(bright piano music) (upbeat drum music added) - If you've ever driven
along the 5 freeway, going north towards Santa Clarita Valley, you might have seen this structure before. Do you know what it is? When I was a kid, I thought
it was a water park ride like Splash Mountain at
Disneyland, but it's not. It's called the Cascades, and it's actually the end of the line for a structure called
the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The aqueduct was built in 1913 by a man named William Mulholland to transport water from the Owens Valley to the city of Los Angeles. Although this happened
over a hundred years ago, taking this water has had a lasting impact on Los Angeles and the Owens Valley, one that we can still see today. Los Angeles is a semi-arid environment, which means it's dry most of the time with a short rainy season. So, how can an environment like this support a population of
over 10 million people? The truth is, it can't. Right now, there's enough water
being brought into the city to support this huge population. But it wasn't always like this. Once upon a time in history, when the city was just starting
to make a name for itself, its future was on the
brink of running dry. In the early 1900s, almost 200,000 people
called Los Angeles home. And the population was growing quickly. From agriculture to the
booming oil industry, thousands of people were
moving to Los Angeles and it became clear that
there wasn't enough water in local sources to keep the city growing
at such a fast pace. Los Angeles was desperate
for a new source of water and William Mulholland was
determined to quench its thirst. Mulholland was an Irish immigrant and self-taught engineer who, through hard work and determination, became the chief of the Los Angeles Department
of Water and Power. With his confidence and clout, Mulholland convinced government officials that all the water Los
Angeles would ever need was 223 miles north of the
city in the Owens Valley, and that he would be
the man to deliver it. No Angelina would ever have
to worry about water again. Mulholland proposed that
an aqueduct be built starting in the Owens Valley and stretching all the way
down to Los Angeles County. An aqueduct is a series
of tubes and canals that are used to transport
water from one place to another. They're old technology, and we see them throughout history in places like ancient Rome, ancient Greece, and even early Los Angeles. (water burbles) So you can think of the
Los Angeles Aqueduct as the giant straw
through which Los Angeles would drink the water of the Owens Valley. Now a project like this had
never been attempted before. A 223-mile-long straw that would stretch across
valleys and deserts, over mountains, and
across earthquake faults, to deliver water to the City of Angels, seemed almost impossible. But Mulholland pulled it off. On November 5th, 1913, the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened and water from the Owens Valley flowed into the San Fernando
Valley for the first time. On that day, a crowd gathered around to watch the first flows of
water rush down the Cascades. Small glass bottles like this one here, filled with water from the aqueduct were given as souvenirs and it was there where William Mulholland
famously exclaimed, "There it is, take it!" With this new, seemingly
unlimited, water supply, Los Angeles grew larger than would've ever been
possible without it. William Mulholland was celebrated as the man who saved Los Angeles, so much so that the city even
named a street after him. But his actions didn't
come without consequences. 13 years after the
opening of the aqueduct, so much of the water that fed
the Owens Lake had been taken, or diverted to Los Angeles, that the Owens Lake, roughly the size of San
Francisco filled 50 feet deep, had completely evaporated. Not only was this a huge
environmental disaster, this created serious human health issues. There were people who
lived in the Owens Valley, and they depended on that
water for their livelihoods. Even today, people who
live in the Owens Valley have to deal with the consequences of William Mulholland's decision. On windy days, dust from the dry lake bed gets kicked up and creates air pollution that has caused health
issues like asthma and cancer for the people who live around it. Los Angeles has been taking
water from the Owens Valley since 1913. And even though William Mulholland thought it was all the water
the city would ever need, he was wrong. Two more aqueducts, the
Colorado River Aqueduct and the California
Aqueduct were built in 1939 and 1965 to continue to quench the thirst of the ever-growing city. William Mulholland created
a lasting legacy for himself in both Los Angeles and the Owens Valley. A hero in one place and
a villain in the other. And we can still see the
impact of his actions today. (chill jazz music) - [Announcer] Subscribe to
our channel for more videos or visit our website at nhm.org to keep exploring. (chill jazz music)
