Rivers in the Desert

Rating:
Summary: Definitive SoCal History
Review: Fans of the movie "Chinatown," Roman Polanski's classic detective melodrama, will love this true account of how desperately needed water was brought hundred of miles to Los Angeles, where growth in the early 20th century was rapidly outracing the city's meager water supply. Like the 1974 movie with John Huston and Jack Nicholson, the real story has villains and heroes worthy of the big screen. Fortunately, according to Hollywood Reporter, the book has been optioned by film writer/director Frank Darabont, who directed "Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile." With any luck it will come to your theater one of these days. Liam Neeson would be perfect as William Mhulholland, the steely self-taught Irish immigrant who concocted a plan to-let's face it-steal an ocean of fresh water from unsuspecting farmers and ranchers in a pastoral valley far north of the thirsty city. "Rivers in the Desert" author Margaret Leslie Davis brings the struggle to build the giant aqueduct back to life with vivid word pictures and smart details . Scheming politicians, manipulative newspaper editors and the hard-drinking roustabouts who made them rich by digging deep channels and laying gigantic pipes under impossible conditions are all part of the story. Davis's crisp writing style carries the reader effortlessly through this saga of betrayal, triumph and finally disaster. This is a masterful description of one of history's greatest engineering feats and the real people who pulled it off. Though Muhlholland's reputation was unjustifiably sullied by the tragic collapse of one of his many dams, his incredible aqueduct is still a critical source of water for Los Angeles. This is one of only a handful of books that should be considered essential to anyone who wants to understand the creation of Southern California and all its attending myths.

Rating:
Summary: Definitive SoCal History
Review: Fans of the movie "Chinatown," Roman Polanski's classic detective melodrama, will love this true account of how desperately needed water was brought hundred of miles to Los Angeles, where growth in the early 20th century was rapidly outracing the city's meager water supply. Like the 1974 movie with John Huston and Jack Nicholson, the real story has villains and heroes worthy of the big screen. Fortunately, according to Hollywood Reporter, the book has been optioned by film writer/director Frank Darabont, who directed "Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile." With any luck it will come to your theater one of these days. Liam Neeson would be perfect as William Mhulholland, the steely self-taught Irish immigrant who concocted a plan to-let's face it-steal an ocean of fresh water from unsuspecting farmers and ranchers in a pastoral valley far north of the thirsty city. "Rivers in the Desert" author Margaret Leslie Davis brings the struggle to build the giant aqueduct back to life with vivid word pictures and smart details . Scheming politicians, manipulative newspaper editors and the hard-drinking roustabouts who made them rich by digging deep channels and laying gigantic pipes under impossible conditions are all part of the story. Davis's crisp writing style carries the reader effortlessly through this saga of betrayal, triumph and finally disaster. This is a masterful description of one of history's greatest engineering feats and the real people who pulled it off. Though Muhlholland's reputation was unjustifiably sullied by the tragic collapse of one of his many dams, his incredible aqueduct is still a critical source of water for Los Angeles. This is one of only a handful of books that should be considered essential to anyone who wants to understand the creation of Southern California and all its attending myths.

Rating:
Summary: Great Historical Review of Los Angeles
Review: If you ever wondered how L.A. blossomed into the mega metropolis that it is today, "Rivers In The Desert" is a fantastic documentary of William Mullholland triumph to bring water to the L.A. basin. Had it not been for the for the talents of Mullholland who was sent on a expedition much to the likes of Lewis and Clark, L.A. might have never been able to tap the Owens Valley. This book is an intriguing look into politics, power and greed. This book also includes many interesting photos provided by the Department of Water and Power.

Rating:
Summary: Great Historical Review of Los Angeles
Review: If you ever wondered how L.A. blossomed into the mega metropolis that it is today, "Rivers In The Desert" is a fantastic documentary of William Mullholland triumph to bring water to the L.A. basin. Had it not been for the for the talents of Mullholland who was sent on a expedition much to the likes of Lewis and Clark, L.A. might have never been able to tap the Owens Valley. This book is an intriguing look into politics, power and greed. This book also includes many interesting photos provided by the Department of Water and Power.

Rating:
Summary: Accuracy is Lacking
Review: Readers of this book should be aware that Davis' scholarship is seriously lacking. In particular, her account of the testimony of William Mulholland in the Los Angeles County Coroner's investigation of April, 1928 in connection with the St. Francis Dam disaster, is essentially a fabrication. Even a casual reader would have to be suspicious of the type of detail Davis includes that is unavailable in a court transcript, and cannot be fully trusted in newspaper accounts. More troubling is her penchant for taking the few accurate quotes she offers entirely out of their original context.

I have compared Davis' dramatic account of this event with the actual court reporter's transcript and found numerous egregious misquotes, quotes taken out of order and context, and entire passages that appear to have been woven out of whole cloth. Davis has Mulholland providing verbatim answers to questions he was not asked. The purpose appears to be to cause Mulholland to appear shiftless, defensive, self-pitying, and possibly incompetent.

It is difficult to turn a page in this book without finding similar errors of fact. On page 148, for instance, Davis suggests that Mulholland selected San Francisquito Canyon as the site of the main Los Angeles storage reservoir because it was "located next to Powerhouse Number One... making it cheaper for the reservoir to generate hydroelectric power." In fact, the St. Francis Reservoir never generated any hydroelectric power whatsoever, and it was never designed with this purpose in mind. The powerhouses (in fact there were two) were entirely separate facilities and functionally unrelated to the dam and reservoir. They were co-located only due to their proximity to the Owens Valley Aqueduct. All of the primary and secondary literature makes this fact perfectly clear.

This book is not so much a work of historiography as it is a popular tract designed to exploit and perpetuate a mythology, and in particular the "Chinatown" tale of greedy Los Angeles robber-barons manipulating a system for their own gain. The truth is of course far more complex. Many other books do far better service to the important story of William Mulholland and water development in Los Angeles. (Catherine Mulholland's biography of her grandfather, "William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles" is a much more serious effort.) Look up one of those, and skip this one.