Water Famine or Water Needs: Los Angeles and Population Growth, 1896-1905

Abstract

are two misconceptions about this famous remark. One is that Samuel Clemens said it. He didn't. Charles Dudley Warner did. The other misconception lies in the very assumption of the statement. Within a decade after Warner printed it in the Hartford Courant of August 24, 1897, the people of Los Angeles, California were very definitely doing something about their weather. Recognizing that their semiarid climate and its unpredictable rainfall pattern would inhibit further growth of their burgeoning metropolis, Los Angeles voters in 1905 and 1907 approved construction of an aqueduct that would bring an assured supply of water from the Eastern Sierra region, some 250 miles away. By bypassing its own weather pattern, Los Angeles insured its future. It also began a bitter controversy with Owens Valley over the Owens River and the economic growth of Inyo and Mono countiesan ongoing, sometimes violent debate that in our time encompasses issues of urbanization, environmental priorities, and quality of life.1