Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

Don Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, a Spanish conquistador, was one of the first white men to explore the American West. He led an expedition in search of Cibola, also known as the “Seven Cities of Gold,” beginning in 1539. According to legend, both the streets and the houses were covered in gold. Coronado never found the city and continued pushing onward in his search for gold out of fear of disappointing the Spanish royalty. He traveled from Mexico to present-day Kansas and back, failing in his search for treasure. Coronado’s expedition represents the first European sightings of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River, neither of which impressed the expedition members at the time. 

Edmund (Pat) G. Brown became governor of California in 1959 and served two terms. He believed water was worth developing no matter the cost. His primary legacy is the State Water Project, which he sold to the public based on deceit around its cost and the amount of water that would be delivered with the initial bond. As Reisner notes, “The State Water Project fostered growth in the desert, willy-nilly, without a secure foundation of water” (377).

Floyd Dominy is easily the most colorful commissioner in the Bureau of Reclamation’s history. He was born in 1909 in Hastings, Nebraska, which has extreme seasons and violent storms. Like many other residents of Hastings, Dominy strongly believed that humans should control nature. Beginning in 1938, he worked for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in Washington, DC. He then went to work under Nelson Rockefeller for two years at the Inter-American Affairs Bureau, where he helped implement instant farm programs in South America and the Caribbean. These projects procured natural resources necessary for the war efforts. Dominy landed a job with the Bureau of Reclamation in 1946. In under 15 years, he climbed the ranks of the Bureau to become Commissioner.

Dominy was impulsive and quick to anger. He attacked a sitting governor who had criticized one of the Bureau’s reclamation projects in front of thousands of conference attendees. Similarly, he took on the engineering profession at one of their annual meetings, saying, “if land settlements were left solely to engineers I think we would still be hunters and gatherers, because it’s a lot sexier to design a better mace than it is to plant a garden” (234). He also continuously undermined his supervisors in the Interior Department.

Dominy’s downfall as Commissioner was his own self-destructive behavior. As Reisner notes, “As he bullied weak men, Dominy preyed on women whom he considered easy marks” (250). This was partly the reason for his firing in 1969. Dominy’s pigheadedness also blinded him to changing reality: Americans were becoming sick of the Bureau and its water projects.  

Born in 1856 in Los Angeles, Fred Eaton came from a wealthy family of engineers. Thus, it made sense that, by the age of 27, he was superintendent of the Los Angeles City Water Company. While immensely proud that Los Angeles was slowly appearing like a city with a future, similar to San Francisco, Eaton also recognized that the “whole promising future was an illusion” (60). Eaton enlisted the help of Mulholland, whom he became friends with at the Los Angeles City Water Company, to gain (some would say steal) access to water from the Owens River. Eaton was the political mastermind behind the aqueduct between Owens Valley and Los Angeles.

Harrison Gray Otis was “a large blubbery man with an intransigent scowl, an Otto von Bismarck mustache and a goatee, and a chronic inability to communicate in tones quieter than a yell” (55). Otis purchased the Los Angeles Times (originally named Times and Mirror) in 1886 from the eastern financier H.H. Boyce. He was one of the first newspaper publishers in Los Angeles to break the news about the aqueduct project between Owens Valley and Los Angeles. His columns helped instill a sense of panic among the city’s residents that they would soon face a water crisis, which increased public support for the aqueduct. In addition, Otis was one of the masterminds behind the San Fernando land syndicate, which purchased land around the area where the aqueduct would be built for agriculture. This deal made him incredibly wealthy.

Born in 1834, John Wesley Powell was interested in the natural world and exploration from a young age. During the Civil War, he lost his right arm at the elbow, an injury he considered merely a nuisance. He went on to lead the Powell Geographic Expedition, which was the first official US government-sponsored passage through the Grand Canyon. It is still “the most impressive feat of perilous river exploration in history” (34). This expedition, along with others he led, allowed him to explore parts of the West, including Arizona and Utah. Based on these experiences and observations, Powell believed that lands west of the 100th meridian were not suitable for agriculture. He immortalized his viewpoint in A Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah. Powell was one of the leading scientists in the United States and held several prestigious appointments, including being head of both the Bureau of Ethnology and the Geologic Survey. However, his cautionary views regarding the West’s settlement antagonized Western politicians and farmers. Powell was the first person to understand that moving water would not simply “fix” the West. 

Joseph Lippincott was an engineer by formal training. After working on John Wesley Powell’s failed Irrigation Survey project, he moved to California. He became head of the Bureau of Reclamation’s California project and consulted on the side. Lippincott, who was a close associate of Fred Eaton, took Eaton and William Mulholland around Owens Valley and eventually became a double agent. Rather than supporting the Bureau of Reclamation’s Owens Valley Project, Lippincott helped the city of Los Angeles purchase the water rights it needed to kill the Reclamation project. 

President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Michael Straus as his Commissioner of Reclamation in 1945. According to Reisner, “Michael Straus was the unlikeliest commissioner the Bureau ever had” (137). He was a wealthy easterner who started off his career as a newspaperman. Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the US Department of the Interior, chose Straus to be his personal aide and handler of press relations in 1933. Straus moved up the ranks and ultimately became Commissioner. Constructing dams gave him great satisfaction. During his tenure as Commissioner, the Bureau built the greatest number of water projects in its history.