel at Port Saxon. He was refused permission. He sailed from Monterey November 6th. He landed his ten convicts on the beach at night, forcing them ashore at the pistol point. They were convicts from Botany Bay, and doubtless Dorr feared a mutiny if he kept them aboard. Governor Borica considered this a mean Yankee trick. He set the convicts at work as carpenters and blacksmiths at nine- teen cents a day. They behaved so well that he would have been pleased to retain them in the country, but the fear of heresy haunted the Spaniard, and in obedience to royal orders he sent them next year to San Blas en route to Cadiz to be sent to England .*
These vessels engaged in illicit trade all came to the coast well armed. The Eliza, com- manded by James Rowan, which anchored in San Francisco, May 27, 1799, carried twelve guns. The Betsy put into San Diego in August, 1800. She carried ten guns. These entered the ports for supplies and for wood and water. The Spaniards were suspicious of them and granted
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. I.
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their requests on condition that they enter no other California port.
In the early years of 1800 the smugglers became quite active. The only products of California that were of value to them were seal and otter skins. The otter skins were worth in China all the way from $30 to $100. The smug- glers paid for them in goods and Yankee notions at prices ranging from $2.50 to $10. The trade was carried on in obscure ports where there were no guns and no coast guard. San Pedro Bay was one of the chief entrepots of this trade. The smuggler's craft could anchor in the lee of Santa Catalina Island watching for an opportunity when the coast was clear, then a quick run to San Pedro Bay, a rapid exchange of goods for furs and off before the guard from the pueblo could intercept trade.
The people and the padres of the missions did not consider it a very venal sin to escape duties on the necessities that the country did not produce, and which they stood in most urgent need of.
The Spanish government had undertaken to make a government monopoly of the fur trade. A royal cedulo of 1785 directed the mission padres to collect otter skins from the natives and deliver them to the royal commissioner at a fixed price. These were to be shipped to China, and it was expected that a large revenue would accrue to the royal treasury. The scheme failed and was abandoned in 1790. The padres continued to secure skins, but instead of send- ing them to San Blas to the government officials at low prices, preferred to sell them where they could get the best terms. The smugglers came at an opportune time.
The Lelia Byrd was one of the pioneer American trading vessels of the Pacific coast It was the property of Capt. Richard J. Cleve- land of Salem, Mass., and commanded by William Shaler. Cleveland and Shaler were fine types of the American captains of the early years of the nineteenth century, when our com- merce was extended to every country on the globe.
In March, 1803, the Lelia Byrd put into San Diego to procure supplies and do legitimate
trading. The comandante of the port was a conceited coxcomb of a lieutenant-who boarded their vessel with an armed escort and placed a guard on the ship and ordered them as soon as their wants were supplied to leave the port. They undertook to purchase some furs from a citizen. Two boats were sent ashore at night with goods to an appointed place, one returned with some furs. But the other with a mate and two men did not return; they had been captured while in the act of bartering with a civilian by the comandante and his escort, bound hand and foot and left under a guard on the beach. At daylight a boatload of sailors from the ship captured the guard and released the prisoners. The Spanish guard on the vessel were disarmed and sent below. The anchor was weighed and sails set. A shot from Fort Guijanos, which was on Ballast Point, where Fort Rosecrans now stands, was fired at the vessel. The Spanish guard was forced to stand on deck while their companions in the fort were bombarding the ship. Captain Shaler reserved his fire until opposite the fort, then he gave the Spaniards two broadsides, which silenced them. The guards were set on shore after passing be- yond the fort. They were so rejoiced that they gave the Americans a succession of vivan los Americans, as the battered ship sailed away to Lower California.
In May, 1809, Captain Shaler visited Santa Catalina and anchored in a harbor of the island of which he supposed himself to be the dis- coverer. He named the harbor Port Rouissillon after a former partner. He spent six weeks in this harbor repairing his ship. Then he crossed the channel and anchored in San Pedro Bay. He secured from the pueblo of Los Angeles and the Mission San Gabriel supplies of provisions sufficient to last him twelve months. No doubt he purchased a number of otter skins. There was no government official there to interfere with trade.
The O'Cain was another of the famous fur buying vessels that haunted the California coast for several years under different com- manders and different names. At first she appeared on the coast early in 1803, under com-
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mand of Capt. Joseph O'Cain. She was owned in part by the Winship Brothers. O'Cain secured skins wherever he could from padres and private citizens. Keeping out of the government clutches he was said to have not only tricked the officials, but his own partners. In 1806 the O'Cain was on the coast again, under command this time of Jonathan Winship. He had entered into a contract with Baranof. director of the Russian Fur Company, to sell him all the furs he could gather upon the coast. He distributed an army of fur-hunting Aleuts with their bidarkas (skin boats) among the islands-Santa Catalina , San Clemente-and along the coast. In six months he had gathered up $60,000 of furs, which was certainly a suc- cessful stroke of business.
In 1807 Winship was back again with his Aleut hunters scattered among the islands and down the coast of Lower California. He re- ceived his supplies at San Pedro. Returning to New Archangel he sailed next year to China with a cargo valued at $136,000. These pio- meers of American commerce on the coast of California were remarkably successful in evad- ing capture. The Spanish war ships were on the lookout for them. Occasionally one came to grief.
The Mercury, commanded by Capt. George Washington Ayers, came to the coast in 1813 to engage in contraband trade. She was cap- tured just above Santa Barbara by Nicolas Noe, captain of the Spanish ship Flora. The cap- ture of the Mercury was a godsend to the needy officers and ragged soldiers of the presidios. One of the prizes of the capture was $16,000 in coin which was retained in California.
Noe took possession of the Mercury and cruised among the Channel islands, where a number of smuggling vessels were reported in hiding. He did not capture any. Noe left six or eight cannon at San Pedro. These were left presumably that they might be needed to protect the embarcadero in case of an Anglo- American invasion. Even at this early day there was a fear that the Americans had de- signs on California, and that the United States might attempt to aid the revolutionists of Mex- ico who were fighting to free themselves from the Spanish yoke. There is no record of what became of the cannon. Possibly the four old
cannon, two of which are at the court house and two on Fort Hill, may be part of the lot left by Captain Noe at San Pedro one hundred years ago. The Mercury's guns were of Ameri- can make and so are the four old cannon named above.
In 1815 Bovis Tarkanof, a Russian, and over twenty Aleuts were captured at San Pedro by Comisionado Cota and put in jail at Los Angeles. They were engaged in otter hunting. They were connected with the Russian settle- ment at Fort Ross on Bodega Bay. Some of these made their escape and others were con- verted to Catholicism and remained in the country.
Sometimes those who attempted to get the better of the smugglers by trickery came to grief and were themselves punished. In 1821 an American schooner was lying off the Malibu coast above San Pedro watching for an oppor- tunity to trade. Antonio Birones of Los An- geles with a few companions by signals induced the captain of the schooner to send a boat load of goods ashore for trade. Birones and his associates seized the goods and arrested the men from the ship in charge of them and held them for a ransom of $1,000. Unfortunately for Birones among the goods sent ashore was a case of brandy. The guards sampled the liquor and got drunk. The prisoners made their escape.
Birones and his friends appropriated the goods but were careful to say nothing about their attempt to punish the smugglers to the authorities. Captain de la Guerra, comand- ante of the presidio of Santa Barbara, heard of the affair. He confiscated the goods and con- demned the men concerned in the affair to pay a heavy fine towards the completion of the church of Our Lady of the Angeles at Los Angeles. Birones and Alanis, the leaders of the gang, were sentenced to six months hard labor in the pueblo chain gang.
The commerce in otter skins had fallen into decadence in California before it passed from under the domination of Spain. In 1821, the last year of Spanish rule, only two American vessels came to the coast to engage in the fur trade. The otter was being exterminated. Although otter hunting continued in an irregu- lar manner for twenty years, later there was but little profit in it and the little fur-bearing
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animal that brought the first foreign commerce to California finally became extinct.
With the decadence of the otter skin industry another industry had been slowly developing and that was in the dried hides of the slaugh- tered cattle that covered the California plains. The long distance of California from any mar- ket limited its commerce to the articles that could be condensed into the smallest space on board a vessel. During the war for Mexican independence there had been a very limited trade between California and Peru in hides and tallow, but it was not until Mexico gained her independence that the New England ship- pers engaged in hide droghing on the Cali- fornia coast. The hide drogher was a vessel with large storage capacity. It took its name from a craft used in the West India Islands to take sugar, rum and other merchandise to the merchantmen. The hide droghers came around Cape Horn. Their cargoes on the outer voyage consisted largely of merchandise. It usually required three years to make the round voyage-dispose of their goods and se- cure a ship load of hides.
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