USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume I > Part 35
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I think it is safe to say that upon the first announcement of this great news there were no discordant voices in the acclamations of joy with which it was received. It is true that later on the project was bitterly assailed from various sources and by various selfish interests. Even to this day, indeed, there are to be found those who will say that the Owens River Aqueduct constituted an extravagant and useless expenditure of the people's money. There are those who say that a sufficient water supply could have been secured nearer at hand and at one-tenth of the expense of the aqueduct. But these carping criticisms are so childishly founded
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and are voiced by those who are so comparatively outnumbered that they may be dismissed with scant notice. The proof of these statements lies in the fact that when the bond issue was submitted to the people for their approval on September 7, 1905, it was carried by a vote of approximately 15 to 1.
The engineers who surveyed and designed the aqueduct and later built and carried it to completion were William Mulholland, J. B. Lippincott and O. K. Parker. In the actual construction Mulholland and Lippincott were the active spirits, with Mulholland as the real head.
In passing, it would seem that more than this mere mention of William Mulholland should be made in these pages. In future generations it will be his name that will be most remembered when the people of the future recount with well-founded pride the achievements of the men who went before them in the building of their great city. In those times, if not now, some kind of lasting memorial in connection with the Owens River Aqueduct will be erected in honor of Fred Eaton and William Mulholland -the dreamer and the doer,, the man who brought from the snows of the high Sierras the great dream, and the other man who caused the dream to come true.
It seems only natural that a city like Los Angeles should produce such men as William Mulholland. The city, besides being a most stupendous practical achievement, is also a romantic dream. And out of the romance of the town comes the romance of this man Mulholland, who rose from his humble station as the tender of its water ditches when it was a sleepy pueblo to become its chief engineer and to stand in the front rank of the world's greatest engineers when the city had come to take its place among the great cities of the world.
I have been told that when William Mulholland was a boy in Ireland, where he was born, he had a longing for the sea. And that he ran away from home, and that he was taken away on a ship, and that he held to the sea till he served at last before the mast and became a real sailorman ; that then he abandoned his sea-faring life and came ashore in America and drifted westward with the restless tides that have ever drifted westward in human history and that are westward drifting still. Until one time, on a sunny morning when he was still young, he found himself in the pueblo of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels, where, happily, he decided to locate.
Mulholland secured a job as "zanjero," which was the old Spanish title given to the man who attends to water ditches. He lived by himself in a cabin beside one of the ditches which were under his care. He followed around about the pueblo on the trail of surveyors and the occasional engi- neers that the community from time to time employed. At night, in his cabin, he studied books-books on mathematics, surveyor's manuals and works on engineering. His brain was alert and his desire for knowledge of this special nature was insatiable. He plodded patiently and with undaunted courage. And, step by step. he rose in knowledge and ability and in the confidence of the people. He became superintendent of the city's water system. He became known far afield, and was frequently called into consultation to help other engineers solve big problems.
And the time came at length when his own city stood face to face with as big a problem as any city had ever faced in history-a problem requiring
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the expenditure of $23,000,000 of the people's money. And without the least hesitation, without discussion whatever, the whole project was placed in William Mulholland's hands and he was told to go ahead.
Of course Mr. Mulholland was supported by the best advice available. Three of the most prominent engineers in the United States were at the beginning employed as a consulting board to thoroughly canvass the project. They endorsed Mr. Mulholland's report and pronounced his plans as being thoroughly feasible. It was then proposed that a bond issue of $23,- 000,000 be submitted to the voters, this amount to cover construction. The people, at an election held June 12, 1907, gave their approval to this proposal by a vote of 10 to 1.
The Board of Public Works then took charge of work and, in combi- nation with the Water Board, worked out a plan and the details of the great enterprise. The plan in brief was: To take the water from the Owens River, 35 miles north of Owens Lake, carry it through an open canal for 60 miles to a large reservoir, the Haiwee, with a capacity of 20,000,000,000 gallons, then to carry it another 128 miles through combina- tion of conduits, tunnels and siphons to a reservoir at Fairmont on the northern side of proposed tunnel through the San Fernando Mountains, the tunnel to be 26,870 feet in length and to be a pressure tunnel regulated by the reservoir at Fairmont. From the southern portal of the tunnel the water would drop from the rapidly descending San Francisquita Canyon, where big possibilities for power development existed, and by natural channels, tunnels, siphons and conduits, a distance of fifteen miles to the San Fernando reservoir and the upper end of the San Fernando Valley, a total distance of about 225 miles from the intake to the San Fernando reservoir.
It was realized that the long tunnel under the San Fernando Mountains would be the largest piece of work in connection with the enterprise, and this work was at once started, working from both ends.
The general water plan of the city is now laid down roughly as follows : The water now developed and carried through the aqueduct is sufficient to accommodate a population of some 3,000,000 people. The city has laid down the policy that no territory shall be given the use of its present surplus supply which is not prepared to amalgamate with and become a part of the city. Large areas now inside the incorporated limits of the city are still farming lands, and surplus water is used on these for irriga- tion purposes at rates which they can afford to pay. Rights have been obtained for additional sources of supply, and plans are made for their development for future use. Preliminary steps are even now being taken to reservoir the Long Valley, an immense area and catchment basin many miles north of the present intake of the aqueduct.
The whole enterprise constitutes a comprehensive plan fully capable, when finally worked out, of taking care of water needs of the city of any possible size in this locality. During its development there has, of course, been much opposition, and many legal difficulties thrown in its way, but these have been mostly overcome and it does not now seem possible that anything can mar the full realization of the plan.
So much preliminary work had to be done that little other permanent construction was under way before the end of 1908. The preliminary work
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referred to was gigantic in its scope. A branch line from the Southern Pacific Railroad had to be built from Mojave up to the proposed line of the aqueduct to connect with the Owens River Valley. Hundreds of miles of road, pipe line, power transmission line and telegraph and telephone lines had to be built. Fifty-seven camps had to be established along the line, and all their facilities and equipment provided and installed. Pro- vision had to be made for the vast quantities of cement needed for lining conduits and tunnels, and for this purpose the city bought thousands of acres of land in the Tehachapi Mountains covering the necessary deposits of limestone, clay, etc., and built a cement mill with a capacity of 1,000 barrels a day. Large areas of land had to be negotiated for and bought for the protection of water rights and reservoir sites, and the land so bought aggregated some 135,000 acres.
After general construction started in October, 1908, it was found that in nearly all features of the work the rate of progress was greater and the cost less than the engineers' estimates. Naturally, there were setbacks and delays such as are inevitable in all large works, but notwithstanding these, water was turned through the full length of the aqueduct and delivered at San Fernando on November 5, 1913, where its advent was hailed by a great outpouring of some 30,000 citizens who congregated to welcome the flood which insured the life of Los Angeles as a great city of the future. As it gushed from the mouth of the outlet, the chief engineer, William Mulholland, was called upon for an appropriate address to the assembled citizens. The address consisted of the remark, "There it is, take it."
A fitting finish to a work well conceived and successfully accomplished. When we speak of the aqueduct being completed and accepted by the city when its flow was delivered to a point at the head of the San Fernando Valley, it must be explained that this was considered a finishing of the aqueduct proper and the further connection to the existing city distributing system was apart from the building of the aqueduct itself.
As a consequence of the bringing of water to the city from Owens River Valley, and of hardly less importance than the water itself are the opportunities made available for electrical power development. In the fall of the aqueduct at various points on its southward course there is available for such power a total gross fall of over 2,000 feet. The general plans for the development of this power were recognized throughout the con- struction of the aqueduct and provision made to avoid duplication of work, and in September, 1909, the Bureau of Aqueduct Power was created as a part of the organization of the Department of Public Works. A consulting board of three eminent engineers was appointed to pass on the plans, to investigate all the power possibilities, and to advise as to the best methods of maximum development.
As a start for carrying out the power plans, a $3,500,000 issue of power bonds was authorized at election in April, 1910. But this bond issue was not available until two years later because of court proceedings brought to test their validity. Meantime it was realized that this first bond issue would serve only to build the initial plant for the development of a small proportion of the possible power, and if the greatest benefit was to be obtained power developed by the city must be distributed by the city.
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Consequently, in May, 1914, an additional power bond issue of $6,500,000 was voted for the purpose of extending the development work and also for building or procuring by negotiation a distributing system in the city itself.
Los Angeles is already finding that her municipally owned, almost inex- haustible and cheap water supply, together with unlimited and cheap electric power, is to be the deciding factor in making of Los Angeles one of the large manufacturing cities of the United States. Other contributing factors, of course, being the climate, which makes almost continuous work possible, and the harbor, which provides shipping facilities to and from all parts of the world.
In the old days, Los Angeles, tied down by coal at $9 to $11 a ton, could not compete as a manufacturing city with districts having cheap fuel available. Then came the year of California oil development which reduced the price of fuel more than half, and manufacturing began to show its head as a possibility. Now the city is entering on its third year from the basis of manufactures, and power development and distribution now make possible successful competition in manufacturing with any city in the United States.
This, therefore, is practically the story of the Owens River Aqueduct. But the mere relation of the facts leaves out much that the imagination must supply. It was a bold stroke. Courage of the very highest order was necessary even to merely consider so gigantic an undertaking. It is not every city of the size of Los Angeles in 1905 that would have had the vision to go 250 miles afield over strange deserts and under mountain peaks to corral a river and lead it captive to its gates.
But it is achievements of this nature that have made Los Angeles what it is today and what it is to be tomorrow.
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CHAPTER XXIV
THE GLORY OF THE SCHOOLS
We are indebted to Laura Grover Smith for the following very illumi- nating and inspiring chronicle of the birth and growth of public education in the City of Los Angeles :
The school in the early pueblo of Los Angeles was not regarded as an indispensable thing in a new community, as it was in New England settle- ments. Outside of the missions, learning was only fitfully pursued for many years. Now and then an early Spanish or Mexican governor deplored the fact that there were children of school age and that no teachers could be found, but the matter appears to have gone no farther than that for a long time.
The brief records of those early times, as far as "schooling" was con- cerned, are picturesque reminders of the easy-going days on the great ranchos with more or less indolent splendor, and later of the outer circle of the adventurers of '49 who came this way. It was not until the tide of immigration brought eastern men and women from communities where schools had been established, that education by way of schools became important in the little pueblo of Our Lady of the Angels.
Thirty-seven years from the time of the founding of the pueblo, under a Spanish governor, Maxima Pina taught the first school. It lasted a short two years and he received $140 a year.
There was a long vacation of several years, and the next record found in the early archives of the city is an item alluding to the fact that the ayuntamiento had allowed the purchase of a bench and table for the use of a school in the pueblo. It does not elaborate the fact, but doubtless the bench and table were for the school kept by Lucian Valdez from 1827-32. This was the longest school period under Mexican rule, and was followed by the inevitable long vacation.
The school affairs of the pueblo were entirely under the ayuntamiento, which was all powerful, and its authority extended indefinitely from a geo- graphical standpoint. To belong to this body was an unpaid honor. The only paid officials in the pueblo were the secretary of the ayuntamiento, the sindic or tax collector, and the schoolmaster, when there was one. The school- master's salary was not to exceed $15 a month, and the chief qualification and requirement was that he should not expect, and certainly must not ask for an increase of salary. In the latter event he was to be dismissed as unfit for the office.
In addition to the long vacations, there were frequent short ones when the teacher would be called before the ayuntamiento to explain. It was apparently quite a satisfactory excuse to say that the scholars had run away! Saints' days were holidays, and each child's name saint's day was
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invariably celebrated, so schools, to say the least, were intermittently conducted.
In 1844 Governor Micheltorena took the matter of education in his own hands and secured from the state funds a grant of $500 for any school to be established in the pueblo of Los Angeles. Doubtless he was regarded as very radical, for he went so far as to advocate education for girls. Up to this time girls were not regarded as a part of any scheme of education. What they learned at home in the way of embroidery and sewing were considered quite enough education for women.
A boys' school was soon under way with Ensign Don Guadalupe Medina as teacher. He had already been detached by leave of absence from his military duties. The school was conducted on what was considered at the time most modern methods. And certainly he had an ingenious plan in teaching. By cleverly developing a class of older children under his immediate supervision, these same children were able to teach the younger ones and, in this way, all of his hundred or more pupils had some benefit of direction.
Among the many good things told about this enthusiastic young man, is the fact that he copied all the reports of the first census ever taken in Los Angeles. This was in the year 1836.
Don Guadalupe Medina, to the regret of the community, was recalled to military duty in 1844. His inventory signed February 2, 1844, reads :
"Thirty spelling books, eleven second readers, fourteen catechisms by Father Repaldi, one table without cover, writing desk, six benches and one blackboard."
A side light on the recall of Medina to military duty, and the conse- quent closing of the school, is the fact that the schoolhouse was needed by Pico and Castro for the soldiers, and the bigger boys were expected to change their pens for swords.
A five years' vacation followed.
Standing out in the intermittent teaching of these early days is the school which was presided over by Don Ignacio Coronel and his daughter, Soledad, in 1838-44. The children met in his own house, which was in the neighborhood of the Plaza. Don Ignacio was a man of ability, and the daughter far in advance of her day. She introduced in a simple way something of dramatic teaching and dancing in addition to the usual accomplishments. This was surely a "neighborhood school" and is a charming memory of the early days.
In the year 1847 there was no school whatever in the town. The gold excitement two years later brought eastern young men, who left in passing through, at least a sentiment about schools. But the lure of the gold fields was strong and the population constantly dwindled in numbers.
However, the feeling grew that schools were necessary, and when in 1850 the ayuntamiento was merged into the city council, sentiment in favor of education crystallized into action, and under American rule on July 4, 1851, the first school ordinance was signed.
The first teacher's contract under American rule was signed by Abel Stearns, president of the City Council. It was with Francisco Bustamente, who naively agreed : "to teach the scholars to read and count, and in so far
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as he was capable, to teach them orthography and good morals." The school year was to last four months and his salary was $60 a month.
Another teacher of the early American days was Hugo Overns, who condescendingly agreed to teach a school aided by city funds, but the city should only send six boys !
The Rev. Henry Weeks and his wife conducted one of these combination schools, city and private, for which they received $150 a month.
During the early '50s the school authorities and schools were much at sea. Such teachers as could be found taught as they saw fit, for there was no uniform course of study. They began the day when they were ready, and the school year lasted as long as the funds, which was usually about three months.
The schools, until 1852, when a tax of 10 cents per $100 valuation was made, were either private or partly supported by the city. The subsidies were withdrawn about this time.
With the increasing immigration of eastern people over the mountains and across the plains, and the occasional arrival of a well-trained teacher, the demand grew for an organized system, similar to that in existence in eastern communities, and in 1853, John T. Jones submitted an ordinance "for the establishment and government of city schools." A committee was appointed consisting of J. Lancaster Brent, Louis Granger and Stephen C. Foster, with Mr. Brent, ex officio school superintendent.
To Stephen C. Foster, elected mayor of Los Angeles in 1854, is due the final and definite move to establish free education in this city. He himself was a man of education, was graduated from Yale College. In his appeal to the public at that time he says that "there is a school fund of $3,000 on hand; there are 500 children of school age, and there is no school house for them."
Three school trustees were immediately appointed: Manuel Requena, Francis Mellus and W. T. B. Sanford. The mayor himself, Stephen C. Foster, was wisely chosen for the newly created office of superintendent of schools.
The year 1855 marked further progress in the erection of the first public school building in the City of Los Angeles, which stood at the corner of Second and Spring streets. It cost $6,000.
From this time on the school records become more and more interesting, for, connected with the development of the schools in administration and teaching are many names which are as honored now as they were then. The builders of our school system builded well, and their children and grandchildren are reaping the benefits today.
Mr. Newmark, in his interesting history of Los Angeles, tells of the faculty of that little school on Spring Street. In charge of the boys' department was William A. Wallace, who had come out to study the flora of this coast. Miss Louisa Hayes, who was the first woman teacher here, directed the girls' department. Among the pupils, Mr. Newmark adds, "were Sarah Newmark, her sister Mary Wheeler who married William Pridham, and Lucinda Macy, afterwards Mrs. Foy, who recalls partici- pating in the first school examination."
The population during the period of the Civil war numbered many southern sympathizers, and sectional feeling was bitter at times. This
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affected the schools in many ways. The oath of allegiance was required at that time from the teachers of the state, and has been since then obliga- tory, before the issue of certificates. Many were called to the colors at the time, and the school attendance for that reason, and for economic reasons as well, dwindled to 350.
At the close of the war prosperity began, and Los Angeles grew rapidly, and the schools multiplied.
In 1868 the cause of education was quickened by the arrival of experi- enced instructors, several of whom became influential in laying the founda- tion of our present school system. Among them were W. H. Rose, Wm. M. McFadden, Anna McArthur, J. M. Guinn, Prof. Wm. Lawlor and P. C. Tonner.
The first teachers' institute ever held in the County of Los Angeles was
OLD HIGH SCHOOL, SITE OF THE PRESENT COURT HOUSE
called in the year 1870. The school building on Bath Street was chosen for the meetings, as it was more central than the one on Second and Spring streets. William McFadden, who was at that time the first county superin- tendent of schools, was the president of the first institute. J. M. Guinn and W. H. Rose were vice presidents, and P. C. Tonner was the secretary. There were thirty-five teachers present, eight of whom taught in Los Angeles.
It was an interesting and enthusiastic meeting. It is pleasant to think of the members of this earnest little group hopefully looking to the future. They doubtless knew that their world was changing and the foundations they placed were for others who would come over the plains in the tide of immigration to build on the foundations thus reared. Their dreams, however, could not have pictured all that has come to pass. Many of the little group lived to know that their achievement, in the day of small things, formed the corner stone of our present fine educational system.
In 1872, where now stands the courthouse, a school building was erected which for some years was used by the first high school. This was
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built under the benefit of the first school bond issue, which was for $20,000. This building was afterwards moved and is now the California Street School.
In 1873, for the first time in the history of the city schools, a professional teacher was appointed to the office of superintendent of schools, Dr. W. T. Lucky, ex-president of the State Normal School. It was a most fortunate choice, and under his supervision the school system expanded rapidly into a fine and orderly arrangement of graded schools following established sys- tems in existence in other cities.
In the previous twenty years of the school system, superintendents were never by chance teachers. Among them were men distinguished in other walks of life, lawyers, doctors, clergymen and merchants.
In 1875 the first graduating class from a high school in the city made its bow to the world in the old "Los Angeles High." The following named composed the graduating class: Henry O'Melveny, Henry Leck, Yda Addis, Addie Gates, Jessie Piel and Lillian Milliken.
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