Located twenty miles north of downtown Los Angeles is the San Fernando Valley. It is here that the Los Angeles River begins its journey to the ocean. In the early 1920s this was nothing but a sleepy agricultural area, home primarily to ranchers and farmers. By the early 1930’s it became a primary battlefield in the California Water Wars.

As the city of Los Angeles continued to grow rapidly, demands on the Los Angeles River as the principal source of water for the city exceeded the ability of the ephemeral river to meet the expanding needs of the community. Seeking a more stable source of water, Los Angeles city water planners looked further north to the Owens Valley and the eastern Sierra Mountains.

In order to bring the Owens Valley water within the city limits of Los Angeles, city water planners needed to find a way to get the Owens Valley water past the land owners, ranchers and farmers that made up the sleepy San Fernando Valley.

Many believe that city of Los Angeles water planners, including William Mulholland who lead the Los Angeles Water department, cooperated with the local newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, to create an artificial drought driving up the cost of water forcing many San Fernando Valley ranchers and agriculture interests out of business. After several years, the plan worked and in 1923 the residents of the San Fernando Valley acquiesced and voted to agree to annexation by the city of Los Angeles as wealthy pro-development interests snatched up vast tracts of ranch land at depressed prices. Shortly after the region had been annexed by the city, the drought “miraculously ended” and the city of Los Angeles began to accelerate the approval of thousands of acres of housing tract subdivisions of what was formerly Valley farm land now owned by wealthy land developers.

These events became known as The Water Wars and in 1974 were portrayed in the Hollywood blockbuster film Chinatown where conspirators, proxy buyers, secret land acquisitions, murder and the dynamiting of the new Owens Valley Aqueduct by vigilante ranchers coalesced into a real life drama perhaps best summed up in the movie where a leading character states “If you cant bring the water to LA, take LA to the water”. 

If you would like to learn more about the City of Los Angeles' River Project, explore the links below.

More on the Los Angeles Revitalization Project

City of Los Angeles River Revitalization Project