American History Tellers - California Water Wars - We Who Are About to Die Salute You | 4

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

After years of letting their water be used by the city of Los Angeles, the farmers and ranchers of the Owens River Valley decided to fight back. What would come to be known as California’s Civil War would mark the 1920s with a series of attacks and reprisals between the valley and the city two hundred miles south. With Los Angeles sending agents north to buy more land and secure yet more water rights, valley residents decided to take matters into their own hands. After several attacks damaged portions of the aqueduct, causing water to stream uselessly down into the valley, the city realized it had a desperate problem on their hands.But all was not well with the citizens of the valley, as a long-running family feud threatens to tear apart the Owens Valley community from within.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's a cold, clear evening in early spring 1923. You've ventured to the home of George Watterson. He's been having a little trouble with his car, a brand new Stanley Steamer. Since you've diagnosed a few tricky automobiles in the past, you offer to help. Care for some refreshment? We're well past five o'clock. You wriggle your way out from underneath the hood as he hands you a glass.

Mighty kind of you, George. So, any guesses? My guesses are all worn out. I've just loosened this valve to the boiler, then tightened it up again. Not telling much of a difference either way. What you don't want to say, though, is that you think George might have a lemon on his hands. Well, isn't that just fine news? You like George.

His family, the Wattersons, are what passes for old money in Owens Valley. He may have been here longer than you, but unlike some of the others up here, he doesn't care where you came from or what you did before you arrived. He's a nice guy. But George is the kind of man who buys a lemon. There goes Wilford. He's got some sixth sense about these things, I swear. And I bet he's probably just trying to rub it in my face. His Stanley runs like the wind. I doubt he's doing it on purpose, probably just out for a jaunt, George. Wilford is George's nephew. Wilford Watterson and his brother Mark run five banks up and down the county. They're the family

success George has never managed to be. You've heard all the stories on nights just like this, sipping whiskey in the garage. How George would have won that mining claim until Wilford outbid him. How George's land holdings don't develop while Winford's pan out huge. And now, this business with the car. George takes another big sip and looks at you quizzically. Well, what if I told you I was onto something big? About the river. I guess I'd ask you if there was money in it, and then I'd ask you if there was money in it for me. No, this isn't a joke.

I've been talking to some very well-connected people in Los Angeles, and I'm going to do some work for them up here. Your interest has peaked. George's eyes are sparkling. What kind of work are you talking about? I'm going to buy the McNally Ditch, and then I'm going to sell it to William Mulholland, and I'm going to make some money. Want to help me? You're taken aback. The McNally Ditch is one of the few large canals off

the river that isn't owned by the city. Few things set this community aflame like water rights, but it's just business, right? Supply and demand? Let me think about it, George. Why don't you climb up there and give her a start? See how she sounds. Sounds pretty good, right? It does sound pretty good. And you like George Waterson. But if what he says is right, the residents of Owens Valley, your neighbors, are about to be torn apart. Are you in trouble with the law? Need a lawyer who will fight like hell to keep you out of jail? We defend and we fight just like you'd want your own children defended.

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From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. By the early 1920s, the city of Los Angeles and the communities of the Owens River Valley were at an impasse. Although Los Angeles needed water from the Owens River to feed its ever-growing population, the Valley residents had decided they'd had enough. Through a series of violent clashes, the two communities fought what would be known as California's Civil War. This war would set L.A.'s Water Department Superintendent William Mulholland on a collision course with heavily armed ranchers and farmers. But the Owens River Valley families would find themselves divided as well. The Watterson family in particular would find itself in a bitter dispute,

and its members pitted against each other. This is Episode 4. We, being about to die, salute you. By 1860, the Paiute tribe extended through a verdant stretch of central California countryside. The Sierra Nevada mountains rose to the west, and the flat desert landscape stretched to the east. Between the two, a river ran through the valley. The Paiute built an extensive irrigation system, using the waters of the river to feed fields of wild hyacinth and yellow nutgrass, which helped sustain their diet. They farmed and hunted wild deer and ducks that migrated every nutgrass, which helped sustain their diet. They farmed

and hunted wild deer and ducks that migrated every year to the edges of the riverbed. But the land they lived on was good for something else. As white settlers and prospectors descended upon mining camps in nearby Nevada, the Owens River Valley became a path for transportation and communication between the mines and California. The same grasslands that Paiute lived among became excellent grazing lands for nearby cattlemen's herds. By 1863, a series of heated battles left over 150 Paiute dead. White settlers in the American military drove them and other tribes, like the Shoshone and Kawa'isu South, and claimed the valley and its rich water source as their own.

For the next 40 years, the Owens Valley remained a haven for cattle ranching and alfalfa farms. Two young brothers, Wilford and Mark Watterson, were brought to the valley by their parents in the 1880s. The Watterson family settled in the area, and in the early 1900s opened the Inyo County Bank. Wilford and Mark, while still in their 20s, became president and treasurer. Handsome and friendly, the brothers grew their banking businesses by investing in the residents of the valley. They were lax about enforcing repayment schedules, and loans were rarely refused. With their casual attitude towards money and their confidence in the people of the Owens Valley, the brothers were well-loved by the community they supported. Their young uncle, George Wanderson, only 10 years older than Wilfred, took a different view.

He saw his nephews more as competitors than as family. George worked in town as postmaster and notary public. Over time, he acquired parcels of land, but while Wilfred and Mark began to make a name for themselves in the community, George kept his head down. In 1902, the Federal Reclamation Service brought some excitement to the Owens River Valley. They promised an enormous federal irrigation project. It was big news. The valley might actually become a draw for tourism, and if nothing else, the government could potentially force a rail line to be drawn up from Los Angeles. The people of the valley stood to make a lot of money, but that never happened.

Instead, the reclamation service offer collapsed, and Los Angeles quickly bought up the available water rights. The aqueduct the city built diverted the entire flow of the Owens River into a channel that sped the water over 200 miles south to Los Angeles. In the years during and after the aqueduct's construction, the residents of the Owens River Valley watched and waited. The city's incursion had happened, and there was nothing more they felt they could do. If there was any bright side, it was that Los Angeles used only excess surface water from the river, leaving most families with

well enough to live on. And during World War I, the Owens River Valley economy prospered greatly from selling crops. The Watterson brothers prospered as well. Wilford and Mark now owned five banks in Inyo County, in addition to extensive investments in local tungsten mining operations. Uncle George had not been as fortunate. Though his land purchases allowed him to raise and sell cattle, he felt that he was always coming up short in comparison to his younger, more socially adept kin. George had put in bids on several mining camps, but each time he was beaten with better offers by his younger nephews. But George did have his own social connections. He was an officer in one of the local companies

that had bought up some of the remaining water rights in the wake of Los Angeles' 1904 acquisition. In Bishop, 30 miles north from the aqueduct's diversion point, the Owens River still flowed freely. Its runoff was diverted into small canals, referred to by locals as ditches. And when the demand for water rose yet again, it was to George Watterson that the city of Los Angeles and William Mulholland came calling for help. By 1923, Los Angeles found itself once again in the grips of a multi-year drought. And once again, Mulholland found himself searching for solutions. With over a half a million people, the city had grown not only in population, but also in acreage. From 90 square miles in 1910,

the city was now nearly three times that. So many outlying towns had been annexed that Mulholland presented city leaders with a report begging them to stop. The only way to stop the city's water problem, he complained privately, was to kill the members of the Chamber of Commerce. Growing desperate for water once again, another plan that involved an eastward expansion to the waters of the Colorado River was explored but then shelved twice, once by private business interests and then by the defeat of a citywide vote. So once again, agents from Los Angeles ascended to the Owens Valley. They lowered pumps into the ground to help augment the aqueduct's flow. The city began wholesale purchases of land near the river,

using a checkerboard pattern that focused on strategic claims, leaving those who didn't sell cut off from water sources and with dwindling property values. When George Watterson was approached by Mulholland for his help reaching out to Owens Valley residents, he readily accepted. Mulholland invited him down to Los Angeles for dinner at his club. The plan was simple. Mulholland would use George's local connections in the valley to help ensure that Los Angeles got the properties it needed. Leave none of the ranchers out, Mulholland told him. We want them all. But by this time, Wilford and Mark Watterson knew what was coming, and they

had a plan as well. The brothers went door to door, drumming up support for what they called the Owens Valley Irrigation District, a political body that would lock down the four major irrigation ditches flowing from the Owens River and give Inyo County a strong, unified front from which they could negotiate with Los Angeles. But before they had a chance to call a vote on the matter, the Watterson brothers awoke on the morning of March 16, 1923 to a surprise. The rights to the McNally Ditch, the largest of the four upstream canals, had been sold to Los Angeles for $1 million. Their uncle George negotiated the sale in less than 24 hours. The United Front Wilford and Mark Hopeford had collapsed, ripped down by one of their own kin. Furious, owners of the other three canals upstream of the aqueduct began flooding their districts, gulping up Los Angeles' water until the aqueduct slowed down to a trickle.

Equally furious, Mulholland, from his office in Los Angeles, ordered his maintenance crews in Inyo County to counterattack. Right at a bend in the Big Pine Canal, Los Angeles-owned Earthmoving Equipment began digging a diversion canal in the opposite direction. If Big Pine wanted to waste water, then the city of Los Angeles would simply move the river. Imagine it's 1923, and you've been sent out from Los Angeles to manage the new canal operations in the upper Owens Valley. But this morning, your orders changed. The superintendent himself called and told you to begin digging a new diversion ditch right off the bend of the Big Pine Canal.

He sounded angry, and especially when you reminded him that you'd technically be destroying private property. But he also promised reward pay if you got the job done. Now it's just past noon and the sun is blazing overhead. You've only dug around ten feet of canal when you see a man standing on the edge of the canal, heavyset in a loose suit and a tall hat. He's yelling something at you. Hey there! Hey, why don't you stop that digging for a second so we can talk? He doesn't look like he's going anywhere until you oblige. So you shut your machine off, but stay in your seat.

You're well aware that life here for an outsider, especially one from LA, can be risky. Oh, thank you. That's better. I do appreciate it. Didn't want to have to keep yelling. What do you want, sir? Well, what I want is for you to stop digging that ditch and go on home. Afraid I can't do that. Four other cars pull up alongside the ditch. Now you really aren't inclined to step out. Sir, if you have a problem, you can call the city works administration. I have all the permits and paperwork for what I'm doing. I'm just a man with a job. Around a dozen men step out of the four cars. Well, see, that's just the thing.

We're with the Big Pine Ditch Company. We've got an injunction to stop the work. The men walk towards you slowly, menacingly. It's broad daylight, and they're moving like they have all the time in the world. As they get a little closer, you realize why. They're armed. The man that's been speaking to you gestures to the weapons. Well, I guess you could call it a shotgun injunction, really.

You quickly decide that this is not your fight. Okay, okay, you've made your point. You climb out of the machine and put your arms up to show you're not about to make any sudden moves. Oh, come on, son, don't be like that. Put your hands down. The men holding the guns don't look especially angry. The heavyset man pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his brow. Why don't you just go on into Bishop and get yourself a beer? You can tell him it's on us. One of the men breaks apart from the group and heads towards your machine.

Yeah, I'll leave, but I'll have to take my machine with me. No, no, that's not how it goes. You go get yourself a beer. Your machine goes in the river. You stop and glare at each other. Being pushed off your job is one thing, but walking away from company equipment, especially an expensive new digger, that is something else. You think about the reward pay the superintendent offered you,

but then you catch the sun's glare off the guns in the men's hands. You break your gaze with the man and walk away without looking back. Behind you, they drive your machine into the river. All this over water. But you're not interested in water right now. You're going to go get that beer. The citizens of the Owens Valley had drawn the line. They would no longer be taken advantage of

by the big city down south. The next day, a headline appeared in the Big Pine newspaper, Los Angeles, it's your move now. For many Owens Valley families, their roots ran deep through generations. They had raised their children, built churches, planted crops, and carved out a life in the valley. Sucking the water away threatened all of that. When a reporter asked Mulholland why he felt there was so much resistance in the Owens Valley, he responded angrily. Dissatisfaction is the sort of condition that prevails there, like foot-and-mouth disease. But Mulholland knew that money would always win out. He directed his city agents in the Owens River Valley to keep the

offers for land coming. And despite the protests of Wilfred and Mark Watterson, the other members of the Irrigation District decided, in the end, to take the city's money. Los Angeles paid around $2 million for the water rights of the canals. Wilfred and Mark were forced to regroup. They couldn't fight their fellow citizens of Owens Valley, but they could certainly fight the city of Los Angeles. All the money in the world wouldn't sway them to change their minds. Only in this coming fight, they wouldn't use politics. They would use dynamite. For more than two centuries, the White House has been the stage for some of the

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Ever. Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. The summer of 1912 proved to be just as hot and oppressive in the Owens Valley as it was 200 miles south in Los Angeles. For the Watterson brothers, it was a summer of discontent. The city had purchased a majority of the remaining water rights in the upper valley. There was little in property values left, and now the valley's business interests were about to become as dry as the ground on which they stood. On May 21st, a group of Owens Valley citizens stole away from their homes late at night after their families were fast asleep.

They broke the locks to the Watterson Brothers warehouse and disappeared with three cases of dynamite. Then they drove to the Alabama Gate spillway near the town of Lone Pine and set the charges for 200 pounds of dynamite. Just before dawn, the charges detonated. The resulting blast shook the earth and blew apart a 100-foot section of the aqueduct. The flow of water south abruptly halted. Hearing the news in Los Angeles, William Mulholland was enraged. He immediately dispatched maintenance crews to repair the section. Elsewhere in the city, new district attorney Asa Kyes saw an opportunity to make a name for himself. He dispatched detectives to the Owens River Valley in an attempt to figure out what had happened and who was to blame.

Witnesses reported that a caravan of cars had been seen the evening before the explosion. The caravan traveled from Bishop and passed through Big Pine, growing larger as it went. At the crime scene, tire tracks and footprints indicated that as many as 50 men might have participated in the early morning bombing. But in the weeks following the blast, information dried up. Locals proved closed-lipped and intractable, disrupting any attempt at further investigation. In a community as small as the upper Owens Valley, someone ought to have known something, but no one was saying anything. Another explosion at Lone Pine Canal just a few weeks later breached the canal wall. Evidence showed that as many as 20 cars were involved. Kai's

private eye glumly predicted that the bombers would never be brought to justice since no grand jury in Inyo County would indict, and no court in that region would ever convict. The L.A. District Attorney fumed at a press conference that the Owens River Valley residents knew damn well who had done this, but his tantrum led to no new leads. Meanwhile, Mulholland was receiving hundreds of death threats by mail and telephone at his office in Los Angeles. Undaunted, he traveled to the Owens River Valley to assess the bomb sites himself. But it wasn't until he had returned to the city that he lashed out in print against the farmers

and ranchers that had become his northern enemy. He half regretted, he told the Los Angeles Times, that so many of the Owens Valley's beautiful orchard trees were gone now, as there wouldn't be enough left to hang all the troublemakers who lived there. In the Owens Valley itself, suspicions ran rampant. City agents were still, in the midst of the bombings, quietly trying to purchase more land. Neighbors suspected neighbor of being the next one to sell out. Rumors circulated that Los Angeles was planning to invade the towns, or likely to start condemning properties adjacent to city land holdings. One visitor to Los Angeles wrote, suspicions are mutual and widespread. The valley people are suspicious of each other, suspicious of newcomers, suspicious of city men. The Owens

Valley is full of whispering, mutterings, and recriminations. George Watterson, with his magnificent sale to the city just one year ago, had also become a target. He was now struggling to keep a low profile, receiving death threats too, although his blood relation to Wilford and Mark offered some protection. But George's business partner, a local lawyer named Lester Hall, would not be so lucky. After the McNally ditch sale, Hall had been bluntly told to leave the valley and never return. He had left the valley and then, for reasons unknown, returned. Eating dinner at a restaurant one night,

Hall was kidnapped and dragged out into a car by a group of hooded men. The men drove Hall to the end of a deserted road and strung a noose over a tree. Blindfolded and frantic, Hall managed to slow the proceedings by using a secret Freemason distress call. One of his assailants was also a Mason and agreed to let Hall plead his case. Hall eventually convinced the men to let him free on the condition he leave for Mexico and never return. Tensions in the valley continued to escalate until the fall of 1921, when Wilfred and Mark Watterson finally decided they'd had enough.

Imagine it's 1924, a bone-chilling Sunday morning in November, just before dawn. You're riding in the backseat of your father's Ford. Beside you is your brother, and beside him, your cousin. Normally there'd be chatter and joking and jostling for space, but this morning, no one is talking. You're headed to the aqueduct. You peer out the window as a car's headlights appear on your left. That's Mr. Taylor. He's coming down his road. At the wheel, your father responds. Is it just him? Don't know. It's only one car, though. Your father says nothing.

Turning around in your seat, you watch as the headlights of Mr. Taylor's car weave down his dirt road, stop, and then join the caravan of cars behind you. That's 25 by my count. 25 cars. 75 men. 78 counting you, your brother, and your cousin. You'll be 16 in December. Mark Watterson, the banker, is driving the lead car just ahead of yours. He brought his sons too. A long caterpillar of headlights stretch down the highway. If anyone in the city aqueduct guards were to see this, they'd definitely sound the alarm. But that's the point. Your father talks without taking his eyes

off the road. Now when we get there, I want you boys to stay in the car. But you almost laugh. There's no chance you're staying in the car. Your rifle is in the trunk, right alongside your father's shotgun. You all came armed. The convoy finally arrives at the Alabama Gate spillway. With light just beginning to form on the horizon, you can see the bridge and the small triangle-roofed gatehouse that sits straddled across it. You feel butterflies in your stomach, but you push them down. This is about

maintaining a hold on your community. It's about life and death. The city has always taken what it wanted, but now you're going to take it back. As your father exits the car and grabs his shotgun from the trunk, voices erupt in the distance. Stop. Stop where you are. Put your gun down. We just want the water. But you're focused on your father, standing with his shotgun. I'm going to go in with Mark. You all stay here. It shouldn't take long to get the gate wheels turned. The guards know we outnumber them, so don't do anything stupid, okay? We're not here to hurt anyone. You understand? Not if you understand me.

Your father joins Mr. Watterson, and they set off towards the house with a triangle roof. A pair of lights are blinking inside, but it's hard for you to tell what's going on in the distance. You grip your rifle tight to your chest and glance at the men around you. No one is speaking. Your job is to stand here and wait. First the water will come, and then the men from the city will come. That's all part of the plan. But what if the plan

goes wrong? At dawn on Sunday, November 16th, Mark Watterson led a caravan of cars to the Alabama Gate spillway along the aqueduct line. In the past, when the aqueduct flow was running too high, the gates were used to drain the excess water into the desert valley. But now, Watterson and his caravan seized the gatehouse and turned the five huge wheels sending thousands of gallons of water destined for Los Angeles spilling down the hill, washing uselessly into the desert. When this had been done, the men stayed,

setting up armed guards along the perimeter. The L.A. Aqueduct had been seized by the citizens of Inyo County. If the city wanted their water back, they would have to come and take it. In disbelief and rage, Mulholland sent armed guards from Los Angeles North immediately to retake the gatehouse. But when the guards arrived, they found a scene very different from what they'd expected. Several hundred Owens Valley residents, including women and children, had gathered around the gatehouse. They were singing songs and cooking food. Local law enforcement threw up their hands. Warrants for arrest were simply tossed into the river. The county sheriff openly declared his support for the blockade. Dumbfounded, the Los Angeles guards retreated, wondering what they were supposed to do.

They couldn't murder hundreds of women and children. So for four days, the seizure of the Los Angeles Aqueduct blossomed into a giant campsite. The entire Owens Valley rallied behind the action. Nearby ranchers offered cattle for barbecues. Western film star Tom Mix, who was filming nearby, halted all work on set and brought his crew in a mariachi band. In Bishop, someone painted a billboard that read, If I am not on the job, you can find me at the aqueduct. And all throughout the celebrations, not a drop of water was headed south to Los Angeles.

Back in the city, a disgusted William Mulholland saw that even the Los Angeles Times had sympathy for the blockaders, writing, These farmers are not anarchists or bomb throwers, but in the main, honest, hardworking American citizens. They have put themselves hopelessly in the wrong by taking the law into their own hands, but there is still a measure of justice on their side. While Mark led the standoff at the Alabama gate, his brother Wilford traveled to Los Angeles to meet with a group of city bankers. Negotiating on behalf of the Owens Valley Irrigation District, Wilford asked for nine million dollars in exchange for collective land and water rights. Along with the money, the Owens Valley would be developed to make it more attractive to tourism. The bankers were excited about the prospects. In a telegram to his brother, an enthusiastic Wilford wrote,

If the object of the crowd at the spillway is to bring their wrongs to the attention of the citizens of Los Angeles, they have done so 100%. So after four days, the standoff at the gates came to a peaceful resolution. Wilford boarded a train home. The bankers, known as the Joint Clearinghouse Association, had accepted Wilfred's terms of sale when he was in Los Angeles. But by the time he arrived in Bishop, they had changed their mind. The Joint Clearinghouse Association abruptly announced that $9 million was too much to pay at the present time. No other explanation was offered.

Wilfred was devastated. He had put his best foot forward for his community and been let down. He felt that was the last chance for meaningful compromise. Despite the failure, the Owens River Valley community remained resolute in their opposition to the city of Los Angeles. For the next three years, city agents continued to buy up more land, while farmers and ranchers took matters and explosives into their own hands. In the spring of 1927, the remaining members of the Owens Valley Irrigation Association pooled their money and bought an ad in the Los Angeles Times.

It read, We, the farming communities of the Owens Valley, being about to die, salute you. But it was not a capitulation. It was a battle cry. A month after the ad appeared, one of the largest steel siphons along the aqueduct line was blown up. The very next night, another explosion ripped out 60 more feet of pipe. Los Angeles responded by deploying private detectives to the valley, armed with Winchesters, Tommy guns, and orders that they could shoot to kill anyone loitering near the aqueduct.

But more dynamiting sprees followed. 14 explosions in just two months. By the middle of June, a train of 100 armed Los Angeles reserve guards rolled in the Owens River Valley. William Mulholland and the city would not tolerate this behavior. If it was war the valley wanted, then the valley would get it. Richard Bandler revolutionized the world of self-help all thanks to an approach he developed called neurolinguistic programming. Even though NLP worked for some,

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You can binge Incoming exclusively and ad-free and Wondery+. Join Wondery+, in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. By the summer of 1927, it seemed as if everyone in the Owens Valley was armed and ready to shoot. With Los Angeles guards stationed across every part of the aqueduct line and the threat of further dynamite attacks from valley farmers, the atmosphere was thick with dread and the anticipation of something terrible just about to happen. In the town of Bishop, George Watterson had once again taken matters into his own hands. Estranged from his nephews, still clinging to his family name for protection, George was still in contact

with William Mulholland. After years of feeling left behind by the success of his extended family, it looked like George would finally get the chance to open his own bank. Mark and Wilfred, with whom he'd been in such rampant competition, already owned five banks in the Owens Valley, but four years of conflict and rapidly declining business had left their Inyo County banks drained and weakened. When William Mulholland offered George a position at a new bank he was planning to open at Bishop, funded by the city of Los Angeles, George didn't have to think twice. All he had to do was put the application in his name. But the plan was brought quickly to a halt when the state banking commissioner declined Mulholland and George's charter application. Wilfred Watterson testified that his uncle was

acting in concert with the city of Los Angeles and therefore the bank would never have the Owens Valley best interest at heart. But during the process of the charter application, Mulholland's team in Los Angeles had gained access to detailed statements about Wilfred and Mark's banking operations. Something didn't quite seem right. Ever helpful, George Watterson volunteered to investigate what the other side of his family had been up to. Imagine it's summer, 1927. You're a Los Angeles City Auditor who's been working with George Watterson to investigate

the bank holdings of his nephews, Wilford and Mark. You're seated at a folding table in a small, dusty room at his house, surrounded by boxes of bank files. You don't much like it up here in Bishop. There's a hot tension that seems to follow you around. It's almost like you're wearing a sign that says, I don't belong here. But thinking about it, George Watterson seems to be wearing the same sign. Just then he bounds into the room. Well, I was hoping by this time when I came back, you'd be done. You barely look up at him as he fiddles with his lighter. Well, I just finished sorting all these deposit receipts. I'm starting to get some very strange numbers. Maybe we should have some more people on this case. Maybe George should do some of the work himself, you think, instead of sitting around

smoking those foul-smelling chia root cigars. No, I think you need to sit down and take a look at this. When you first started, you didn't think you would find anything. The whole job felt like a giant waste of time. But after a bit of digging, you found it. Look here. This is the third instance I've found. These deposits from the Inyo County Bank's ledger were never received on the other end. But here you've got withdrawals against that same amount for Wilfred's Tungsten mine operation. Well, everyone knew that mine would go bust eventually. That's why I didn't bother investing. No, George, that's not the point. It's the discrepancy. Look. See this number? $245,000? It doesn't exist. It's been loaned out. Yet your nephew's bank is stating here that it does exist.

They've overleveraged by at least a million dollars. Okay, well, tell me why that's good. No, it's not good. But what I mean, banks can't report funds they don't physically have. Debt or no debt, what they're doing is lying. It's embezzlement. George looks up to you, and then his face breaks into a slow, strange smile. Well, I guess I'd better call Mr. Mulholland and let him know. I'd say you could call the police or the state commission if you had a mind to. No, I don't think I'll do that just now.

That's fine. Anyways, I'm't think I'll do that just now. That's fine. Anyways, I'm going to get something to eat. We can pick all this back up in the morning. You walk outside and take a deep breath. You shake your head, thinking about the Wondersons and their bank. All the trouble they're about to find themselves in. But mostly you're thinking about George.

What kind of man goes after his own family like that? It just isn't right. On August 2nd, 1927, William Mulholland presented George Watterson's evidence to the State Corporations Commissioner. For at least the past two years, Wilford and Mark Watterson's banks had been using money from the deposits of Owens Valley citizens to hold up their own failing personal investments. Their mining company, a planned vacation resort, and a mineral water company were all part of the scheme. The Inyo County banks were in the hole for more than $2 million. On August 5th, the doors to all five Watterson Brothers banks were locked. By August 10th, Wilford and Mark were arrested and faced trial. The prosecuting attorney was a longtime friend of both brothers.

If he had not been prosecuting against them, he later said, he would have stood as a character witness on their behalf. He wept openly during his closing arguments against Wilford and Mark, and the all-Inyo County jury wept as well. The Watterson brothers had done it for the good of the valley. None of the money had ever crossed

the county line. It had simply been reinvested in the community. With no irrigation economy left, the brothers had been looking ahead to mining and the possibilities of tourism. But good intentions did not change the legality of what they'd done. Wilfrid and Mark had always been the heart of the Owens Valley business community. Now they are going to San Quentin for 10 years. But the Watterson brothers weren't to blame, according to Valley residents. The real enemy was a metropolis 200 miles away, a colossus that scooped up their water and natural resources. Posted on the door of one shuttered Inyo County bank was a handwritten message. This result has been brought about by the last four years of destructive work

carried on by the city of Los Angeles. With the Wattersons out of the way, William Mulholland felt a deep satisfaction that events in the Owens Valley had finally sorted themselves out. Now he could turn his attention back to the engineering projects he'd undertaken during the years of strife. This brought him back into contact with his erstwhile friend and former colleague from the Water Department, Fred Eaton. Eaton had spent the last seven years on the sidelines of what had come to be called California's Civil War, he still owned the perfect site for a 150-foot dam, just what Mulholland wanted for the city. And even though Mulholland had always felt that Eaton's $1 million price tag was too high, he turned around and spent

more than twice that in the last seven years on his alternative route, the McNally and Big Pine ditch purchases. Both Eaton and Mulholland were in their 70s by now, but both men proved as stubborn as ever. When Fred Eaton lost over a half a million dollars after the collapse of the Watterson's Bank, he suffered a stroke. Even though his son attempted to parlay between him and Mulholland, all the negotiations proved not. Neither man would give in. So instead of the Long Valley Dam that he privately wished could be built, Mulholland commissioned a workaround with a pair of additional reservoirs along the aqueduct line. The first was a 200-foot-high, 1,000-foot-wide concrete dam

nestled in the hills of the Hollywood District, christened the Mulholland Reservoir. The second was a larger project in San Francisco Canyon, 50 miles north of the city in the San Gabriel Mountains. Named the St. Francis Dam, this structure would be 175 feet tall, holding back 38,000 acre-feet of impounded water. As construction began, concerns were voiced that the dam itself was not built high enough, so the height was raised 20 feet. But unfortunately, there was no corresponding increase in thickness around the dam's base. Undeterred, Mulholland pressed on, and the dam was fully operational by the summer of 1927. The past seven years of conflict with the valley had been chaotic and turbulent, but still they were years filled with accomplishment.

Mulholland felt satisfaction knowing Los Angeles now had the water it needed. The city's holdings and the Owens Valley were secure, and with the collapse of the Watterson Brothers banks, the valley had lost its will to fight. Elsewhere, opportunities were finally beginning to open up for Mulholland's long-dreamt project to run an aqueduct east from the Colorado River, but he'd begun to receive troubling reports from the St. Francis Dam site. The dam was leaking water. Additionally, cracks had begun to appear on the east and west sides of the dam's foundation. He ordered fixes and promised to monitor the situation closely, but what the water department superintendent did not know was that in less than a month,

conditions at the St. Francis Dam would rapidly go from bad to worse. Next on American History Tellers, Mulholland finds his legacy threatened by a disaster he could not foresee as a devastating flood rips through a Southern California canyon community. From Wondery, this is American History Tellers. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. This episode is

written by George Ducker, edited by Doreen Marina. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marsha Louis. Created by Hernán López for Wondering. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes, even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities. From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast, The Real History of Dracula.

We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker raided ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science, and religion, and how even today we remain enthralled to his strange creatures of the night. You can binge all episodes of The Real History of Dracula exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus and The Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.