Los Angeles Aqueduct - Valley Rebellion

Owens Valley's - Los Angeles Aqueduct

valley rebellion

If I am not on the JOB, You can find me at the AQUEDUCT was the rallying cry for the people of Bishop, California, during their occupation of the Alabama Gates of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The slogan was posted in Bishop to inform persons where the townspeople had gone--to the Aqueduct.

Unless otherwise note, All L.A. aqueduct photographs on these pages are from the Joseph Barlow Lippincott Papers, LIPP, The Water Resources Center Archives, University of California, Berkeley unless otherwise noted.

See USE NOTICE on Home Page.

Owens Lake looking east from Olancha in 1906
Photo courtesy of the water Resources Center Archives, Orbach Science Library, University of California, Riverside, CA,

The Los Angeles Times
1924 November	Peace Moves are Started in War Over Aqueduct
1925 January	Legislature Takes Hand in Owens Valley Row - [Fellony to Damage the Aqueduct]
1927 May	Police Ready to Rush North

Historical Background

To meet the need for water of its growing population, the City of Los Angeles began buying land and corresponding water rights in the Owens Valley in 1905. In 1913, the great Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed to bring Owens Valley water to the city. In 1923, the City of Los Angeles began acquiring more land in the Owens Valley to gain further sources of water. To protest the failure of Los Angeles to address their grievances, Owens Valley farmers and ranchers, under the leadership of Bishop, California banker Mark Watterson, seized the Alabama Gates, on 16 November 1924. The Gates divert water to a spillway allowing water to flow to the lower Owens River, which leads to the now dry Owens Lake. During the occupation water was let from the aqueduct into the Owens River bed, at that time dry (it has now been partially restored). After townspeople from Bishop joined the occupation, the number of occupiers reached seven hundred. It lasted until 20 November, and brought both national and international press coverage to the plight of the Owens Valley residents. The occupation and resulting favorable publicity did nothing to halt the City of Los Angeles' continued acquisition and subsequent control of land in the valley. The famous Alabama Hills, the site of many a western movie, are in the background.

Aqueduct Blast Suspect to Get Hearing Today
The Los Angeles Times - July 26, 1927

MARTINEZ (Cal.) - July 26. (AP) - C. P. Watson, former United States Army officer, is to be arraigned hee tomorrow on the three grand-jury charges linking him with the purchase of 700 pounds of explosives in Contra Costa county. The charges intimated that Watson was suspected of having had a hand in at least one of the recent blastings of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in Owens Valley, Southern California.

Watson's attorneys returned here today from an investigation of conditions in Owens Valley, where they defendant owns a ranch. They declared that Watson would plead not guilty to the charges agains him.

After his first appearance in the courts here Watson declared that before his trial was finished "the reputation of someone in Los Angeles would be blasted."

Arbitration and Dynamite
Los Angeles Times - 07-19-1927

By a pecullar coincidence the ninth and tenth attempts on the part of Owens Valley outlaws to destroy the Los Angeles Aqueduct by dynamite occurred at almost the exact hour at which was released for publication the letter to Governor Young of the various reparations associations and property-owners' protective associations of the Owens Valley in which they rejected the Governor's proposal that the differences between them and the city of Los Angeles should be submitted to the arbitration o! the courts.

The roar of the newspaper presses which carried to the world the refusal of these dissatisfied property owners to ablde by the decision of the State's chief executive, to whom they had themselves appealed, mingled with the roar of splintering bombs almost as much as to proclaim the preference of certain malcontents, at least, to settle their scores with the tools of anarchy rather than with those of law and order.

The reasons assigned for the rejection of judicial arbitration lack adequacy. "Courts are guided by precedent," says the communication to the Governor, "and there is no precedent for the consequential damage we are asking."

It may be inferred from the statement that its authors do recognize precedents for the dynamite outrages, referred to In the letter and not disclalmad. The history of anarchy is replete with bombing precedents. Enemies of order everywhere have had recourse to the bomb and the torch, but, though they have wrought disaster and death, their own cause has invariably gone down in the wreckage.

The letter refers to the ten successive dynamitings of the Aqueduct casually and defensively, mitigating and minimizing the damage and without a word of disavowal or disapproval. If the dynamiters do not enjoy the open sympathy and support of the authors of the statement, at least they do not suffer censure from that source. But, not without unconscious humor, the letter protests vigorously that "in defiance of the law, armed guards of the city are patrolling the roads and highways of our valley." Of what would happen to the Aqueduct if these guards were withdrawn the communication does not hint. In view of the fact that the dynamitings continue despite the discouraging presence of the guards, such an intimation was perhaps unnecessary.

The contention that precedent is lacking to guide a court in adjudicating the rights of this case ls a weak and preposterous excuse for the outlawry which the valley allows to continue without a single effective move on the part of its so-called law-enforcement officers. Even if there were not a wealth of law and precedent touching the subject, courts are amply able to and habitualy do create their own precedents when justice requires.

The second reason given for refusing the offices of the courts in the Owens Valley cases Is hardly less puerile. "Any court action . . . would doubtless be frustrated by innumerable delays and technicalities Iinjected by the Water and Power Board," the letter says. Comment ls scarcely necessary, but it may be pointed out in passing that if the city officials were disposed to adopt such tactics they could employ them much more effectively by bringing court action against any awards made by an unofficial board of arbitration such as the statement's authors declare they want.

In connection with this demand for an "impartial board of arbitration" it should not be forgttten that the city has so far paid for Owens Valley water lands on the basis of awards made by a board composed entirely of residents of the valley, all of them experts in land values, and that such payments have averaged two and a half times the market price. A board which would give more favorable terms - from the valley standpoint - could hardly be hoped for.

It is conceded by all who have examined the situation that the city's purchases of valley lands have wrought a grave financial hardship on business man and property owners in the valley towns. These people have seen their businesses and their realty values shrink grievously and have not. been compensated for their losses. That they have a just claim no one disputes. The city is able to pay and willing to pay - it merely remains for competent authority to fix the amount of the damage. Universally, the courts have been the accepted media for fixing such damages in other and similar cases.

But the valley, or such part of it as may be represented by these associations, refuses to permit the courts to exercise their custorµary functions in the matter. The dispute is, therefore, back where It started - with dynamite on one hand and guards on the other, with the Aqueduct blown up in a new place every few nights and with Owens ValJey, her great summer tourist and camping business ruined, fast approaching the grim record of Bloody Williamson county as a seat of lawlessness.

The Aqueduct must be protected and will be protected if it takes the whole might of the State to do it. No sane person wishes to withhold from Owens Valley a dime in damages that is rightfully hers, but every new outrage that the valley permits will set public opinion more strongly against her and make justice more difficult to do.

Photo when farmers blew up the spillway and took over the Alabama Gates Spillway. Tom Mix was filming in Lone Pine and sent his catering crew and band over to feed and play for the farmers.
[Photo courtesy of Page Williams]

Camp at Aqueduct Gate is Center of Family Life
by Otis M. Wiles

City Fixes Towns' Price
by Chester G. Hanson

Owens Valley "Facts" Printed
by Los Angeles Times - January 9, 1925

Ranch Men in Favor of City Offer
Definite Action on Owens Land Purchase Awaiting Specific Price List
by A. P. Night Wire

BISHOP, Jan. 29. - Land and water owners of Owens Valley today began an unofficial consideration of the offer last night of the Los Angeles Board of Public Service Commissioners to open negotiations for the purchase of all remaining privately owned land, and water rights in the Owens Valley Irrigatioin District - the principal source of the city's water supply - and thus endeavor to bring to a close a controversy of more than twenty years standing.

The attitude with which the city's proposal was met, was favorable, according to those close to the situation in this sectioin, but it was the general expression that that part of the offer stating that negotiations will be opened at a price based upon past land purchases, will have to be made more specific before definite action can be taken.

The sentiment in favor of opering negotiations, it was made clear, was base upon the assumption that the price to be paid will be fair and that the purchases will be made collectively and not in the heretofore piece-meal manner, which the valley interests contend has turned large sections of the district into desert, and thus has been the underlyi ng cause of their troubles.

The refusal of the city to consider reparations for alleged damage done to the valley towns through the piece-meal purchases, caused considerable adverse comment, but it was indicated that if the farmers get a favorable price, the other will not be insisted upon.

WATCHING OWENS VALLEY
Santa Ana Register - 1924

All Southern California is Watching with keen interest the drama that is being enacted in the Owens valley with ranchers on one side and the great city of Los Angeles on the Other.

It is a drama that has been enacted on a smaller scale many times in California, with water as the cause of contest. Litigation over water rights has often been hastened or hindered when one of the disagreeing parties has taken the law in its own hands.

The ranchers of the Owens valley have taken the law into their own hands deliberately. They want to bring to a head the controversy that has long existed.

Desiring water to meet the needs of a growing city, recognizing the fact that any city's growth is limited by its water supply, Los Angeles went into the Owens valley and by purchase took a large share of the water. Resentment against the big city has been expressed innuberable times in varioius ways. With water, the Owens river country can expect no further development. The interior valley's future has been sacrificed to the future of Los Angeles.

Because Los Angeles has been for itself alone in going out after a water supply, and because thee is an established principle of law known as that of eminent domain, the greatest good to the greatest number being its foundation stone, all Soiuthern California has been wondering for some years as to what their fate might be should the time come, as it plainly might, when Los Angeles would need all the water in Southern California in order to meet its municipal needs.

In recent months this nervousness concerning the future has been somewhat relieved through the announcement of a project for bringing water from the Colorado River to meet the needs for domestic water in the cities of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. When we look ahead thirty, forty or fifty years, and when we contemplate the probabilities of the growth of Los Angeles, as well as the growth of other cities of Southern California, we can conjecture that the Colorado River will be the agent that will preserve our agriculture and our horticulture. In order to secure ample water supplies, the cities must either take water away from farms and orchards or go to the Colorado.

The fight that the Owens valley is making today - and it looks like a hopeless fight - is a fight that may be made some day in Orange county. Who knows? Our insurance against any such a situation lies in joining with Los Angeles in bringing water from the Colorado river, and by so doing water now in use for irrigation of farming and orchard lands can be preserved indefinitely for that use. Otherwise this water may be sacrificed some day, if not in this generation then in the next, to the needs of the people in the cities.

Photographs courtesy of the Rich McCutchan Archives
Owens Valley "Army of Occupation" on the Los Angeles aqueduct at the Alabama Gates in Owens Valley - 1924. Owens Valley residents, including men and women, eating during their occupation of the Alabama Gates, of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. This photograph may record either the barbecue held the final day of the occupation (20 November 1924) or else the meals that wives of the occupiers served.	Owens Valley "Army of Occupation" on the Los Angeles aqueduct at the Alabama Gates in Owens Valley - 1924
Bishop ranchers in possion of the L.A. Aqueduct - 1924	Ranchers and Owens Valley residents occupying the L.A. Aqueduct

Aqueduct Dynamite Parties
"Dynamiters gave the aqueduct little rest during June and July of 1927, six different blasts occurring. The most serious in effects was at a canyon near the southern boarder of Inyo County, where dynamite or the subsequent rush of water, or both, carried away more than 450 feet of large and heavy steel siphon. Los Angeles officials who had given the press of that city many statements as to their knowledge of the guilty parties were summoned before the Inyo grand jury, but denied possessing the information attributed to them. It has been claimed by Los Angeles officials seeking to justify their course that liberal prices have been paid for Owens Valley property. Considering land and buildings only, and with some exceptions, that is true. But while Los Angeles has secured realty that is merely incidental to its real purpose. The finest farm in the valley is of no more value to it than a town lot, so far as realty alone is concerned. It is buying water, surface and underground, worth thousands of dollars an inch according to its own engineers; and it is buying freedom from interference with its stripping Owens Valley of such water. Every seller parts with not only his surface holdings and appurtenant rights; he expressly abandons and cancels any and every other present or future claim against the city of Los Angeles. If he sells a town lot, the printed agreement he is called on to sign precludes his defending the water rights of his 160-acre farm if he has one. This requirement has been modified in some cases, but is on the form presented to him. He is virtually banished, if his living depends on the soil, for he cannot thereafter acquire Owens Valley property with water rights assured to him. He has signed away any privilege of defense. Some of those who leave were born and raised on the acres they have sold. In some cases their fathers or their grandfathers had cleared those lands amid the dangers of Indian warfare. This was the home of their hearts; the land and people they understood and loved. The mere payment of so much per acre or so much per lot, and of the cost of the boards and nails and paint in their dwellings, did not compensate for what they surrendered. One writes from a new location - his third since leaving Inyo - that he has not seen a happy day since he left; another, that come what might, the Owens Valley home would not be sold for any figure if it were to be done over again. Such expressions are many." Excerpt from "The Story of Inyo" by W.A. Chalfant
"The sincere work of years is being undone. On tract after tract acquired by Los Angeles orchards have been uprooted, whether fragrant with bloom or golden with fruit when devastating tractors ruthlessly seized them. Thousands of acres, once spreading fields of green alfalfa or richly productive fields of grain, have been abandoned to the encroaching sagebrush. Dwellings, whether humble or pretentious, have been wrecked, or stand as the sport of the elements, unless fire has already had its way with them. Homes which echoed to the music of children's voices and sheltered the toiler at his day's end are windowless and their doors swing in the breezes. Lawns about them have vanished; the perfume of their gardens has fled. Their portals are no longer shaded and the avenues leading to them are bordered by gray stumps where venerable trees once welcomed feathered songsters and were part of a beautiful landscape. Even the roads giving access to the homesteads have been plowed up, in some cases, to make the work of obliteration the more complete. Districts which settlers brought from sage-grown waste to productiveness and charm are on their way back to the primitive. Railroad sidetracks over which once rolled carloads of produce are becoming but streaks of rust in a wilderness from which all inhabitants have gone. The very sites on which stood the schools are bare, in some once thriving districts. And this in a land brought from savagery to civilization by the toil and blood and lives of high-class American citizens. Their pioneering was rewarded by being stripped of the protection of the laws designed to promote just such settlement. These are facts acts to be observed along any valley highway. What many outside observers have found might be cited in corroboration. Some of the most influential papers sent representatives to learn the situation at first hand. "The Valley of Broken Hearts" was the title of a series of articles in the San Francisco Call. Some of the Most forceful criticisms of Los Angeles were printed by the Record, of that city. World-known Will Rogers last summer informed the nation: ' Ten years ago this was a wonderful valley with one-quarter of a million acres of fruit and alfalfa. But Los Angeles had to have more water for its Chamber of Commerce to drink more toasts to its growth, more water to dilute its orange juice and more water for its geraniums to delight the tourists, while the giant cottonwoods here died. So, now this ' s is a valley of desolation.' Going to show that the Call titled its articles understandingly, the continually disturbed mental condition prevalent in Owens Valley accounted for at least two suicides and one case of insanity. News comes that Manzanar, once a fruit growing and shipping point of importance, now owned by Los Angeles, is to be deprived of its water and lights. Its remaining orchards are doomed; its settlers must move. Another school and community destroyed. The dominant genius of the whole undertaking was William Mulholland, whose attitude was typified by his remark (here expurgated) that there were not enough trees in Owens Valley to hang its people on. It must be said of him that he is not open to charges of deception. To him the Inyo people were outlander enemies to be conquered; he left the methods to competent subordinates. The nominally controlling water board served as his rubber stamp, up to the time when the chickens of different engineering failures came home to roost at his doorstep, and when the tragedy of the San Francisquito dam sent out its flood to take hundreds of lives and to wash down to the clay feet of the city's almost defied idol. Excerpt from "The Story of Inyo" by W.A. Chalfant
Dynamited section of the aqueduct.	Workers repairing the damaged siphon. (Lippencot photo)	Damaged siphon.
The whole shameful perpetration is a crime against the people of Inyo County; against the people and taxpayers of Los Angeles; against the State of California; against the just administration of the nation's laws. Not because the city came to Owens Valley for more water; that could have been arranged, though little of such water finds its way past the lands which the foresighted promoters sold. All that was right could have been won at far less cost in millions and in good repute by a definite program of honest, aboveboard dealing. The campaign began with wrongful use of government functions; it continued in the engineering folly of creating a $25,000,000 aqueduct without sanely providing for its supply; and it was carried on unscrupulously. With adequate storage of flood waters there would have been little occasion for interference with the streams that were the very life-blood of Owens Valley; there would have been no destruction of homes and farms; Owens Valley towns would have continued to grow; there would have been water for all; millions of dollars would have been saved to the city; and Los Angeles would not have created for itself a repute that generations may not forget. Mary Austin, wife of the Austin who first protested to the Government about the peculiar acts of Lippincott, saw the beginning of the calamity as a resident of Independence. In her autobiographical "Earth Horizon" she briefly sketches it, and thus tells of her seeking guidance as to what she could do: 'She called upon the Voice, and the Voice answered her "Nothing." She was told to go away-and suddenly there was an answer; a terrifying answer, pushed off, delayed, deferred; an answer impossible to be repeated; an answer still pending, which I might not live to see confirmed, but hangs suspended over the southern country.' Many have commented in Inyo's defense, often in language more vivid and less restrained that these pages have shown. Morrow Mayo, who was for six years a Los Angeles reporter, now an author, declares in his recently published "Los Angeles": 'Los Angeles gets its water by reason of one of the costliest, crookedest, most unscrupulous deals ever perpetrated, plus one of the greatest pieces of engineering folly ever heard of. Owens Valley is there for anybody to see. The city of Los Angeles moved through this valley like a devastating plague. It was ruthless, stupid, cruel and crooked. It stole the waters of the Owens River. It drove the people of Owens Valley from their home, a home which they had built from the desert. For no sound reason, for no sane reason, it destroyed a helpless agricultural section and a dozen towns. It was an obscene enterprise from beginning to end.'" Excerpt from "The Story of Inyo" by W.A. Chalfant

INYO COUNTRY FACES SUIT FOR DAMAGE
Public Service Counsel Seeks Authority to File Action in Water Row
Los Angeles Daily Times - 1924

W. B. Mathews, chief counsel for the Board of Public Service Commissioners said yesterday that he expected to find authority for a damage suit by the city of Los Angeles against Inyo county under the California code.

Under the California code, Section 4452, it would appear that legal redress for damages done or caused by either a mob or by riots, damage being either real or personal, would be granted Los Angeles, Mr. Mathews said. Admission by the Sheriff of Inyo county that he is unable to protect the Aueduct constitutes sufficient grounds for a damage suit, Mr. Mathews said. Civil suits against individuals concerned in the present water fight have already been filed.

During the railroad riots in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, in 1873, suits against the count for damages done by strikers amounted to several millions of dollars. The count was found liable and forced to float a bond issue of $10,000,000 to pay outstanding claims. Mr. Mathews said last night that if he finds a proper authority he will institute suit against the county of Inyo, in which even those innocent of any wrong doing in the present water battle would be forced to share an additional tax burden with members of the present rancers' mob that has defied court orders and is continuing to wast water valued at $15,000 daily by the city of Los Angeles.

Photo courtesy of the water Resources Center Archives, Orbach Science Library, University of California, Riverside, CA,
Siphon damagaged by dynamite	Siphon damagaged by dynamite
Owens Valley "Army of Occupation" on the Los Angeles aqueduct at the Alabama Gates in Owens Valley - 1924. Owens Valley residents eating at the Alabama Gates of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. This photograph may record either the barbecue held the final day of the occupation (20 November 1924) or else the meals that wives of the occupiers served. The low water in the spllway indicates that the picture was shot towards the end of the occupation. Writing on canal wall: "Please don't throw trash in the AQUEDUCT."	Dynamited Los Angeles aqueduct - 1913
Removing concrete from dynamited Los Angeles aqueduct - 1913	Removing concrete from dynamited Los Angeles aqueduct - 1913
Group gathered near Los Angeles aqueduct, Inyo County, 1924 Possibly related to Los Angeles Times article, November 17, 1924, Water Fight History Told, Controversy Between City and Owens Valley Ranchers Began Twenty Years Ago Two men and one woman in conversation standing near campsite, with pots, buckets and bundles on rocky ground, with group of about 25 men and women gathered on rocky slope in background, some holding dippers or cups, with small building at right "	Siphon damagaged by dynamite - 1924
Dynamited concrete aqueduct - 1924 Cattle owners and ranchers from Owens Valley, moving in swift automobiles and with their faces covered, blew up the aqueduct early Wednesday morning at the spillway three miles north of Lone Pine.	Dynamited concrete aqueduct -1924 Cattle owners and ranchers from Owens Valley, moving in swift automobiles and with their faces covered, blew up the aqueduct early Wednesday morning at the spillway three miles north of Lone Pine.
Owens Valley "Army of Occupation" on the Los Angeles aqueduct at the Alabama Gates in Owens Valley - 1924	Owens Valley "Army of Occupation" on the Los Angeles aqueduct at the Alabama Gates in Owens Valley - 1924. Bishop, California ranchers releasing water from the Alabama Gates of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. This photograph may have been taken during the initial stages of the occupation since the water is flowing strongly.
Owens Valley "Army of Occupation" on the Los Angeles aqueduct at the Alabama Gates in Owens Valley - 1924. Band of musicians in front of Alabama Gates of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Children surround musicians. Western star Tom Mix, shooting a movie in the nearby Alabama Hills, supposedly sent a band to the Gates in support of the occupiers.	Intake gate damage north of Independence - 1912
Dynamite damage to the "great no-name siphon" - 1928	Aqueduct damaged by dynamite flooding a large section of Inyo County - 1924
Aqueduct damaged by dynamite flooding a large section of Inyo County - 1924	Open section of aqueduct dynamited near Lone Pine - 1935
Mayor Porter blocks purchase of Eaton Ranch in Long Valley - 10-01-1930	L.A. Water Bureau approves purchase of 12,500 in Owens Valley 10-01-1930

Photos Courtesy of Rich McCutchan Archives
The Los Angeles aqueduct was bombed or otherwise vandalized in at least 10 incidents from 1924 to 1931. Cf. (1) Los Angeles Times article, 20 June 1927, “City Aqueduct Again Blasted, Dynamite Tears Out Sixteen-Foot Section, Fourth Recent Outrage Done During Night Hours, Explosion Occurs Two Miles South of Lone Pine.” The article states: “A heavy charge of dynamite exploded in the fourth attempt within the past month … shattered a sixteen-foot panel of waterway at the Puddle Creek Delta, two miles southwest of Lone Pine … Other outrages. Previous acts of violence against the Aqueduct are as follows: On the 5th inst., the side walls of a large open concrete conduit at the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon were wrecked by a charge of dynamite … May 28, 1927: Approximately 300 feet of the Aqueduct system was blown out at Big Pine … May 27, 1927: … a charge of explosive in No Name Canyon destroying about 450 feet of iron pipe … May 14, 1926: A ten-foot hole was torn out of the concrete Aqueduct by dynamite … about one mile south of the spillway in the Alabama Hills. November 24, 1924: A mob of men … opened the Alabama control gates … between Independence and Lone Pine … May 21, 1924: A heavy charge of dynamite was set off against an open portion of the Aqueduct at a point two miles north of Lone Pine. … No actual damage …” Cf. (2) Los Angeles Times article, 17 July 1927, “Blasts Peril Owens Mills, New Aqueduct Dynamitings Bring Contingency, Lake Level May Tie Up Chemical Plants, Large Repair Crews Rush Reconstruction Work.” The article states: “… two dynamite blasts … early yesterday wrecked the Aqueduct … The latest explosions occurred at Thebaut gate, eight miles north of Independence, and at Tuttle Creek south of Lone Pine. …” Cf. (3) Los Angeles Times article, 3 Nov. 1931, “Officers Trail Aqueduct Dynamiting Suspects, One of Pair Sought Here as Blast Rips Grapevine Siphon; No Water Shortage.” The article states: “Two men were being sought last night for complicity in the explosion of a terrific charge of dynamite which … tore out a section of the grapevine siphon on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, about fifty miles north of Mojave. …”
Damaged siphon. Damaged siphon.	L.A. Aqueduct Political Cartoon.
Reconstruction of aqueduct in no name canyon after dynamite explosion.	Damaged siphon.
Two man inspecting damaged section of LA aqueduct siphon - 1924.	Damaged siphon.
Damaged section of pipeline.	Damaged aqueduct canal.
Damaged siphon.	Damaged siphon.
Two men examining kit of dynamite and wire found during sabotage incidents of Owens Valley Aqueduct, Calif., circa 1924

Photos & Photocards Courtesy of Rich McCutchan Archives
Owens Valley "Army of Occupation" on the Los Angeles aqueduct at the Alabama Gates in Owens Valley - 1924	Auto fleet of Bishop ranchers at the Los Angeles aqueduct - 1924. Parked automobiles of Owens Valley residents (described as "ranchers") during their occupation of the Alabama Gates, of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. In right background is spillway of the Gates. Majority of persons occupying the Alabama Gates to the left of the spillway. Alabama Hills are in background.

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