Bringing Wealth and Water to the City of Angels: Transforming Los Angeles' Physical Landscape into an Anglo Vision 1908-1960

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Bringing Wealth and Water to the City of
Angels: Transforming Los Angeles’ physical
landscape into an Anglo Vision 1908-1960
By Cambria Rodriguez
Los Angeles today continues to undergo massive land and city
development to sustain and provide for the growing city. The city has become
a multi-ethnic metropolis, housing and providing for diverse communities as
it has since the beginning of development. The city resides between the Pacific
Coast, Sierra Nevada, and San Gabriel mountains making it a prime region for
real estate. Its desirable flat region is crucial in the construction of massive
building projects. However, the landscape did not always prove prosperous for
the Anglican community. Los Angeles’ geographical features and water supply
were not always manageable and the Anglican communities that resided
within suffered hardships for many generations. For almost a hundred years
Mexicans who settled into Los Angeles prior to the Mexican American War
adapted to the natural, physical landscape and the water supply it provided.
However, when Anglo Americans came to the Los Angeles basin after
California was declared a state in 1848, decades of physical landscape changes
to the region’s coast and water supply began to transform the City of Angels
according to an “Anglo Vision” at the social and human cost of the displaced
and exploited indigenous and Mexican descent populations who resided there.
There is an extensive amount of scholarship, current and past, that details
Anglo alterations within the Los Angeles region’s communities and landscape
in addition to the human and environmental cost that accompanied. However,
there is little scholarship pertaining to the physical landscape changes Anglo
Americans enforced that specifically affected the indigenous and Mexican
descended communities within Los Angeles which is why my research
provides historical significance. The scholarship in my research is diverse and
comes from an array of academic and professional disciplines that strengthens
and provides perceptive evidence to my paper.
Many of my primary sources derive from city maps dating back to 1888 that
display the evolution of physical landscape and community alterations as well
as photographs and newspaper articles during the periods of reconstruction
many of which, were supplied by the California State University, Dominguez
Hills archives. In addition, sociologist John Walton’s Western Times and
Water Wars included beneficial statistics, maps, newspaper articles, first-

hand accounts and many additional resources that depicts the hardships
indigenous and Mexican communities faced during the construction of the
Owen’s River Valley Aqueduct. A collective of authors from scientific,
ecological, biochemical, and geographic backgrounds included in
the Historical Ecology and Landscape Change of the San Gabriel River and
Floodplain SCCWRP Technical Report, provided insight into social, landscape
and ecological effects of the Los Angeles Anglo Vision. Historians William
Deverell, Blake Gumprecht and Greg Hise were also important contributors to
my research. These authors focus on the social, political and economic impacts
the Anglo Vision forced onto the Los Angeles region and its multiethnic
communities. Literature prior to 1990 focuses on the Anglo point of view and
Anglo successes in building the city of their dreams, which was not necessarily
beneficial to my studies. The sources in my research were all published within
the last twenty years, which substantiates the premise that the impact the
Anglo vision had on ethnic communities and the landscape is a relatively
recent historical research phenomenon.
Los Angeles Communities Prior to Anglo Arrival
In order to comprehend the dramatic social and cultural changes that
the Los Angeles indigenous and Mexican communities endured during the
years of Anglo transformation, it is important to recall the past communities
of influence which can be found in author Blake Gumprecht’s The Los Angeles
River: its life, death, and possible rebirth. According to Gumprecht, the first
inhabitants of the region were the Tongva Indians. The Tongva Indians were
hunters and gatherers who once inhabited the valleys and coastal plains of the
Los Angeles region. The water supplied from the Los Angeles river and
streams that birthed out of it, were crucial to their life and culture. The Tongva
used the river to drink and bathe in the pools along its banks. The natural
landscape provided them with animals to hunt, acorns and other native food
sources, and materials to make their huts, clothing and tools.[1] The Tongva
Indians adapted to and moved with the natural landscape and respected what
it provided for them. The Tongva traveled according to the season to search
for food and selected sites for their villages according to the location and
sources of water, which provided all that the Tongva needed to survive.
Because the Tongva understood the region’s waterways and their dangers,
many settlements remained a safe distance from the region’s rivers and
streams, on high ground. Gumprecht concludes that this understanding and
syncretism to the Los Angeles landscape is apparent among the Tongva
culture and was passed on to future generations and new inhabitants.

In 1768, an expedition was ordered by the Spanish government to
occupy Monterey, California. The expedition was led by Baja governor,
Captain Gaspar de Portola. Two members of the expedition kept diaries of
their experiences; Engineer Michael Costanso and Father Juan Crespi.[2] It is
in these daily accounts, that the first sightings of the Los Angeles region are
documented and recorded. As Father Juan Crespi noted while camping along
the Los Angeles River, “It has good land for planting all kinds of grain and
seeds, and is the most suitable site of all that we have seen for a mission, for it
has all the requisites for a large settlement.”[3] Indeed, by 1781, colonial Spain,
intrigued by the plentiful supply of water, established El Pueblo de la Reina de
Los Angeles.
As the Spaniards settled into the Los Angeles region in 1781, they soon realized
their agricultural dreamland was illusory. [4] The inability to control and
effectively irrigate the water supply within the region led the Spaniards to
adopt Tongva Indian agricultural labor skills and expertise of the region’s soil.
In addition, the Spaniards also adopted the Tongva’s understanding of the
irregularities of the rivers and streams. Along with their farm labor, the
Indians were used to maintain the Pueblo’s water ditches.[5] The Spaniards
continued adopting “primitive” traditions that proved vital within the Spanish
outpost after the Mexican Revolution against Spain in 1821. With the forced
labor of the region’s Indigenous community and adaptation of their
geographical traditions, the Spaniards flourished and thrived within the Los
Angeles basin for decades.
According to Andrew Rolle’s book Los Angeles: From Pueblo to City of
the Future, the era of the Californios evolved due to the distance and difficulty
of communication between Mexico City and California in addition to strong
local pride. [6] The open and available lands, in addition to the demand for
labor and rancheros drew Mexican migrants north to “El Pueblo”.[7] Rolle
claims the migrants not only introduced new Central Mexican species to the
foreign lands, but also their traditions and relationships to nature. Coming
from lands with tropical climates and good soil, the Mexican migrants were
essentially forced to adopt old native traditions in order to survive in the
region. The 2007 Historical Ecology and Landscape Change of the San
Gabriel River and Floodplain SCCWRP technical report #499, from 1825 to
about 1831, discusses the severe droughts the Los Angeles region
suffered.[8] Indians who left Mission life served as laborers and ranch hands on
the Californio estates and ranchos. The Californios learned a great deal from
them about the Los Angeles province and volatile water sources. The
elite Californios were vulnerable, and lacked the supplies and economic

backing to produce an advanced system of irrigation. Thus, they depended on
native labor and land knowledge for their success.[9]
Despite Indian labor abuse, and cultural exclusion, the Spanish and Mexican
generations continued local Indian traditions, knowledge and respect of the
Los Angeles region. The Californio society was built on the experiences,
successes and losses of those who came before them. The water continued to
flow in its own directions while the developing communities adapted
alongside. However, as noted by Rolle, everything changed after the Mexican-
American War. In 1847 Los Angeles was occupied, and by 1848 California was
officially a part of the United States quickly becoming an immigrant
center.[10] “El Pueblo” was Americanized fairly quickly, and Anglos began to
displace the region’s Mexican heritage. Ideologies would soon change from
humans conforming to the land, to conforming the land for the Anglos.
Anglo Los Angeles
The discovery of gold near Sacramento in 1848 initiated the
transformation of Los Angeles into a center for trade and materials, resulting
in more southern Mexican migrants and curious Anglos migrating from the
east. Eastern migration erupted exponentially after California officially
became a state later that year. [11] In his book, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of
Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past, historian William Deverell
claims that the end of the war between the Republic of Mexico and United
States pressured not only the Manifest Destiny’s right for Anglo American
expansion westward, but also the postulation that racial and national
supremacy were in collusion.[12] In addition to the economic promises
California provided, there were outward racial migration factors supported by
Manifest Destiny that enticed Anglo migrants into the Los Angeles region.
Deverell asserts that Manifest Destiny’s Anglican racial privilege and
ethnocentrism promoted Anglo confidence to conquer and exploit “The City of
Destiny.”[13]
Another factor for Anglo migration into the Los Angeles region is mentioned
in the Historical Ecology and Landscape Change of the San Gabriel River
and Floodplain SCCWRP Technical report. According to the 2007 report, in
1851, The United States congress established the California Land Act, which
set up a land commission to adjudicate between what was legitimate and
illegitimate land claims in California. Proof of land ownership, was often
difficult to attain due to different requirements under Mexican law.
Ultimately, many rancheros were forced to sell all or most of their land to the
U.S. government or Anglo migrants.[14] In addition to the discovery of gold and

acquisition of land, the report claims that the completion of the Santa Fe
Railroad was also an Anglo immigration pull factor to Southern California. At
its completion in 1886, not only was Los Angeles officially opened to eastern
and mid-west Anglo Americans, but to markets in the east as well. Due to
increased railroad developments and connections, by the end of the decade,
Los Angeles was connected and accessible to the entire country.[15] However,
the newly arriving Anglo migrants to Los Angeles did not tolerate the
“primitive” conditions that characterized the young Pueblo.
Although many Mexican-Americans lost their lands after the war, their
population in Southern California increased due to early industrialization in
Los Angles and Anglo demands for cheap and knowledgeable labor in
agriculture. As soon as Anglo Americans settled into the new frontier, their
prospects for creating a more “developed” Anglo city became aggressively
clear. In Whitewashed Adobe, Deverell confirms that Anglo society took over
the Mexican pueblo almost instantly, and set out to create cultural and
physical boundaries in order to contain its growing population. Deverell
emphasizes that at this point, Mexican ethnicity coincided with class,
guaranteeing Mexican presence in the bottommost ranks and cheapest wages
of manual or agricultural labor.[16] Clashes of culture and cultural space were
eminent and Anglos pressured to control not only those who resided in Los
Angeles, but the physical landscape and water supply that had, for
generations, disrupted agricultural and city developments. Anglo immigrants
demanded better-constructed streets, sanitation, fire protection, police,
schools, and most importantly, readily-accessible water piped directly to their
homes.[17] Anglos wanted to conform the land and water to benefit their own
economic, social, and political goals, and began formulating a plan to
transform the city’s coast and water supply, a plan which was enacted at the
expense of its Mexican American and indigenous populations. The Anglo
vision and goals for Los Angeles outlined by Deverell in Whitewashed
Adobeclearly defines the contrast between Indigenous and Mexican and Anglo
values, and displacement and marginalization of Mexican Americans to make
room for the Anglo vision.
The swelling population created an increase in demand for water
accessibility. According to the Historical Ecology and Landscape Change of
the San Gabriel River and Floodplain SCCWRP Technical Report, Anglos
pushed Mexican communities away from the prime residency near the river to
the outskirts of Los Angeles and into the valleys. While the Los Angeles rail
system provided accessibility for trade and immigration, due to the lack of
understanding of the land, Anglo city planners and railroad companies built
bridges over the unpredictable rivers of Los Angeles which created severe and

deadly consequences during flood seasons. As cost of residency along the
desired water source increased, it became available only for the wealthy Anglo
settlers- another example of how ethnicity and class concurred within the Los
Angeles Anglo frontier. Yet again, their decision to reside along the river
without any knowledge of the land and its water supply would eventually
doom Anglos and ultimately force them to seek help from those who best
understood the landscape, Mexican-Americans.[18]
In a climate marked by erratically extreme droughts or torrential rains and a
rapidly growing population, control of the water supply and its threats became
a top priority for Anglo city planners. As noted in the SCCWRP 2007 Technical
Report Historical Ecology and Landscape Change of the San Gabriel River
and Floodplain, 1861 was marked by heavy rainfall which flooded the San
Gabriel River, forging new channels and washing away resident’s crops,
livestock and homes. Two years later, a severe drought occurred, which dried
up grasslands, starving cattle to death. Consequently, the new American
Ranchers quickly went broke and were foreclosed upon.[19] In 1867, the climatic
history of floods and droughts repeated once again altering the landscape and
challenging communities.[20] For decades to come, Anglos came to realization
that they held no power over the native landscape and climates of the Los
Angeles region. As Anglos suffered economically, the push for landscape
alterations was at the forefront of city developments.
The Owens River Valley Aqueduct: 1908-1913
The first large-scale geographic alteration constructed and enforced by
Anglo city officials was that of the Owens River Valley Aqueduct, which was
completed in 1913. The Aqueduct was anticipated to bring in a substantial
amount of water to the city of Los Angeles and sustain the growing population.
John Walton’s Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion
in California, provides an extensive outlook on how the construction of the
Owens River Valley Aqueduct intensively affected indigenous populations of
the region using historical statistics and censuses as evidence. Prior to 1885,
The Owens River Valley’s population consisted of twelve percent of
“indigenous Californios” and Mexican migrants. [21]Apache Mexican migrant
Frank Olivas first settled into Los Angeles and shortly moved to the Valley
where he became a packer and miner. In addition to the promises of mining
riches, the massive farm lands also attracted Mexican migrants as well as
other non-white inhabitants, who made up forty percent of the Owens River
Valley population. [22] Anglo Americans flooded into the valley region based on
their vision of American cultural promises of social mobility and the idea of
frontier affluence. [23] Due to the Eurocentric views of the newly migrated

Anglos, the valley fell victim to social divisions based not just gender, but on
national origin and ethnicity as well.
Walton, John. Western times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in California.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Image: courtesy of the Eastern California
Museum, “Cerro Gordo Mine”. 77
The social structure of the Owens River Valley affected the degrading class
of the indigenous and Mexican populations that resided there prior to Anglo
migration. Mexicans, the largest single ethnic group among miners,
constituted one third of the mining population. The remaining indigenous
community, the Paiutes, were predominantly farmers, sharing most of the
farm land with white males, or laborers on farms where their expertise and
methods proved successful and essential for survival. Many Paiutes
assimilated into Anglo culture by attending school and supporting Anglo
fashion as depicted in the image below. [24]A majority of the white settlers, if
not owning land, learned the trade of coal mining quickly monopolized
it.[25] The California Land Act in 1851, suggested by Walton, assisted white male
farmers in owning most of the land which increased their status and wealth.
The class situation in the valley would continue to diminish Mexican and

indigenous reputations as the Anglo vision, backed by the Manifest Destiny,
promoted their right of conquest and utopic society. [26]
Forbes, Andrew. “Paiutes, Bishop” Indian School. Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western
History Research, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 1903-1916
Class tensions and the protection of lands pushed indigenous Paiutes and
White farmers into a period described as the “Indian Wars,” which spanned a
period of forty years between 1870 and 1910. John Walton claims in his novel
that during this period, as a method of social protests against class relations,
arson became common. In addition, due to the lack of authoritative and
government presence in the valley, the citizens of the Owens Valley region
used their own forms of justice to settle quarrels, including arson.[27] Paiutes
started fires on their employer’s farmlands, and Mexican miners burned
workplaces and businesses while farmers constantly took revenge on each
other over property disputes.[28] Many of the disputes between the classes
erupted over arguments of water rights as well as expropriative interferences
from Los Angeles. However, not long after the Indian Wars, citizens formed
alliances from 1904 to 1928 to contest the local struggle against Los Angeles’s
Anglo city elite’s ambitions to expand 240 miles north and acquire the rights
to their lands and water supply.[29] The vision of Anglo urban progress would
continue to confront the Mexican and Indigenous communities of the Owens
River Valley as the desire to build channels to divert water into Los Angeles
became the forefront of Anglo prospects.

The Department of Water and Power led by chief engineer William
Mulholland and Los Angeles business leaders believed the 240-mile Aqueduct
would stimulate Los Angeles’s growing urban economy and be a source of
employment for the region.[30]However much of the Aqueduct construction
was made possible by mule and horse power and not employed
citizens.[31] Author Les Standiford, who recently published a biography on
William Mulholland’s master Aqueduct planning and construction in Water to
the Angeles: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct and the Rise of
Los Angeles, claimed that Mulholland asserted that the well-established
communities in the Owens Valley region had no legal pueblo rights to the land
and thus made it possible for him to enforce his vision and tear apart the
communities in the underdeveloped valley that did not measure up to the fast,
urban developing Los Angeles landscape.[32] This context is an example of
how Mulholland’s city planning was visibly promoted by the Anglo vision and
Anglo racial authoritative rights to the lands. Mulholland was one of many
powerful, wealthy Anglo city developers in Los Angeles that since the
established rights of Manifest Destiny, believed lands in the west were
reserved for white males.
Many farmers and ranchers, willingly sold part or all of their land in 1908 to
the city of Los Angeles when construction for the Aqueduct
began. [33] Indigenous Paiute lands were endowed with water rights under
federal law and deemed agriculturally valueless to Los Angeles Anglo
elites.[34] In 1902 and 1912, separate federal grants set aside 69,000 acres of
land for Paiute home relocation sites north of the town of Bishop.[35] Paiutes
suffered the most from the city’s expropriation and economic collapse. The
Indigenous community of the Paiutes who once had eighty-three percent
employment in 1880, were only thirty-one percent employed by 1930. Out of
the thirty Paiutes that still owned land in the valley, nineteen sold, five leased,
and just four maintained land ownerships. In addition, farm labor, the
principal source of Indigenous employment, essentially disappeared under the
Los Angeles water-conserving lease arrangements. Anglicans viewed the
Paiutes of the region to be a nuisance, “bad publicity” and a future problem for
city developments. This racial and class deprivation along with displacement
deriving from the Anglo vision became an occurring trend for Mexican
Americans and other ethnic communities within Los Angeles. John
Walton’s Western Times and Water Wars includes the United States Senate
committee DWP official statement in 1932 to support this argument,

“The majority of the Indians are destitute, primarily from the lack of a local
labor market…a large number of them do not have home-site allotments and
are objects of charity…to correct this condition it is suggested that the Indians
be moved from the Owens Valley to new locations”[36]
The Owen’s River Valley Aqueduct was a natural geographic landscape
alteration that brought in massive amounts of water to the city of Los Angeles
at the ultimate cost of the indigenous residents and farmers who fell victim to
a Eurocentric class system, economic depression and displacement. The
Mexican miners and settlers of the region were somewhat more tolerant to the
Anglican settlers than the indigenous settlers of the valley. In his book, Walton
declares that Mexicans easily integrated within the Owen Valley’s white
society, which romanticized their culture and ceremonial celebrations such as
Mexican Independence Day for touristic values. Mexican miners were
acknowledged by white society as experts in their trade which was essential to
the Anglo economy and prosperity.[37] The Mexican communities, as
emphasized by Walton,
“enjoyed the tolerance and fellowship of white society, lending a kind of
cosmopolitanism to their segregated communities and providing a buffer with
Indian society through Hispanic marriages in both directions.”[38]
Mexican Americans and Indigenous communities of the region were treated
with racial abuse and suffered under the Anglo class system and city
development. The Owens River Valley Aqueduct project is an example of
Indigenous and Mexican American displacement as a consequence of the
Anglo vision.

Deadman’s Island, 1864.
Silka, Henry P. San Pedro: A Pictorial History Updated Through 1990. San Pedro, California.
San Pedro Bay Historical Society, 1993. Print
La Isle De Los Muertos: 1929
The second alteration to Los Angeles’ geographic features to support the
Anglo vision included in my research, is that of Deadman’s Island (Pictured
above). Named by the Spaniards La Isla de los Muertos and later
Americanized to Deadman’s Island according to the Los Angeles
Corral’s Westerners Brand Book supplied by the California State University
Dominguez Hills Archives, was an approximately eight hundred feet long, two
hundred and fifty feet wide and over sixty feet high island stationed in the
inner harbor of San Pedro Bay. The island would disappear not long after
Anglo immigration into the region. The prominent natural landscape feature
holding rich history for generations of Tongva, Spanish and Mexican residents
was destroyed to achieve the Anglo vision of Los Angeles.
La Isle De Los Muertos did not fail to live up to its name however. From 1810-
1850 the island served as a cemetery to shelter the dead from pillaging

coyotes. [39]Legends claim that Spanish vessels buried unwanted crew members
on the island. Legends also assert that men were stranded on the island and
died from hunger. A Los Angeles Times article from 1914 titled, “California
Landmark to be Obliterated”,claims that when the island removal
construction began, ten skeletal remains were found buried on the island: a
lost sailor, an English sea captain, five Marine’s crew, two passengers from an
1851 Panamanian ship, and one female named Mrs. Parker, the wife of
Capitan Parker of the Schooner Laura Bevian.[40] In addition to being a
symbol of the taking of California and major revolutionary battles in the
1840’s, the island also has rare paleontological significance as
well. [41] Nevertheless, the positioning of the island itself within the harbor was
dangerous as many ships, underestimating the island’s size, crashed into the
monumental landmark. Deadman’s island came under attack from Anglo
revitalization targets. Legendary to the Indigenous, Spanish and Mexican
communities, Deadman’s Island was a danger and threat to Anglo economic
prospects and trade. [42]
As Mexicans saw the removal of the island to be a loss of tradition and value,
the Anglo community initially saw it for its potential touristic value. In 1891,
the San Pedro Times pleaded for the island’s conservation. Anglo
conservationists proclaimed,
“In the near future, owing to the new railroad interest heading this way, San
Pedro will enter a new era of prosperity. Visitors will flock here, as well as
commerce and so place will have more charm for the tourists, than to land on,
and to examine, this old, historic island. It really would not be out of place to
have a neat monument placed on top of the island in memory of the ones who
were buried there in the years gone by, no doubt, United States Soldiers. Let
us urge this matter, and try to save what is left of the old island, ere it too, be
washed away and lost in the depths of the sea.”[43]
The argument deemed valid to city officials, and the island served as a tourist
and advertisement object until its demolition in 1929. After the U.S.
government exhumed skeletal remains, the island was covered with billboards
promoting hotels, banks and more as seen in the postcard below.[44]

McKinzie, Joe. San Pedro Bay: Postcard History Series. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2005.
Print
In addition to using Deadman’s island as an advertising post, the San Pedro
Anglo community quickly romanticized it’s melancholy and deathly history. In
1916 Harold Lloyd filmed “Lonesome Luke’s Wild Women” on Deadman’s
island. The film was about a shipwrecked sailor portrayed by Harold himself.
Harold was stranded on the island with an Indian and his many wives. The
film, although giving insight on the lost geographic feature, severely
stereotypes the indigenous communities that resided there prior to Anglo
arrival.[45] In addition, Richard Henry Dana Jr. romantically describes the
island himself in “Two Years Before the Mast” published in 1840,

“[T]he only … thing which broke the surface of the great bay was a small,
dreary-looking island, steep and conical, of a clayey soil, and without the sign
of vegetable life upon it, yet which had a peculiar and melancholy interest, for
on the top of it were buried the remains of an Englishman, the commander of
a small merchant brig, who died while lying in this port. It was always a
solemn and affecting spot to me. There it stood, desolate, and in the midst of
desolation; and there were the remains of one who died and was buried alone
and friendless. Had it been a common burying-place, it would have been
nothing. The single body corresponded well with the solitary character of
everything around. It was the only spot in California that impressed me with
anything like poetic interest. Then, too, the man died far from home, without a
friend near him,— by poison, it was suspected, and no one to inquire into it,—
and without proper funeral rites; the mate (as I was told), glad to have him out
of the way, hurrying him up the hill and into the ground, without a word or a
prayer.”[46]
It seemed as if the history of the island prior to Anglo arrival in San Pedro Bay
suddenly disappeared. All that was left of the island was the melancholy,
romanticized memories of the English sailors that perished on the island.
Those memories, along with Hollywood films like “Lonesome Luke’s Wild
Women” not only blindsided the Mexican ties to the island but served for the
sole purpose of attracting tourism and money into San Pedro Bay.
In 1917, when the first World War broke out, weaponry and soldiers were
stationed on Deadman’s island as protection for the harbor. By the 1920’s, the
island’s inaccessibility and geography made it a hotspot for delinquents to
store alcohol which had been outlawed during the era of Prohibition. By 1929,
due to Anglo ambitions to build a prosperous port of Los Angeles, the island-
and all its history was to be completely removed, an act funded by the United
Dredging Company of Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bridge
Company.[47] La Isla de los Muertes was once a Tongva sacred site that
protected their dead. Deadman’s Island is an example of the loss of traditions
for Indigenous and Mexican American descended communities by Anglos. It
served as a symbol for Spanish conquest and Mexican liberation, and upon
Anglo arrival, it fell victim an Anglo vision that desired to construct a utopian
American city in Los Angeles. Anglos were quick to romanticize the legends of
the island to promote tourism and used it for capitalistic goals before they
obliterated it entirely, thus erasing Mexican Los Angeles history and tradition.

California State
Engineering Department. Los Angeles River Drainage Area as it Once Was. 1888. Topographic
Maps for Southern California, 1896-1903, U.S. Geological Survey.
Los Angeles River Re-channeling Project: 1917-1960
The final and most sacred landscape feature to Indigenous and Mexican
descendants to be harmed by the Anglo’s to succeed in their utopic societal
vision, was that of the Los Angeles River mapped in the figure above. Los
Angeles Mexican residents not only lived near the river, but they moved along
with the river. Once again referring to William Deverell’s Whitewashed Adobe,
Mexicans knew and understood the River, its courses, movements and
temperament which had become their own.[48] The Los Angeles River
and zanjas, which were water diversion ditches dug out by Indigenous and
Mexican labor, was the sole source of the city’s water prior to Anglo

immigration.[49] The Mexican relationship to the Los Angeles’ river
characterized Mexicans as primitive and close to nature under the
ethnocentric and racial beliefs implemented by Anglo Americans. This also led
Anglos to the perception that Mexicans had proximate knowledge of the River.
The Los Angeles River was and always had been at the heart of communities,
past and present, within the region. From the Tongva villages, to the Spanish
outpost, Mexican pueblo, and finally the American “City of Desire”, the River
supplied residents with water to consume, bathe in, and feed their crops. In
addition, Deverell claims it played an increasingly essential role as a dividing
line between racially and socio economically defined neighborhoods.[50]
Author Blake Grumprecht confirms in his 1999 book, The Los Angeles River:
its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth, that William G. Dryden, a clerk of the
Common Council and former country judge, was the first Anglo city official to
propose the dispersal of water directly to homes in Los Angeles through pipes
in 1853. He requested a 21-year franchise for the water system and nearly nine
thousand acres of land. His offer was rejected and didn’t reach a renegotiation
and approval until four years later. Dryden established the Los Angeles Water
Works Company in 1858 and produced a forty-foot water wheel and fifteen-
by-thirty-foot brick reservoir in the plaza. The water, which ran through
underground pipes, supplied the homes of the city’s Anglo elite.[51] However,
Dryden’s success as a town hero did not last. By 1861, tragic storms destroyed
his water wheel and a water-diverging dam. This turning point marked the
time when the city finally decided to develop its own domestic water system.[52]
William G. Dryden’s story is essential to the development of the Los Angeles
River rechanneling project because it is the first time in Los Angeles history
that an elite, white male proposed to capitalize on the city’s natural resources
and attempt to physically alter the geography of Los Angeles. Dryden’s vision
would feed into those of William Mulholland and other Anglos that played a
large role in reconstruction of the Los Angeles landscape and exploitation of
Indigenous and Mexican communities and their knowledge of the region’s
natural resources. In addition, as the city population continued to grow
immensely, real-estate along the city’s water supply skyrocketed leaving
residency available only to those who could afford it-Anglo elites who did not
appreciate the aesthetic of the river and were ignorant to its potential dangers.
In contrast, Mexicans, who understood the irregular nature of the streams,
were continuously pushed further away from the river, which for generations,
had been a way of life for them.[53] Dryden’s work, although failed, began a
disparaging trend among the Anglo city elites, like William Mulholland, which
complemented their Anglo utopic vision.

Dryden’s failures proved a necessity to involve, but not give credit to, local
knowledge of the Mexican residents with river planning. [54] Great floods that
often occurred, most importantly that of 1914, served as a catalyst for flood
control programs but also slowed developments. However, Anglos boasted
that their agricultural prowess would soon eliminate droughts and their
engineers would eradicate floods completely.[55] In the early 1900’s city
engineers set out to map the region and record rain and drought seasons. They
realized they did not know the history of the landscape, particularly the “pre-
history” of Mexican Los Angeles. Interviewers were given the job to find the
oldest Mexicans and extract the history of which part of the river flowed
where, when and with how much vigor in order to cement the riverbed(s) in
once and for all.[56] Finally, by 1917, costing $3.3 million between the federal
government and Los Angeles County and years of deliberation over various
proposed plans, the Los Angeles river construction to diverge the river away
from the harbor began and was completed by 1921. Options for diversion
routes are seen in the figure on the following page. The river itself was shifted
a mile east. In addition, river channels were straightened and filled with
concrete and aligned with wire fences.[57] By May 1924, an additional $35.3
million was spent on flood control improvements.[58]

Leeds, Charles and H.
Hawgood to U.S. Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, 27 August 1915, Los Angeles
County Department of Public Words Technical Library, Alhambra, Calif., LACBEFC, Report of
the Board of Engineers, II, Image: Comparison of Diversion Routes, 222.

California State
Engineering Department. Los Angeles River Before and After Flood Control. 1896-1903.
Topographic Maps for Southern California, 1975-1978, U.S. Geological Survey.
The flood of 1938 proved to be the most damaging in the River’s history killing
eighty-seven people and costing $78 million ($888.8 million in today’s
currency) in damages. Once again, the Anglo vision did not stand a chance
when it came to the natural forces of the Los Angeles landscape. However,
they did not give up on their vision and would never succumb to defeat. In
their eyes, Anglo’s were above nature and could conform nature to their needs
rather than conform to nature itself. After 20 years, more than $1 billion
dollars, 3.5 million barrels of cement, 147 million pounds of reinforced steel,

years of labor and exploitation of Mexican river knowledge, the Los Angeles
River paving and sculpting project retrofitted 278 miles of river by 1960.[59]
Los Angeles City Council, Los Angeles Board of Commissioners, Annual Report (Los Angeles,
1933), 24.
What was once a winding, threatening, source of life for the Indigenous and
Mexican communities quickly became a concrete, fenced off, dumping target
and eye-sore that for decades would undergo many “beautification” initiatives
as depicted in the image above. The river was once viewed as an asset or
natural beauty necessary to survive. When the Anglos arrived, it was an
annoying, deadly hazard that had to be controlled.
The Aftermath of the Vision
The indigenous communities of Los Angeles appreciated and had great
knowledge of the natural, physical landscape of the Los Angeles region and its
resources. Their understanding of the region’s erraticism was consistently
proven to be sacred and informative in order to maintain prosperity and
survival during the occupation of the Spanish and into the days of the Mexican
Pueblo. When Anglo Americans arrived abundantly after the Santa Fe
Railroad completion in 1885, along with the landscape of Los Angeles,
Indigenous and Mexican communities’ livelihood and traditions were
threatened. The Anglo vision promoted Los Angeles to be the city of the
future; the American dream. However, the classist and racial boundaries
produced by the vision degraded and displaced Indigenous and Mexican
communities especially during the construction of the Owens River Valley
Aqueduct. In addition, when Anglo city elites planned to demolish a landmark

sacred to those of Indigenous and Mexican decent in order to develop a large
harbor and promote economic prosperity for the city, traditions buried deep
within La Isla de los Muertos were removed from history. The Anglo vision
also promoted white superiority not just over race and class, but nature as
well. When Anglo migrants arrived in Los Angeles they soon realized the river
that brought them life and sustenance was dangerous to their utopic success
and existence. Not only did Anglo city planners physically move the Los
Angeles River to suit their vision of the city, they exploited the knowledge of
Mexican elders in order to make the project possible and successful without
giving them credit or allowing them to assist in project development.
It is apparent that since 1885, these three massive geographic reconstruction
projects, the Owens Valley Aqueduct, the demolition of Deadman’s Island, and
the Los Angeles River rechanneling project have made it possible to sustain
the growing population and metropolis Los Angeles has become today.
However, since the Anglo arrival into the region, Indigenous and Mexican
communities have been displaced and exploited for their labor and knowledge.
Anglos wanted to conform the land’s water supply and coast to benefit their
own economic, social and political goals. In addition, the decades of
geographic changes to the region’s coast and water supply in order to
transform Los Angeles according to an Anglo Vision was only possible due to
the social and human cost of the indigenous and Mexican descent populations
who resided there. This time in history should not go unnoticed especially
from the point of view of the Indigenous and Mexican descended
communities, who, like the landscape, are still suffering the costs of the Anglo
vision today. Due to the alterations and divides the Anglo vision brought upon
the landscape and its communities from their arrival to the end of the Los
Angeles River construction project in 1960, class- and race-based social
divides, climatic changes and threats to the ecosystem continue to cause
conflicts within the Los Angeles region.
Footnotes:
[1] Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: its Life, Death, and Possible
Rebirth(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 26.
[2] Ibid, 36.
[3] Herbert Eugene Bolton, Fray Juan Crespi, Missionary Explorer on the
Pacific Coast, 1769-1774 (New York: AMS Pr., 1971), 147.
[4] Ibid., 42.

[5] Ibid, 46.
[6] Andrew F. Rolle, Los Angeles: from Pueblo to City of the Future (San
Francisco: MTL, 1995), 12.
[7] Rolle, Los Angeles: From Pueblo to City of the Future, 17.
[8] Eric Stein, Shawna Dark, Travis Longcore, Nicholas Hali, Robin Grossinger,
Jason Cassanova, and Martha Sutula, Historical Ecology and Landscape
Change of the San Gabriel River and
Floodplain (Sccwrp technical report #499: Greenvisions.usc.edu., 2007) Web.
26 Feb. 2017. 22.
[9] Eric Stein, Shawna Dark, Travis Longcore, Nicholas Hali, Robin Grossinger,
Jason Cassanova, and Martha Sutula, Historical ecology and landscape
change of the San Gabriel River and Floodplain, 9.
[10] Rolle, Los Angeles: From Pueblo to City of the Future, 20.
[11] Grumprecht, The Los Angeles River: its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth,
56.
[12] William Deverell, Whitewashed adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the
Remaking of its Mexican Past (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2004), 12.
[13] Deverell, Whitewashed adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the
Remaking of its Mexican Past, 2.
[14] Eric Stein, Shawna Dark, Travis Longcore, Nicholas Hali, Robin Grossinger,
Jason Cassanova, and Martha Sutula, Historical Ecology and Landscape
Change of the San Gabriel River and Floodplain, 13.
[15] Ibid., 14.
[16] Deverell, Whitewashed adobe: the rise of Los Angeles and the remaking of
its Mexican past, 31.
[17] Grumprecht, The Los Angeles River: its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth,
56.

[18] Eric Stein, Shawna Dark, Travis Longcore, Nicholas Hali, Robin Grossinger,
Jason Cassanova, and Martha Sutula, Historical Ecology and Landscape
Change of the San Gabriel River and Floodplain, 14.
[19] Ibid., 12.
[20] Ibid., 13.
[21] John Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and
Rebellion in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 60.
[22] Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in
California, 61.
[23] Ibid., 63.
[24] Ibid., 67.
[25] Forbes, Andrew. “Paiutes, Bishop” Indian School. Courtesy of the Seaver
Center for Western History Research, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
County, 1903-1916.
[26] Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in
California, 64.
[27] Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in
California., 118.
[28] Ibid., 109.
[29] Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in
California, 131.
[30] Ibid., 152.
[31] Owens River Christmas Gift to Los Angeles, (Los Angeles Times (1886-
1922) Dec 25, 1906).
[32] Les Standiford, Water to the Angeles: William Mulholland, His
Monumental Aqueduct and the Rise of Los Angeles (New York: Collins
Publishers, 2015), 85.

[33] John Walton, Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and
Rebellion in California, 152.
[34] Ibid., 209.
[35] Ibid., 208.
[36] Ibid., 206.
[37] Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in
California, 124.
[38] Ibid., 310.
[39] Westerners Los Angeles Corral, The Westerners Brand Book (Los Angeles:
Los Angeles Westerners, 1947), 62.
[40] California Landmark to be Obliterated (Los Angeles Times (1886-1922)
March 1, 1914).
[41] Westerners Los Angeles Corral, The Westerners Brand Book (Los Angeles:
Los Angeles Westerners, 1947), 63.
[42] Ibid., 69.
[43] San Pedro Times, October 10, 1891.
[44] Joe Mckinzie, San Pedro Bay: Postcard History Series (Charleston, SC:
Arcadia, 2005), 36.
[45] Bengtson, John. “Harold Lloyd on Deadman’s Island.” Chaplin-Keaton-
Lloyd film locations (and more). February 02, 2016.
[46] Bengtson, John. “Harold Lloyd on Deadman’s Island.” Chaplin-Keaton-
Lloyd film locations (and more). February 02, 2016.
[47] Westerners Los Angeles Corral, The Westerners Brand Book (Los Angeles:
Los Angeles Westerners, 1947), 71.
[48] William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and The
Remaking of its Mexican Past, 92.
[49] Ibid., 98.

[50] Ibid., 93.
[51] Blake Grumprecht, The Los Angeles River: its Life, Death, and Possible
Rebirth, 63.
[52] Ibid., 64.
[53] Blake Grumpect, Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History of
Metropolitan Los Angeles, (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press,
2005), 130-131.
[54] William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the
Remaking of its Mexican Past, 99.
[55] William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the
Remaking of its Mexican Past, 100.
[56] Ibid., 117.
[57] Charles Leeds and H. Hawgood to U.S. Board of Engineers for Rivers and
Harbors, Report of the Board of Engineers, II, Image: Comparison of
Diversion Routes, (Los Angeles County Department of Public Words
Technical Library, 1915), 222.
[58] Blake Grumprecht, The Los Angeles River: its Life, Death, and Possible
Rebirth, 192.
[59] Blake Grumprecht, The Los Angeles River: its Life, Death, and Possible
Rebirth, 232-233.
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