The Owens River, south of Bishop.
| Bishop, Owens Valley, beneath the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California | |
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Bishop is in the heart of a valley, the Owens Valley, tapped in the early 1900s for water from thirsty city on the make, called Los Angeles. Most of the Owens Valley is owned, literally in fee simple absolute, by the City of Los Angeles Metropolitan Department of Water and Power (DWP). |
| The Owens Valley was thus the site of a serious struggle for water rights that was not resolved without violence, especially after the City of Los Angeles built a the Owens Valley Aqueduct to tap the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 235 milesnorth of growing Los Angeles. Opened on November 15, 1913, the water from north of Bishop flowed south by gravity and then pumped over two mountain ranges before it reached the San Freehand Valley, just north of downtown Los Angeles. The Owens Valley Aqueduct's visionary engineer and builder, William Mulholland is reputed to have said, on the day the water flowed into Los Angeles, "There it is...Take it!." |
The Owens River, south of Bishop. |
See The Great Thirst, Norris Hundley, Jr., pp.144-156.
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