William Mulholland was an Irish American self-taught civil engineer who was responsible for building the infrastructure to provide a water supply that allowed Los Angeles to grow into the largest city in California.
Los Angeles, as we know it today, was made possible by massive infrastructure projects that provide reliable sources of water to the otherwise semi-arid region. The mastermind behind many of these infrastructure projects in the early twentieth century was William Mulholland, the self-taught engineer who rose through the ranks to become the Chief Engineer and General Manager of the Bureau of Water Works and Supply . Mulholland is most commonly remembered for the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a 233-mile-long (375 km) system to move water from Owens Valley to the San Fernando Valley. But Owens Lake was drying up faster than expected, and the aqueduct was threatened by both earthquakes and sabotage from angry landowners and farmers in the Owens Valley who orchestrated dynamite attacks on the waterway, in what became known as the California Water Wars.
William Mulholland was born in Belfast, Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. William was educated at O’Connell School by the Christian Brothers in Dublin. After having been beaten by his father for receiving bad marks in school, Mulholland ran off to sea.
At 15, Mulholland was a member of the British Merchant Navy. He spent the next four years as a seaman on Gleniffer, In 1874 he disembarked in New York and headed west to Michigan where he worked a summer on a Great Lakes freighter and the winter in a lumber camp.
Mulholland reconnected with his brother Hugh, and in December 1876 they stowed away on a ship in New York bound for California. They were discovered in Panama and were forced to leave the ship. They then walked over 47 miles through the jungle and arrived in Los Angeles in 1877. After arriving in Los Angeles, which at the time had a population of about 9,000, Mulholland obtained a job from Frederick Eaton as Deputy Zanjero (water distributor) with the newly formed Los Angeles City Water Company (LACWC). In 1880, Mulholland oversaw the laying of the first iron water pipeline in Los Angeles. Mulholland has gradually progressed over the years. Few years later, the Los Angeles Water Department was established with Mulholland as its superintendent. In 1911, the Water Department was renamed the Bureau of Water Works and Supply with Mulholland named as its chief engineer. In 1937.
Mulholland needed a backup plan, so he turned to building reservoirs, most of which still function to this day. When the St. Francis Dam collapsed in 1928 the ensuing rush of water killed at least 450 people, destroyed 1,200 homes, forever altered the reputations of Mulholland and the city’s water infrastructure, and ultimately cemented the boundaries of the city and its neighbors.