USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 53
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 53
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These are some of the troubles that confronted Mr. Evans, but which, as will be seen elsewhere in this history, were finally settled to the satis- faction of all parties.
Although Mr. Evans represented both the land and water company as president and as the principal investor, it is quite clear to anyone who had passed through that interesting period in the history of Riverside that his own personality was the feature that finally brought that peace and harmony that was necessary to the future well being and prosperity of Riverside.
Born in Ohio in 1823, with the exception of a few years spent in New York, the active part of his life before coming to Riverside was spent in Indiana. The death of his father in his early manhood threw many business responsibilities on his shoulders that are not usually encountered at the beginning of business life. However, he showed himself equal to any emergency.
Mercantile pursuits proving satisfactory, 1865 found him a successful banker in Fort Wayne, Indiana, until he sold out and came to Riverside in 1874. In the prime of life he came to Riverside to grapple with difficulties in a new and untried field and for nearly fifteen years he was beset with difficulties that could not ordinarily be foreseen. Lawsuits and various other complications arose thick and fast and under circum- stances that neither law nor custom had contemplated. Every emergency as it came up was met and generally overcome. However, the main one was the water question and its relation to the land and the users of water. This main one was finally settled by co-operation with the people
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themselves and a final working together for the good of all and giving the management of affairs into the hands of those who were using the water.
During all of this time of uncertainty Mr. Evans had time to take an active part in everything pertaining to the best future interests of Riverside, in many cases where his immediate personal interests would have dictated a different course. The moral aspects of the case were always paramount to the merely financial side of every question and the wise judgment of himself and others have made the Riverside of today with its churches, schools, library, hotels, parks and other desirable fea- tures. Money was contributed liberally wherever needed, both from the institutions and corporations he represented, and his faith, firmness and liberality at one or two critical times saved Riverside from some very untoward predicaments.
Riverside was Mr. Evans' home and his efforts helped to make his home place what was foreseen and hoped for and worked for from the foundation in 1870. It is pleasing to know that before Mr. Evans passed away in 1902 he was able to enjoy in peace in some degree the fruits of his labors, his two sons taking up the work where he left off.
CHAPTER XV THE DOMESTIC WATER SYSTEM
From its very foundation Riverside felt the lack of a good supply of pure water for culinary and domestic uses. Spring Brook, where there was estimated to be 300 inches of pure spring water which had its source of supply only a short distance away and all within the ownership and under the direction of the Southern California Colony Association, would have been thought to have been ample in every way both in quan- tity and quality for all purposes for years to come, and so it was, for it was brought into the town by wagon and doled out in small quantities for drinking purposes and was as satisfactory and pure as could be asked for.
There were also wells up to a depth of from fifty to one hundred or even more feet where water was found in more or less desirable qualities, but more especially on the east side before the Gage Canal was built. There one of the conditions of settlement on the dry plains was a well and windmill, which were at best only makeshifts to be wholly supplanted when the Gage Canal came.
H. P. Kyes, one of the settlers east of town on the government lands, while waiting for water to be brought on his lands, dug over one hundred wells in various places in and around Riverside. While engaged making a living in this way for himself and family he went up into the Box Springs Mountains and developed a limited supply of pure spring water which he brought on to his land after prices rose for town lots. In addition he put down a well and installed a pumping plant on his own place.
The great majority of the people had nothing but canal water in use for every purpose, which was comparatively satisfactory when population was limited. But as population grew and lands everywhere began to be occupied the canals could not be relied on to furnish pure water. Espe- cially was this a matter that deserved serious consideration when it was known that the main source of our supply came through and from San Bernardino, a town that was constantly growing larger and had no system of sewerage except the channels of the creeks that arose within the town or not very far away. It was known that in a great measure running water in our bright sunshine purified itself and there was a wide expanse of river bed sand to be run over before the water reached the intake of our canals. These were all mitigating circumstances, but scientific men asserted that there was a possibility that some of the germs of disease might survive and take root on favorable opportunity. This theory was substantiated by statistics after the piped water had been in use for a year or two by fewer deaths from certain fevers, etc., and some dear and valuable lives were sacrificed by the use of impure water. It was impossible to keep the water in the canal from impurities, for in these early days cemented or piped ditches were not known, hardly thought of, and the main canal grew up to aquatic weeds and became filled up with mud and sediment and the cleaning process by Indians walking in the water up to their middle, using scythes, shovels and other implements in cleaning was not a very alluring picture to contemplate. Besides, from time immemorial a stream of water was always a very convenient way of getting rid of all manner of rubbish. There were other ways of fouling the water that need not be mentioned here. There was a pipe line on
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Eighth Street from the canal into the town which supplied piped water from the canal under a light pressure. It was a convenience to those who could use it and did away with some unsightly ditches with malodorous features in warm weather. This line came into better use when pure artesian water was turned in.
This was the situation up to the beginning of 1887. Spring Brook was always held as a reserve in case of emergency when it could be pumped into a reservoir for public use, and as it had its sources on the company's lands it could be kept from outside contamination. Pumping was a costly proposition in the days before gasoline and internal com- bustion engines. The contingency of pumping was removed and an oppor- tunity given for the formation of a valuable lake in Fairmount Park by a proposition made to the people of Riverside, the Riverside Water Company and the Riverside Canal Company by E. Rosenthal, pioneer merchant and settler of Riverside, as follows :
In exchange for certain lands aronud Rubidoux Mountain, including the mountain itself, all above the flow of the Riverside Canal, having only a nominal value without water, Mr. Rosenthal said that he had Los Angeles parties behind him with ample capital who would go over into the San Bernardino Valley and onto a tract of land owned by the Water Company where they would sink artesian wells and develop water to the extent of 300 inches, pipe it in steel pipes and bring it into Riverside to the head of Eighth Street. A portion of this piped water was to be applied on these lands so obtained which were to be laid off into town lots and in this way made valuable and sold at a high figure. This was in boom times when almost anything appealed to the anxious investor, speculator and boomer.
This was a fair proposition and looked good to the people of River- side. Meantime Matthew Gage, who was in the heyday of his fame as the Wizard who had gone into a comparatively dry section of the Eastern San Bernardino Valley and brought forth gushing water from the bowels of the earth and put it on the dry government lands east and southeast of Riverside, made a similar proposition that did not, however, go into as much detail as the Rosenthal proposition. These propositions were dis- cussed pro and con for several months until a clearer understanding of the whole subject could be gained with all its advantages.
There were not wanting at this time what has been termed in the slang of the day "knockers." These fossils, if they might not inaptly be called by that name, saw in these propositions a gigantic scheme to swindle the people of Riverside out of a vast area of land, in all 1,326 acres, and make an immense fortune. As usual in all such schemes of the opposition, they had no practical substitute to offer except that they were willing (to keep Riverside from getting a magnificent opportunity for improve- ment by exchanging a tract of worthless land for something substantial) to put Riverside in the class of fossils and subject to the daily increasing dangers to the public health arising from the continuous use of con- taminated water. These "knockers" were willing to undergo all these dangers and privations in order as public benefactors to prevent others from making what they alleged was a fortune out of these worthless lands.
The discussion lasted until May 4, 1887, when an arrangement was finally made with Mr. Rosenthal. The Gage proposition was rejected, mainly, not because it was not a fair and liberal one, but because the Rosenthal one would confine the whole system within the management of the Riverside Water Company. There were some changes made from the original proposition. Important they may be called, for the whole
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plan involved in the outcome great losses to some of our leading and progressive citizens as will be seen later on.
Mr. Rosenthal said negotiations had been so long delayed by discus- sion that his original backers had got tired waiting and withdrawn altogether, but he proposed forming a local company to take up the original offer and put it through. This seemed so reasonable and opened up a fine prospect of enlarging the area of improved lands to the west of the city, as well as filling a great need in furnishing piped water to every householder. The prospect of being a profitable undertaking to the promoters was a very flattering one and there was no difficulty in securing stockholders in a new company called the Riverside Improve- ment Company that was immediately formed.
There was also another great benefit to be derived which would be a great aid in beautifying Riverside and that was a constant supply of water in making lawns. Heretofore it was not believed that blue grass lawns would be a success in our hot semi-arid dry atmosphere and attempts at lawn making had not proved all that the makers of them had a right to hope for, for it was not possible to get water often enough, which would mean daily, in the height of summer. Even with a constant supply of water it was not certain that we could have the beautiful lawns we have today.
The Rosenthal proposition as finally agreed on embraced a payment of $25,000, one-half to the Riverside Land Company and one-half to the Riverside Land and Irrigating Company, and to build a pipe line from the head of Eighth Street to the source of supply from artesian wells to be built across the Santa Ana River on the Thorn tract of land owned by the water company. This source of supply was subsequently changed to another and the present location on the Riverside side of the river owing to fears of a washout of the pipe line in flood time of the Santa Ana River.
The pipe line was to have a capacity of 225 inches for seventeen-inch pipe. The new company was also to lay a pipe line from the main line from the east of Riverside across the valley for the irrigation of new lands to be given in compensation for building the pipe line. It was understood that only a portion of the lands granted would be under the flow of the pipe line, but it embraced all of those fine lands now improved around the base of Rubidoux Mountain, including those now known as the Experiment Station lands, also those fine residence sites known as Bankers' Row, high and dry and sightly, with a fine outlook over the city and valley, now the most valuable building locations in the city. The company was also to build a settling and aerating reservoir at the head of the pipe line which is now covered, in a substantial way to exclude all animals, insects and dust and the pure water runs from the wells into the reservoir and pipe line. The new company also agreed to take water stock in the Riverside Water Company. The estimated original cost was $140,000, but it actually cost about $200,000.
Apart from the sanitary benefits and as a fire preventive measure it put Riverside in a favorable position for reduced insurance rates, as water could be thrown from the pipes over the highest building. The water company was also pledged to lav an eight-inch pipe line to Arling- ton, thus ensuring water to all parts of the valley.
Something like 300 acres would be susceptible of improvement in this way, for the water had not pressure to rise very high on these lands. The change in the location of the wells to the Riverside side of the Santa Ana River gave an increased pressure of twenty-seven feet. One of the improvements made possible by the introduction of piped water was the doing away with the many unsightly ditches which disfigured the
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city everywhere and menaced the public health. There were so many prospective benefits seen and many unforseen that it is a matter of surprise that there ever were any opponents of the measure. One leading citizen stated that he did not need artesian water, for he had a good well and windmill which had cost him $1,000. About that time he changed his mind suddenly when in a fierce norther his windmill and tankhouse were blown down.
Mr. Rosenthal's original proposition having fallen through, the benefits of a supply of water for city purposes was seen to be so great, and indeed it soon came to be looked on as a public necessity, that it was an easy matter to get up a company of leading and enterprising citizens who organized under the name of the Riverside Improvement Company with a capital stock of $1,000,000. The names of the directors for the first year were: E. Rosenthal, A. S. White, Dr. Joseph Jarvis, John G. North and O. T. Dyer. A. S. White was elected president ; Doctor Jarvis, vice president ; Henry J. Rudisill, secretary, and O. T. Dyer, treasurer.
This company planned away ahead in the future and a large and beautiful hotel was projected to be built on a spur of Rubidoux Moun- tain facing the city, a beautiful location and at an elevation commanding a view of the city and a large part of the valley. There was also to be a railway near the base of the elevation on which the hotel was to be built with an elevator from the cars into the hotel. The hotel and foundations were to cost $250,000 and the idea was enthusiastically received and subscribers to the extent of nearly $200,000 were immediately obtained and work was soon commenced on the foundation, which needed blasting and leveling, and soon the timbers for the new building began to assume form, until nearly $100,000 was spent on the foundation and superstructure, but the "best laid schemes" never came to fruition and work came to a stop because hard times came and subscribers to the stock could not or did not come up with the money, and there the frame- work stood for a year or two, until a heavy wind came and blew it down, ending in a complete loss, except that the work on the site came in somewhat later in being utilized for a reservoir for storage of piped and pumped water as a reserve for fire purposes and for everyday need. The Improvement Company had also in contemplation the beautifying of Rubidoux Mountain itself as a park and recreation grounds, which plan has been carried out in fuller details . since by Frank A. Miller and his associates. The collapse following a "bursted boom" was responsible for this failure and the disaster that overtook all who had anything to do with the pipe line introduction of pure artesian water into Riverside giving Riverside the best domestic water supply of any city then and probably even now.
And so we see how our pioneers toiled and planned and accomplished and showed how to do, but like so many others of the time, they made possible some of the later achievements that could not be carried out without their efforts beforehand and if the world's goods are not as plenty as they should be, it is a pride and pleasure to know that their efforts have produced results that will be a monument for all time. Alack and alas, so many of them have entered into the great beyond and the great reward and only a remnant of them remain, but the remem- brance ·will not be lost as long as the efforts of the historian can be preserved.
With the garrulousness of age perhaps the writer has wandered from the subject, but memory will recall the past, and it is hard to say whether sadness at the meager reward of those who fought and accomplished and
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won, or joy at the result is the predominating feeling, but when it is shown and perpetuated in history, that the crown, if only of olive leaves, has not been withheld, it may give courage to those who come after to continue and persevere even to the end.
The piped water was a success from its inception. The only ques- tion was how to get money to carry the water to every home. Many householders and owners of lots and blocks put piping in at their own expense to be afterwards reimbursed by credits from water supplied as a payment on the cost, by the Riverside Water Company. This was a great asset and profitable source of income until all within reasonable reach of the pipe lines were supplied with water for household use and until sold to the city. This water had a great influence in beautifying the city, by lawns, ornamental plants and flowers and also by favoring the planting of street trees. It also helped to increase the population because of the purity of the water and its effect on the general health.
The increase in population was such that the seventeen-inch main for the supply of domestic water became too small to supply enough water and something had to be done to relieve the situation. After due delibera- tion the directors of the Riverside Water Company decided that the time had come for a new main pipe with increased size and a thirty-inch main was determined on with a capacity of 500 inches of water. This would also require more artesian wells, and accordingly other wells were bored to increase the supply, the result of which the thirty-inch main was put in and finished January, 1913, at a total cost of $113,651.71.
The domestic system was a great source of income to the water com- pany and tided it over some trying financial difficulties, but there was a growing feeling among many citizens that had no direct connection with the Riverside Water Company that municipal ownership would be a good thing. This feeling was strengthened by the fact that municipal owner- ship in other departments of the city government had been very successful.
In accordance with this feeling a direct vote of the people favored city ownership and after a time spent in considering the question the domestic system was turned over to the city authorities on June 15, 1913, for a gross total sum of $575,000. This included valuable water rights to various tracts of artesian lands around the head of the piped line system and in other parts of San Bernardino Valley of a value of over $75,000. Other personal property, real estate and water rights made up the sum total. This sale relieved the water company, enabling it to go ahead in other directions, but cut off a very profitable source of income.
The Riverside Improvement Company, which started in to build the domestic pipe line and under such promising conditions, taking in exchange for the pipe line with 200 to 225 inches of pure artesian water, completed its task very successfully, but unforeseen contingencies arose, some of which might have been foreseen, but most of them unexpected. At the time the contract was made and for several years before, lands were selling very freely and at good prices and these lands the improvement company was to get were some of the choicest residence lands in River- side and in every respect desirable, only needing the introduction of pure piped water to make them available. Then again the cost of laying the pipe line was much greater than the original estimate. The obligation to put up such a large hotel as was planned and for which there was a great need, and on which there was expended at a total loss nearly $100,000, was another factor, and in the very last extremity, when some of the best financiers of the company were exerting themselves to raise money on available securities, the firm that was furnishing pipe, etc., get-
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ting alarmed, tied up effectually and ultimately sacrificed all available credits and put a stop to all efforts at getting an extension of time to meet the financial strain.
The greatest factor of all in the financial loss that ensued was, a dull time set in, in which the call for land for newcomers for homes was for the time satisfied and the fine lands put on the market could not be sold at prices anticipated without an extension of time in which to let the demand catch up with the supply. The introduction of such a fine supply of pure domestic water in a short time produced a greater demand for building lots, but too late to be of any use in putting an end to the difficulty. And so, like many another effort in which a community was benefitted, a few men were sacrificed while the great tide of improvement went steadily on.
HEMET DAM, LARGEST PIECE OF SOLID MASONRY IN SOUTHWEST
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CHAPTER XVI WATER CONSERVATION
BY FRANCIS CUTTLE, President Water Conservation Association.
In order to get a proper conception of the necessity for the conserva- tion of water and the present scope of the work it may be well to get a perspective by reviewing briefly the manner of utilizing available water supply since irrigation was first begun in California.
Naturally, the first attempts at irrigation were confined to the diver- sion of water from the flowing streams that were found by early settlers. Crude brush dams were built to divert water from streams, earthen ditches were scraped out and water carried to land to be irrigated. Very soon all of the natural flow of the streams was appropriated and put to beneficial use in this manner, but on account of the uneven rainfall these sources of supply were irregular. The value of crops irrigated from these lands naturally led to the spreading of the available supply, based on the maximum flow. Consequently, when seasons of deficient rainfall came the supply of water was insufficient to properly irrigate all of the land upon which water had been spread, based on the supply available during wet years. This led to bitter contention among the different appropriators as to who should have the available supply during the dry seasons and in some instances irrigators suffered greatly for lack of water. In order to get a more uniform flow some companies began the develop- ment of water by artesian wells. This proved a more constant supply than the surface streams and was considered for a time as a remedy for the intermittent flow of the surface streams.
However, this source of supply was developed to its ultimate pos- sibility and still there was a demand for more water which led to the development of water by pumping plants. This source of supply was utilized just as the others were and the water was spread just as far as it would go, based on the maximum supply. Consequently when seasons of short supply occurred there was the same trouble about dividing the available supply, resulting in much litigation and hardship among irri- gators. This condition naturally affected all of the irrigation interests in San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange Counties, so that when Professor Hilgard suggested that the spreading of storm water on the debris cone at the mouth of the Santa Ana River might possibly regulate the flow in all of the sources of supply above mentioned, a few people in San Bernardino County and the irrigation interests in Riverside and Orange Counties saw the possibilities and formed an organization known as the Water Conservation Association for the purpose of spreading storm water of the Santa Ana River and its tributaries, hoping that the result would be beneficial to all irrigation interests.
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