William Mulholland....'Father' of modern Los Angeles

Mike Szymanski just wrote a great piece for Patch, "," regarding the closing of the 405 and the Sepulveda Pass and the demolition of the Mulholland bridge. 

There is a lot of talk, even nationwide, about the Mulholland Drive Bridge. But who is this Mulholland? Who is this Titan? Most people in Los Angeles have heard the name "Mulholland" more than once. The name "Mulholland" was even (barely) disguised ("Mulray") in the Jack Nicholson movie "Chinatown" from the early 1970s.

There is little doubt that without William Mulholland, an Irish immigrant, Los Angeles wouldn't be the city it is today. Los Angeles, as some may know, has almost a desert-like climate based on annual rainfall numbers. It can't support much growth without a huge water supply; one that far exceeds the regional water supply back in the late 1890s. It was then that it became apparent that Los Angeles was taxing it's local water supplies to the point where it's growth was going to be severely restricted. 

Then in 1893, a former mayor of Los Angeles named Fred Eaton had a plan to bring water from the Owens River valley (east of Mammoth) down to Los Angeles. The Owens River Valley had an abundance of water due to local runoff from the large mountain ranges. Eaton took William Mulholland, head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, on a horseback trip from Los Angeles to the head of the Owens River, camping along the way, with a clandestine mission to discover if Los Angeles could wrestle water rights away from those lands and jurisdictions along the Owens River. The engineering logistics of doing such a colossal deed was also accessed. 

From this trip, Eaton's vision and Mulholland's engineering and leadership prowess, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was born. Only after an epic battle was Los Angeles allowed to build the over 400 mile aqueduct down to Los Angeles. It opened in 1913 to ballyhoo and fanfare. 

As one can imagine, there were tremendous challenges to moving water over this distance and over and down elevations via an aqueduct. It is hard to imagine anyone other than Mulholland being able to materialize this ambitious vision. It gave Los Angeles the water necessary to expand to grandness, and greatness.  

As the Head of the Los Angeles Department Water and Power, William Mulholland is responsible for many other profound water works in the city of Los Angeles. He built many dams and reservoirs throughout Los Angeles, including the Hollywood reservoir built in 1924. In 1928, William Mulholland was front and center to California's greatest disaster with respect to death toll. At 11:58 p.m. on March 12, the St. Francis Dam, built and managed by Mulholland, gave way and shredded through San Francisquito canyon, killing over 400 as the water rushed out to the sea at Ventura. Mulholland, who had just inspected the dam earlier that day, was overcome with grief. His flawless engineering triumphs were now to be scarred with ultimate tragedy. Many studies were done to access the cause of this failure. 

The prevailing opinion in hindsight is that an earthquake along a fault line under the dam, and it's subsequent landslide, was most likely the cause of the failure. No one knows for sure but William Mulholland was broken by the grief, and he never fully recovered. He died in 1935.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct brings us approximately 50% of Los Angeles' water supply with the other major providers being the Colorado River aqueduct system (1940) and the California Aqueduct coming from near Sacramento (1970).