Page 8 - lw3198

NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
(Rev. 8-86)
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places
Continuation Sheet

Section number 8 Page 4

St. Francis Dam (Site of), Los Angeles County, California — Narrative Statement of Significance
[continued]
In November, Clausen submitted a report on the conditions in the Owens Valley, concluding that it was suitable for reclamation, and
that a storage reservoir could be constructed at Long Valley. However, before the report and its important information on stream
measurements and water supplies could be released to the general public, in late November it was made available in a meeting
between Lippincott, Newell, and Los Angeles’s leading “water men,” including Mulholland, Eaton, and city attorney William B.
Mathews. Information about the city’s interest, however, was carefully kept secret, with the complicity of the publishers of the Los
Angeles newspapers. By the end of 1904, the Owens Valley reclamation project was being downplayed in Reclamation Service
publications, and the City of Los Angeles was poised to drive into the breach.

In March 1905, Lippincott, acting as a private consultant, agreed to provide the Los Angeles Water Commission with a report on
potential new water sources for the city. Omitting the Owens Valley and using data he had previously collected for the USGS,
Lippincott concluded that there were no nearby water sources sufficient for the city’s anticipated growth.

Lippincott also asked Fred Eaton to take on some of his reclamation duties, in particular, to informally investigate some power
companies’ applications for rights-of-way while Eaton was in the Owens Valley during March of 1905. Eaton used his authority to
gain information from the federal land office and was perceived to be working as a federal agent. Eaton was able to buy, for himself,
options on land at Long Valley that the Reclamation Service had previously considered as a dam site. In fact, Eaton was acting as an
agent for the City of Los Angeles, and once this land was under city control, the Reclamation Service’s plans in the Owens Valley
effectively ended.

The following month, two Los Angeles water commissioners joined Mayor Owen McAleer, City Attorney William B. Matthews,
Fred Eaton and William Mulholland on a field investigation of the valley. Impressed by what they found, the city began paying
Eaton for his options two months later, although no specific bond funds would be earmarked for the purpose until September. In late
July, the Reclamation Service held a public hearing about the potential for an Owens River project and the question of abandoning
the project in favor of the city. The city, recognizing that secrecy could no longer be maintained, finished acquiring Eaton’s land
options, and on July 29, 1905 the Los Angeles Times announced that Los Angeles planned to build a great aqueduct to bring Owens
Valley water south. [Kahrl, 1982: 67-69; Spalding, 1929: 343-4]

Controversy quickly surfaced over the aqueduct project, with accusations of conflicts of interest against Lippincott and Eaton,
complaints from Owens Valley ranchers, and public suspicion of the degree to which the project benefited the powerful participants
in a land syndicate in the San Fernando Valley. Nevertheless, Los Angeles voters approved the first project bonds in September 1905,
and the city filed its first notice of water rights appropriations from the Owens River. Shortly afterwards, the federal government
began its first investigation of Lippincott’s controversial activities.
Before the second bond campaign, the city appointed a panel of engineering experts to evaluate the aqueduct plan. They altered the
original plan, abandoning storage reservoirs and rerouting the aqueduct, which was to cross the high desert through Lancaster and
Palmdale and Big Tujunga Canyon, entering the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles through San Francisquito Canyon. The
new route through San Francisquito Canyon created three elevation drops suitable for power generation, and the panel suggested
incorporating hydroelectric stations into the project as a way to generate electrical power and additional revenue for the city. Bonds
were approved in 1907, and the department’s annual report of that year listed San Francisquito Canyon as one of the new power plant
sites. [Kahrl, 1982: 150, 152]