The document summarizes the history of two major infrastructure projects in the early 20th century: the Panama Canal and the Los Angeles Aqueduct. It describes the failed French attempt to build the Panama Canal in the late 1800s, killed 20,000 workers. It then outlines the successful American effort to complete the canal between 1904-1914 under chief engineer George Washington Goethals. For the LA Aqueduct, it discusses how William Mulholland secured water rights from the Owens Valley for Los Angeles, building an aqueduct from 1905-1913 that sparked growth but angered Owens Valley farmers.

1. Panama & Los Angeles: The Waterworks that Made the American West By Kristi Beria History 141 Assignment 4 Part 2

2. A Man, A Plan, A Canal! Fresh off the success of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps proposed building a fifty mile canal across the isthmus of Panama. On a trip from New York to San Francisco this would save 8,000 miles. While de Lesseps was not an engineer, he was an enthusiastic entrepreneur. French workers started to arrive in Panama to begin the construction on the canal. The first job was to cut down the jungle by hand across the isthmus. The conditions were difficult and many starting dying from smallpox, malaria, and yellow fever. Despite the declaration by de Lesseps that the canal would be finished the money ran out. The French were there for 10 years and lost 20,000 lives. The technology and medical knowledge was not at the level it should have been to take on such a tremendous job. In 1889 de Lesseps’ canal company collapsed and he lived the rest of his life as an embarrassment to France.

3. A Man, A Plan, A Canal! In 1901, President McKinley was shot leaving Theodore Roosevelt in charge. In 1903 the U.S. Senate gave the go ahead to finish the job that the French had started, but Columbia started to balk at the negotiations. French engineer Phillipe Bunau-Varilla rallied many influential Panamanians, known as the Panamanian Revolution of 1903. Roosevelt sent a gunship preventing the Columbians from landing their troops. Panama was independent in less than one day without any bloodshed. The first year, nothing was completed as there wasn’t any planning. John Stevens was appointed chief engineer after the disastrous first year. The first thing he did was stop excavation and to make the construction camps fit places to live. A health and sanitation campaign the likes of which the world had never seen was put into place.

4. A Man, A Plan, A Canal! After the clean up effort, Stevens came up with the idea of the locks and a much simpler way to construct the canal than the French originally had. He also came up with a way to remove the dirt by rail which meant that a rail line had to be built. His engineering designs that he came up with to help in the construction were genius and far ahead of their time. In 1905 yellow fever had been eradicated from the isthmus. By 1906, Stevens had 24,000 men working on the canal. Roosevelt decided to pay them a visit and it was the first time a president had ever left the country while in office. For reasons that still remain a mystery today, John Stevens suddenly and unexpectedly quit his job. Roosevelt appointed army colonel George Washington Goethals as the new chief engineer. He and his new staff had built locks before and had the experience it took to get the job done.

5. A Man, A Plan, A Canal! Thousands of people from Barbados were brought in to work for six dollars a week to help finish the construction. Rain and mudslides destroyed equipment and delayed construction. By 1912 the work force was 50,000 men with less than ten percent of them American. By 1913 the channel was finished and the final concrete was poured. 1,000’s of tourists flocked to Panama to see the project that was almost finished. The grand opening took place in August of 1914 with the steamer Ancon being the first to cross to the Pacific Ocean. The Canal was finished two years ahead of schedule and under budget. The construction cost 5,609 workers their lives. The total cost spent between the French and Americans was 639 million dollars, which equates to more than seven billion dollars today.

6. Mulholland's Dream William Mulholland arrived in Los Angeles in 1878. He found work as a ditch digger for the decrepit water system. In 1886 he was made superintendent of the Los Angeles Water System. L.A. had grown to over a million people and by 1903 had sucked dry the L.A. River, their only source of water. Mulholland learned of the Owens River which was located 200 miles north of Los Angeles. Mulholland and Mayor Fred Eaton took a trip there. They wanted to move the Owens River to L.A. but all the water rights were owned by the farmers of the Owens Valley. Mulholland’s men posed as government workers to gain access to the deeds, maps and stream flows of the Owen River. Eaton secretly started buying land and water rights from farmers who didn’t know what was really going on.

7. Mulholland's Dream The proposed aqueduct would travel through the San Fernando Valley. A group of realtors from Los Angeles started buying up the land in the area in hopes of making a profit. All of this was done in secret, but when it was found out, the voters were allowed to vote for the aqueduct. In the middle of a scorching drought, the citizens of Los Angeles voted to pay for the aqueduct. President Roosevelt helped Mulholland out by making the Owens Valley a national forest so that it could not be developed any further. Construction began in 1905 and over 100,000 men and women worked in sweltering conditions. Mulholland, who had never finished grade school, was in charge of an engineering project the likes of which the world had never seen. It took five years to lay the pipe, yet the project came in under budget and ahead of schedule.

8. Mulholland's Dream The official opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct took place in 1913. The aqueduct held four times the amount of water that L.A. needed. In the years that followed the agriculture in the San Fernando Valley exploded and track homes made land owners millions. Mulholland became the highest paid city employee in California history. Ten years after the opening of the aqueduct, L. A. once again needed more water. While the southern Owens Valley had been ruined by the aqueduct, the northern part had been flourishing and Mulholland set his sights on there. Wells were sunk in the northern Owens Valley to pump the ground water into the aqueduct and the Owens Lake went dry. This was the final straw and 100 citizens and a local back manager seized the aqueduct in the Owens Valley. They opened the flood gates and the water drained into a ditch.

9. Mulholland's Dream Mulholland tried to work with the farmers, but could not reach a deal. The city of L.A. bought up the entire area along with the water rights. The people of the Owens Valley reacted by “dynamiting” parts of the aqueduct. In 1928, Mulholland built a reservoir, the St. Francis Dam, to hold a years worth of Owens River water for Los Angeles. In March a leak was discovered and upon inspection by Mulholland, was declared that it was fine. During the night, the dam broke and whole communities were wiped out, with 200 dead and 300 missing. Mulholland tried to place the blame on “dynamiters”, but this was found to be untrue. While no criminal charges were ever filed, most of Los Angeles turned on Mulholland, even though he took full responsibility. Even though his vision was not completed in always legal means, Mulholland’s aqueduct was what helped create contemporary Los Angeles.