Who was William Mulholland?

William Mulholland (1855-1935) was born in Ireland, took to sea as young man, and arrived in San Pedro in 1877 where he found work as a ditch tender with the Los Angeles City Water Company. A self-educated engineer with minimal schooling, he went on to become superintendent and chief engineer of the city’s water department, a position he held for more than 40 years.

A natural leader, Mulholland, known affectionately as "The Chief,"  was entrusted with building a 233-mile aqueduct, the world’s longest at the time, to bring water from the Owens River north of Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, where developers awaited conversion of dry land into farms and housing tracts.  Some called the project "the rape of the Owens Valley," and Owens Valley farmers sometimes violently protested the project.  The story, in greatly fictionalized form, became the inspiration for the movie "Chinatown."