Getting Hosed in search of SoCal’s Mythical Garden, pt 2: The Great Thirst.

Old Mission Dam, still standing. (Pic SoCal Water Wars)

by John Earl, June 17, 2023. Cross-posted from SoCal Water Wars (previously Surf City Voice)

The first addition to California’s natural water supply portfolio reminds us how it all got started.

The Old Mission Dam is still partially standing in East San Diego County. It was built by native people taken as slaves by invading colonists during the second decade of the 1800s.

It was California’s first major water management project, an addition to nature’s water supply portfolio.

Prior to the dam, native people living along the coast got their water from free-flowing streams supplied by rain, snowmelt, and groundwater, which they collected directly or from shallow wells dug next to dry riverbeds.

Old Mission Dam, still standing. (Pic SoCal Water Wars)

There was little or no attempt by California’s native people to divert water or store it, according to Norris Hundley Jr., author of the classic California water history, The Great Thirst.

In dry areas, the water supply portfolio, other than rainmaking ceremonies during drought periods, consisted of adapting to nature’s surroundings, not conquering them.

“Villages and population density reflected the availability of food and water,” he wrote, “which in turn influenced lifestyles and social patterns.”

By building the dam, the Spaniards introduced a new system of water management, but it faced great obstacles due to the arid climate.

For a short time, the Mission Dam provided a reliable water supply for San Diego de Alcala, founded in 1769 by the Franciscan priest, Father Junipero Serra, as the first of 21 missions.

The dam was 12-ft-high and 220-ft-long. It supplied 1,500 of the mission’s church officials and slaves with water carried downhill on a tiled five-mile flume.

Use of the dam peaked in 1821 when it was severely damaged by the first of a series of floods that took place over decades.

The flume has vanished to time and vandalism, but a portion of the dam still holds water.

As the dam crumbled, Spanish colonists were displaced by Mexican cattle ranchers who took over the land after the war of Mexican independence (1810-1821).

After the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) that followed, gold was discovered in Northern California. Hoards of miners and would-be entrepreneurs rushed there to get rich.

During the mid 19th and early 20th centuries, flocks of pioneers from the east and the south fled their homes to join the Westward Movement.

They were looking for an enormous garden, a mythical garden, “where a new society of independent freeloaders would flourish and sustain American life…”

Read the rest at SoCal Water Wars!

About Surf City Voice

John Earl is the editor of SoCal Water Wars (previously Surf City Voice.) Frequent contributor Debbie Cook, a former Huntington Beach Mayor, is board president of the Post Carbon Institute.