William Mulholland
| William Mulholland | |
|---|---|
(1924)
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| Born |
William Mulholland September 11, 1855 Belfast, Ireland |
| Died | July 22, 1935 (aged 79) Los Angeles, California |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California |
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | O'Connell school |
| Occupation | Civil engineer |
| Years active | 1878–1929 |
| Employer | Bureau of Water Works and Supply |
| Known for | Building the water system of Los Angeles |
| Successor | Harvey Van Norman |
William Mulholland (September 11, 1855 – July 22, 1935) was responsible for building the infrastructure to provide a water supply that allowed Los Angeles to grow into one of the largest cities in the world. As the head of a predecessor to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Mulholland designed and supervised the building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a 233-mile (375 km)-long system to move water from Owens Valley to the San Fernando Valley. The creation and operation of the aqueduct led to the disputes known as the California Water Wars. In March 1928, Mulholland's career came to an end when the St. Francis Dam failed just over 12 hours after he and his assistant gave it a safety inspection.
William Mulholland was born in Belfast, Ireland. His parents Hugh and Ellen Mulholland were Dubliners and they returned to the city a few years after William's birth. His younger brother, Hugh Jr. was born in 1856. At the time of Mulholland's birth, his father was working as a guard for the Royal Mail. In 1862, when William was seven years old, his mother died. Three years later his father remarried. 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, he was a member of the British Merchant Navy. He spent the next four years as a seaman primarily sailing Atlantic routes. In 1872 he left the sea and traveled to California. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1877.
After arriving in Los Angeles, which at the time had a population of about 9,000, Mulholland quickly decided to return to life at sea, as work was hard to find. On his way to the port at San Pedro to find a ship, he accepted a job digging a well. After a brief stint in Arizona where he prospected for gold and worked on the Colorado River, he obtained a job from Frederick Eaton as Deputy Zanjero (water distributor) with the newly formed Los Angeles City Water Company (LACWC). In Alta California during the Spanish and Mexican administrations, water was delivered to Pueblo de Los Angeles in a large open ditch, the Zanja Madre. The man who tended the ditch was known as a zanjero.
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