California Water Wars - Owens Valley Before The Water Wars

Owens Valley Before The Water Wars

In 1833, Joseph Reddeford Walker led the first known expedition into the area that would later be called the Owens Valley in central California. Walker saw that the valley’s soil conditions were inferior to those on the other side of the Sierra Nevada range and that runoff from the mountains was absorbed into the arid desert ground. After the United States gained control of California in 1848, the first public land survey conducted by A.W. Von Schmidt from 1855 to 1856 was an initial step in securing government control of the valley. Von Schmidt reported that the valley’s soil was not good for agriculture except for the land near streams, and incorrectly stated that the "Owens Valley worthless to the White Man."

In 1861, Samuel Bishop and other ranchers started to raise cattle on the luxuriant grasses that grew in the Owens Valley. The Paiute Indians were already living in the valley, and used irrigation to grow crops. The two groups came into conflict over land and water use, and most of the Pauites were driven away from the valley by the U.S. Army in 1863 during the Owens Valley Indian War.

Many settlers came to the area for the promise of riches from mining. The availability of water from the Owens River made farming and raising livestock attractive. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave pioneers five years to claim and take title of their land for a small filing fee and a charge of $1.25 per acre. The Homestead Act limited the land an individual could own to 160 acres (64.7 ha) in order to create small farms.

The amount of public land settled by the late 1870s and early 1880s was still relatively small. The Desert Land Act of 1877 allowed individuals to acquire more area, up to 640 acres (259.0 ha), in hopes of drawing more settlers by giving them enough land to make their settlement and land expenses worthwhile, but “included no residency requirements.” By 1866, rapid acquisition of land had begun and by the mid 1890s most of the land in the Owens Valley had been claimed. The large number of claims made by land speculators hindered the region’s development because speculators would not participate in developing canals and ditches.

Before the Los Angeles Aqueduct, most of the 200 miles (320 km) of canals and ditches that constituted the irrigation system in the Owens Valley were in the north, while the southern region of the valley was mostly inhabited by people raising livestock. The irrigation systems created by the ditch companies did not have adequate drainage and as a result oversaturated the soil to the point where crops could not be raised. The irrigation systems also significantly lowered the water level in the Owens Lake (a process that was intensified later by the diversion of water through the Los Angeles Aqueduct). Around the start of the 20th century, the northern part of the Owens Valley turned to raising fruit, poultry and dairy.