Isaiah King This story, as little known as it is, is a warning. Paul Soifer Narrator: In the spring of 1929 the City of Los Angeles erased one of the last vestiges of the disaster by obliterating the dams remains. Los Angeles Department of Water And Power Do ideas from the past offer new ways of thinking about the environment? Fillmore Historical Museum
Heather Todd It hasn't been raining. Flannery Burke, Historian: Angelenos really loved him because he was a working class immigrant who had made good. Jos M. Alamillo, Historian: We never know how many, exactly, died that night. J. David Rogers, Geological Engineer: Mulholland goes out there right away to take a look at it. It felt like an earthquake. As the truck toppled over, they could see the little children's arms flailing in the water trying to grasp and crying out. Rachel St. John, Historian: That people had enough time to try to save their families and then to fail is, is a horrifying idea. Alan Pollack Huntley Film Archives Those wealthy landowners made a killing. Even as the rest of Southern California was drying up, the city was providing vast amounts of water to farms and orchards in the San Fernando Valley, which belonged in large part to a syndicate of the most powerful men in the city. Just before midnight on March 12, 1928, about 40 miles north of Los Angeles, one of the biggest dams in the country blew apart, releasing a wall of water 20 stories high. And so, the people of the city of Los Angeles keep using more water instead of responding to drought conditions. Narrator: In November 1928, a few weeks before the crucial Senate vote on Hoover Dam, William Mulholland retired from the Water Bureau. And that was so terrifying to her. Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society For Harnischfeger and his family, oh, my God. There's a sense that the community is really being destroyed. But some of the bodies were lost forever. J. David Rogers, Geological Engineer: Mulholland gets a call - I think it was a Monday - from Tony Harnischfeger, who's his dam keeper. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! And the fact that we can never name them or find out who they are still haunts us even to this day. John Clearwater (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Dc Jackson, Historian: This is that sense that he had earned the right to sort of do what he wanted to do. Taking the water away. Jon Wilkman, Writer: They realized that they could use this flow to turn generators and generate ninety percent of the electricity that was needed by Los Angeles. But Soledads luck seemed to run out when her hair became entangled in the branches of a tree. But if you do this, there's going to be more pressure on the concrete. Nobody. Richard K. Pooler, Additional Music But by that time, the water was just upon them. They certainly didn't tell them that their plan really was to run the water down to Los Angeles. Everything else from the dam is gone. At family gatherings, he would just sit in the corner and just stare into space. Narrator: Within days, tourists began showing up at the disaster zone, scaling the towering monolith that became known as, The Tombstone; collecting bits of debris for souvenirs. Narrator: The Los Angeles Times proclaimed, A mighty river has been brought out from the mountain wilderness, an inexhaustible supply of water. And there was more. They had the votes to finally get this thing. Narrator: The Los Angeles Water Bureau picked up where the Paiute Wars left off, insisting that any Paiute who remained in the Valley should be removed through a land swap - for humanitarian reasons. Sue Zeider, Post Production Services And Post Sound Facility Ryan Quinn Mulholland was at times prickly and evasive under interrogation, but he did, finally, get to the heart of the matter. Narrator: In fact, Mulholland was distracted by an even more ambitious undertaking. The collapse of the St. Francis Dam was a colossal engineering and human disaster that might have slowed the national project to tame the West.
Jon Wilkman, Writer: The city agreed upon a kind of a fixed price. The dam was actually tilting one half of a degree. And as you get to the ocean, oil from oil drilling. Nancy Sherman. Will Cowan, Historian: Its the idea that moving water from one geography to another can be done to such great effect. With the aqueduct, with the dams, he forges Los Angeles into a major city. Footage Farm But within days a concerted effort was underway to erase the dams failure from popular memory. Narrator: In April of 1924 the first construction workers arrived in the San Francisquito Canyon. The dam had sort of pushed up off of its foundation. Narrator: Rescuers found Lillian Curtis, her son, and a neighbor on a hillside overlooking the ruins of Powerhouse 2. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. By the end of June there had been three more attacks on the aqueduct, and the city was alive with rumors of a plot to bomb the St Francis Dam. Because the consequences are so devastating.
It traumatized her so much that to the very day that she passed, she could still remember the man's name that found her. It had been twelve years since Mulhollands crews ran the southern end of the aqueduct through here, and three years since they finished building a generating station called Powerhouse 2 about a mile downstream from the new dam. Narrator: As the crowd rushed to marvel at their new river, Mulholland perfectly captured the moment. J. David Rogers, Geological Engineer: Just think about it: they were looking out fifty years, and they were out of water in ten. Erika Bsumek, Historian: Arrogance absolutely plays a big role. It very much follows on the idea of Manifest Destiny, but now it's not just about land, it's about controlling the resources to make the American West the kind of civilization they want it to be, the kind of place that they want it to be. And this is water. Josh Gibson Jon Wilkman, Writer: Over time, water from the reservoir had begun to saturate the east abutment, which was made up of this geological formation called schist, and it's layers of slate literally stacked on each other. Over the next sixteen months that same operation would be repeated tens of thousands of times. Narrator: Searchers found bodies of ranchers, housewives, teachers, farmhands, children. Breck Larson Some are living in dugouts or crudely constructed shacks that are a disgrace to American Ideals, an internal report observed, before coming to the point. But nobody's questioning him by the time you get to 1922. There were migrant workers or migrant families. Bioscience, Natural Resources & Public Health Library, University of California, Berkeley Flannery Burke, Historian: What Mulholland created was an illusion of abundance. Even the ranchers who owned a lot of the orchards, they didn't even know the dam was being built until the cement was being poured. And Mulholland plugged all of the cracks with oakum, on the downstream face. The authorities had yet to make a single arrest; no one in the Valley was talking. They wouldnt restore the aqueduct flow, they said, until the city agreed to pay reparations and limit any further expansion of the project. Ann Stansell The Santa Clara River Valley stretched fifty miles from the San Francisquito Canyon to the Pacific Ocean, a patchwork of citrus farms and oil wells that was a magnet for newcomers seeking work. The New York Public Library But also, all of these things have led us to an unsustainable future.
Surprise, surprise. Jon Wilkman, Writer: Along the way, it had picked up all the debris of the economy of the Santa Clara River Valley: orchard trees, cattle.
It got us in the situation we're in today. Cliftonshoots of Brooklyn, NY As far as they were concerned he was taking their river, leaving farms and towns to wither on the vine. William Mulholland was asleep at his home near Windsor Square; he didnt notice. And it collapses. How a 10-year-old girl survived one of the worst civil engineering failures in American history. Beginning in the 1930s, large dams were built on important watersheds of the Columbia, Missouri, Colorado, and Sacramento River basins. Murray Mceachron Final Frame, Digital Intermediate Online Editor Well, it turns out that the owner of the Los Angeles Times and some other associates have bought a lot of land there. Kyle I. Kelley William Deverell, Historian: Mulholland runs an agency that is in charge of providing water for Los Angeles. Families came with picnics, businesses up and down the Valley closed for the occasion, and a group of musicians arrived, courtesy of movie star Tom Mix, who was shooting a western nearby. Narrator: Before contact, the Paiutes homeland had stretched across thirty million acres of the Western Interior. Jmme Love Environmental scientist Peter Gleick and CEO of the U.S. Water Alliance Mami Hara speak with historian Jessica Marie Johnson about access, availability and conflicts around clean water in the United States. Eric Gulliver They hold a banquet for him; no mention is ever made of the St. Francis Dam. Traditional Animation On May 27, 1927, an explosion ripped out one of the largest siphons in the aqueduct. Miraculously, Soledad, her mother, and her three siblings were carried away on the crest of the flood, their bed a life raft. Narrator: It was one of the worst civil engineering disasters in American history, rooted in a national drive to harness Nature and remake the West. The entire east wing was on the verge of collapse. Maria E. Montoya, Historian: The aqueduct does hail a new beginning for Los Angeles. But in some ways that allowed other regions to do the same thing.
George R Watson And Los Angeles Times Staff 1928 Los Angeles Times. 
Now their quiet little community was overrun with men and machinery. John Nichols Gallery Erika Bsumek, Historian: We will be a modern city. Take it.. Narrator: Eight days after the disaster, William Mulholland took the stand at the Los Angeles County Courthouse. But that's what was negotiated. What are we going to do with it? It was a complete undoing of their livelihoods and their households and their families. It's a retaining wall that you're building to have something of much greater weight and stability than the forces you're putting against it. Terry Foley Jos M. Alamillo, Historian: Not a lot of people knew of the St. Francis Dam.
Chika Offurum, Director Of Business Operations & Finance Maria E. Montoya, Historian: The aqueduct was a disaster for Owens Valley. As he lit a cigarette, Hopewell heard a sound in the distance. Alisa Placas Frutman, Archival Consultants When they said, yeah, even though it doesn't rain, the sun is always shining. Chris Ruggiero, Locations Narrator: With ample water and clean power, L.A. would lead the way to a better future, far from the crowded cities of the East. Villains also do something similar. Cicada Restaurant of Los Angeles, CA Erika Bsumek, Historian: The aqueduct teaches Los Angeles that it can do bold and amazing things. In 1922, William Mulholland began building the St. Francis Dam to create a reservoir for the Los AngelesOwens River aqueduct. The Watson Family Photo Collection, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles The first impact tore their flimsy house apart. The confusion, one man remembered, was indescribable. Fewer than half of them would see the sun rise. If blame could be put on this individual, you just remove the individual. Narrator: As work proceeded on the dam, Mulholland decided to make it taller than originally planned. Museum of Ventura County Narrator: On that November day in 1913, when Angelenos gathered at the Cascades to celebrate the opening of the aqueduct, they were captivated by the citys glittering future. But that was then. William Deverell, Historian: That wall of water carried bodies out to the Pacific Ocean. It was a community that had many transients.
Ace Hopewell, smoking a cigarette a mile up the road, heard it in the distance. Gloria Velasco, Descendant: Soledad screamed, and her mother tried to grab her and couldn't. 
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