0:08 some crimes are so heartbreaking or
0:12 shocking they change laws change society
0:15 or even earn the label crime of the
0:17 century but the stories that made
0:19 headlines in decades past aren't
0:22 necessarily remembered
0:24 today I'm Amber hunt a journalist and
0:27 author and in each episode of this show
0:29 I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser
0:33 known today but was huge when it
1:01 [Music]
1:03 the phone rang just after midnight in
1:05 the home of the director of the Bureau
1:07 of Waterworks and supply for the city of
1:11 Los Angeles it was March 12th
1:14 1928 a rushed voice told the chief that
1:16 the St Francis dam was even now
1:19 collapsing ferociously into the canyon
1:23 below it the 185 ft curved concrete
1:26 Behemoth in the San Francis Canyon had
1:29 been in service for only 2 years it had
1:31 been built to hold hold back 38,000 acre
1:34 feet of water for the city's imminent
1:37 use the director knew that the water
1:39 that had been held back by the dam would
1:41 now never reach city tops but would
1:44 drown a lot of whatever lived between it
1:47 and the concrete Rubble the dam now was
1:50 because among other things he knew what
1:52 an acre foot of water meant in real
1:55 terms hint it's the amount of water that
1:57 it would take to cover one acre of land
2:00 to a depth of 1 foot I'll do the hard
2:31 325,000 he'd been asleep when the world
2:34 he had so carefully nurtured came apart
2:35 literally at the
2:39 seams that Dam had been built explicitly
2:41 to hold a Year's worth of water for the
2:44 growing Metropolis of Los Angeles which
2:46 truth be told was nothing but a parched
2:49 desert town that ran headlong into the
2:51 Pacific Ocean before he got there a
2:53 Barren land that glistened in the
2:56 sunshine that banked against mountains
2:58 all of it prone to drought and could at
3:02 best support very little Beyond cattle
3:05 he believed in that Dam and now it was
3:07 as he spoke to the man on the phone
3:10 sending water something like a million
3:13 gallons a second over crushed concrete
3:16 and Rubble piles into the canyon below
3:18 picking up everything in its path and
3:22 shoving it farther toward the city mud
3:25 houses bodies oil wells oil animals and
3:29 scrub a massive wet thick sludge wall
3:31 was being sh shoved forward by the Water
3:34 behind it and on to the 10,000 Souls who
3:36 probably never heard it
3:40 coming located just 54 miles from Los
3:42 Angeles the dam had held water that
3:44 would later be determined to have shoved
3:47 bodies so far as to drop them without
3:51 stopping into the cold Pacific Ocean the
3:54 St Francis Dam collapse would become the
3:57 worst engineering disaster in American
4:00 history barely 2 weeks later the
4:03 authorities began an inquiry into the
4:06 Calamity explains John Wilman author of
4:08 flood path it's not a criminal trial it
4:10 was a trial to determine who is
4:12 responsible and to determine if they
4:15 were going to indict anybody it's quite
4:16 possible that William molland would have
4:19 been indicted for murder William molland
4:22 the unqualified hero of the great City
4:25 would maybe for the first time ever be
4:27 asked to account for his
4:29 actions by the time the inquiry opened
4:33 he already knew that 227 bodies had been
4:36 Unearthed from the Muk in Meer he also
4:39 knew that hundreds were still missing
4:41 for those wondering the exact number of
4:44 dead the official estimate is at least
4:48 431 would be forever cloaked in mystery
4:50 as many migrant families worked and
4:52 lived in temporary shelters along the
4:54 aqueduct grateful for the jobs that had
4:56 blossomed so regularly in the
4:59 agricultural Splendor that the water had
5:02 brought the San Fernando Valley so yeah
5:04 if this was murder it was murder on a grand
5:06 grand
5:10 scale at first molland was less than
5:12 forthcoming but the weight of the
5:14 tragedy hung heavy around his shoulders
5:17 something he could not shift to others
5:21 this is from PBS if there is any error
5:24 in human judgment mhand admitted I was the
5:25 the
5:27 human I won't try to fasten it on
5:29 anybody else
5:33 he was not being Noble M Holland knew
5:35 that he had designed that Dam without
5:38 much if any consultation he knew that he
5:41 had even expanded its original design to
5:44 carry more load he knew that he had been
5:46 called to inspect the site the mourning
5:48 of the tragedy to look for himself at
5:51 the leaks that had been plugged and the
5:53 slight bulging of the giant curving
5:57 edifice he had gone he had seen he had
5:59 then considered the concerns of those
6:02 who who worked on the dam he knew all
6:05 Dam leak so he had assured to everyone
6:09 that very day that the dam was [Music]
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7:45 [Music]
7:48 you if you know Los Angeles you know
7:50 that one of the most scenic drives that
7:53 the city has to offer is M Holland Drive
7:56 a 21m road that is known as a tourist
7:58 Overlook a Lover's Lane and a road
8:01 Racers pair Paradise it's on this drive
8:03 that you get a view of the Basin the
8:07 valley downtown and the Hollywood sign
8:09 and you know the view you've seen it in
8:12 dozens of movies the mahalan dam is up
8:15 there too in the Hollywood Hills and
8:16 holds the Hollywood
8:19 Reservoir mahand highway is a 50-m
8:21 Scenic road that runs from the Santa
8:24 Monica Mountains down to the Pacific
8:26 Coast Highway where LA and Ventura
8:29 county lines meet moland Memorial
8:32 Fountain is a glorious reflecting pool
8:35 that is tiled in turquoise and includes
8:39 a slice of the original La Aqueduct it's
8:41 poised at the busy intersection of Los
8:44 Filas Boulevard and Riverside Drive and
8:46 there's even a malland middle school a
8:49 public school of no particular
8:53 Renown this is no mistake William mhand
8:56 made this city and that's no
9:00 understatement he got to LA in 187 7
9:02 after living off his wits and hard work
9:05 having never finished grade school he
9:06 had left his Dublin home when he was
9:09 just 15 working as a seaman in the
9:12 British Merchant Navy for a few years
9:14 before trying his luck in the United
9:17 States from New York he went to Michigan
9:19 to work the Great Lakes then to Ohio to
9:22 log to California where he was a pretty
9:25 unsuccessful Gold Miner only to land a
9:27 job in Los Angeles digging ditches on
9:29 the ancient and inefficient City water
9:32 supply system that issued forth less
9:35 than pristine water but he fell in love
9:38 with the LA River a trickle of a river
9:40 that runs slowly out of what is now
9:42 kenoga park and used to spread out to
9:45 Marsh and what is now basically San
9:48 Pedro that is until it rains that's when
9:50 it becomes a torrent that has
9:54 historically caused disastrous flooding
9:56 it was the primary source of fresh water
9:59 for the city early on here's what
10:02 molland had to say about the river Via
10:06 La public TV station KC and their Los
10:08 Angeles history project it was so
10:12 attractive to me that it at once became
10:14 something about which my whole scheme of
10:16 life was
10:20 woven in 1877 he was 22 and the
10:23 population of the city was around 9,000
10:26 molland worked various jobs all in some
10:29 sort of Municipal Water distribution
10:32 at 30 when his boss dropped dead he was
10:34 made superintendent of the Los Angeles
10:38 City water company its Legend but true
10:40 that he worked his way up by memorizing
10:43 the entire Water and Sewer main system
10:45 every pipe and drain teaching himself
10:48 classical Hydraulic Engineering as he
10:50 went he wasn't a guy who forgot where he
10:53 came from said geological engineer J
10:56 David Rogers he starts out as a ditch
10:58 digger I mean you can't start out any
11:00 lower you know know than that but that's
11:03 what made him such a good field General
11:05 understands The Working Man and how to
11:07 Marshall their efforts that was what he
11:10 lived for his job at least when he
11:12 started was to embrace efforts to
11:15 conserve water pointing out unnecessary
11:18 waste everywhere in the city because
11:21 good god there was so little of it and
11:25 water that is between 1838 1902 the
11:28 average rainfall in the LA Basin was
11:31 less than 3 in a year average annual
11:34 rainfall now is something like 12 in a
11:38 year some years like in 1960 to 61 the
11:41 city had less than five and others like
11:44 1992 to 93 had almost
11:47 24 but such great rain years are
11:50 invariably followed by hideous fire
11:52 Seasons as the rain encourages
11:55 undergrowth in the Hills to flourish
11:57 when the dry season returns that
12:00 flourishing becomes fuel for fast moving
12:02 fires I hardly have to tell you how
12:05 devastating that becomes when the Santa
12:08 Ana winds rage anyway M Holland was in
12:10 charge when the city having survived 3
12:12 years of drought began to panic as the
12:16 LA River was running dry knowing that he
12:18 couldn't create water he and a good
12:21 friend former mayor Fred Eaton took a
12:23 Buckboard and a lot of whiskey and drove
12:25 North out of the city looking for a
12:28 sustainable water source which soon
12:37 steal Mark Ryner the author of an
12:40 astonishingly Great Book Cadillac desert
12:42 spoke of the decision and I think M Holland
12:43 Holland
12:46 suddenly must have changed and he saw
12:49 himself as a sort of a builder of a Roman
12:50 Roman
12:54 Masterwork uh as somebody who kept the
12:57 great Hydraulic Engineering tradition
12:59 alive I can't tell you what when it
13:01 through his head but suddenly he was a
13:03 convert having been more of a an
13:05 efficiency guy and a conservationist
13:08 suddenly he became an Empire Builder
13:11 almost overnight I introduced this note
13:13 now as we are a true crime podcast and
13:15 while I posited mass murder at the
13:17 outset I don't wish to overlook what
13:20 many serious-minded people see as a
13:23 crime of equal if not larger proportion
13:25 also committed by William molland with
13:28 the help of a lot of serious capitalists
13:30 how else most you adequately
13:32 characterize how La got its water to
13:35 grow and how it continues to get it
13:38 today by what Swindle or con did molland
13:41 and Eden make the Desert Bloom the world
13:44 turn west and why the Rose Bowl and its
13:47 glorious parade on every New Year's Day
13:49 creates a hankering in the rest of us to
13:52 suddenly move there suffice to say that
13:56 the two men found just 200 M from home
13:59 the Owens River Valley and the seemingly
14:01 abundant Owens Lake which had been
14:04 formed by Mountain runoff not to be too
14:06 political here but this was already
14:08 somebody else's home when the pair
14:12 happened upon it here pioneering Farmers
14:14 had already decided to Plum the water
14:16 They too had found and irrigate their
14:19 Ino County Land to build families grow
14:22 apples water their animals and Thrive as
14:25 did the PES the Native Americans who
14:28 preceded them they could have simply
14:30 asked to share
14:32 they chose instead to go to the Inyo
14:34 County courthouse and find who owned
14:36 what and strategize from there using
14:39 everything from maps to stream flows to
14:42 mask what can only be called
14:45 greed quietly and without much notice
14:48 Eaton bought up property and water
14:51 rights so too did other in the no
14:54 entrepreneurs like Harrison gray Otis
14:56 and Harry Chandler owners of the Los
14:59 Angeles Times big supporters of the
15:01 project when it finally went
15:04 public meanwhile no one in the Owens
15:06 Valley had an inkling they were selling
15:08 their land and water rights to Los
15:10 Angeles nor did they realize that
15:13 molland had envisioned a giant garden
15:15 hose that would shuttle the water away
15:17 from their Orchards and straight into
15:19 the Sportsman Lodge Bar in the form of
15:23 bourbon and water Eaton was such a
15:25 greedy Pig he even bought the land where
15:27 his friend Bill mahand had told him dams
15:29 could be located that would be a good
15:32 investment he figured he neglected to
15:35 inform bill that he was in effect insider
15:36 insider
15:39 trading the aqueduck malland imagin
15:41 would flow through the San Fernando
15:44 Valley also something bought up by a
15:46 real estate Syndicate that figured where
15:48 there were now cattle there could be
15:51 lots and lots of oranges and lemons
15:53 tomatoes walnuts limma beans and table
15:57 grapes they paid $35 an acre for it in
16:00 the 20th centuries first decade Google
16:02 tells me that an acre there would now
16:04 cost me well over a million dollars
16:06 depending on location zoning and
16:09 development potential with most prices
16:12 falling within the range of $1.5 to5
16:14 million per acre due to high demand for
16:18 the land in this densely populated area
16:20 I should point out here that molland did
16:22 not invest personally in the land
16:25 Swindle if you want to call it that he
16:27 was only interested in the water and how
16:29 he was going to deliver it like a
16:32 Milkman to La's doorstep every day for
16:36 decades to come to do so of course those
16:39 60,000 Acres of irrigated Farmland in
16:41 the Owens Valley were going to be
16:44 snapped up soon to be thirsty and before
16:46 long useless
16:51 again on July 25th 1905 molland went
16:53 public announcing he'd been to the
16:56 desert and read a sermon in the sand
16:59 water that precious lifeblood is just a
17:02 little more than 200 miles away he
17:04 explained to a worried populace if
17:07 voters would only agree to fund it he
17:09 had this idea of building an aquadec
17:12 from here to there a 12-ft conduit of
17:15 water water that would be driven to Los
17:17 Angeles by gravity alone to where it
17:20 could be best used he rallied the
17:22 Chamber of Commerce and found solid
17:25 support in Sacramento for his plan even
17:27 president Theodore Roosevelt signed on
17:30 creating the in National Forest creating
17:32 as Mark Ryner explained in his book
17:35 Cadillac desert the first national
17:38 forest that had no trees if you didn't
17:40 count the apple orchards which without
17:44 water would soon enough leave the forest
17:46 leafless campaigning for the bond issue
17:49 to pass the LA Times exuded confidence
17:52 in the plan no wonder that the
17:55 250,000 residents of the city in the
17:58 midst of a drought voted 10 to one for
18:02 the $24.5 million bond to fund the
18:05 building of the Monstrous pipeline
18:08 that's about $ 800 million today give or
18:11 take a few tens of millions the building
18:13 it today would be far more than that
18:17 figure construction began in 1909 the
18:19 joke being that all the water
18:20 Department's workmen had to do was
18:22 follow the whiskey bottles thrown out of
18:24 the Buckboard a few years earlier when
18:27 the chief in eeden had taken a month to
18:29 go water hunting M Holland's
18:31 granddaughter Catherine who spoke of him
18:35 in later years tried hard to defend his
18:37 reputation the most valuable thing my
18:39 grandfather had in the building of the
18:41 aqueduct and the whole planning of the
18:43 water system was his ability to get
18:46 along with other people people really
18:49 liked him I mean he really identified
18:51 with the Working Man the working
18:54 stiff the Epic engineering feat included
18:57 building power generators and cement
18:59 factories setting up camps for the
19:01 workers channeling through rocks and
19:03 over mountains shipping in german-built
19:05 pipes large enough for trains to run
19:08 through medical facilities food service
19:11 and constant Construction in conditions
19:14 that ranged from 0 degrees in winter to
19:19 130 in summer William molland personally
19:34 crimes the centries is sponsored by
19:37 skims true story I'm wearing skims right
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19:41 at that I put it on before I even
19:43 remembered today was that day so there
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19:50 body without feeling clingy I forget I'm
19:52 wearing it do they have men stuff why
19:54 they do they have hoodies and
19:56 sweatshirts boxers and briefs teas and
19:58 tanks even pajamas I'm going to have to
19:59 check them
20:01 the stuff I have is part of skims fits
20:03 everybody collection which is just
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20:15 be sure to let them know I sent you
20:17 select podcast in the survey and be sure
20:20 to select my show in the drop- down menu
20:22 that follows [Music]
20:33 [Music]
20:36 the LA Aqueduct took 5 years to complete
20:38 less than the chief had estimated an
20:40 under budget by half
20:44 million on November 5th 1913 the
20:46 aqueducts first day online in the San
20:49 Fernando Valley thousands showed up with
20:51 tin cups to drink the stuff that would
20:53 save them from being a dinky two bit
20:56 Backwater P.S you can still see that
20:59 spot now referred to as the Cascades a
21:02 California historical marker at the
21:04 intersection of Foothill Boulevard and
21:07 Balboa Boulevard just north and west of
21:08 the city of San
21:11 Fernando okay so when the floodgates
21:13 opened M Holland's speech basically went
21:17 like this there it is take it a bit
21:20 antimima sure but he was tired and had
21:21 to finish up there to get to the
21:23 hospital to be with his wife who was
21:26 having cancer surgery that day the
21:29 58-year-old molland had become a
21:30 powerful man in a town that was
21:34 redefining power in America angelinos
21:37 even wanted him to be mayor something he
21:40 not so politely declined he was easily
21:42 the best paid civil servant in
21:44 California but he wasn't getting in
21:47 ordinant Rich doing his job that job
21:49 included providing the city with
21:51 hydroelectricity by way of the power
21:54 plants he directed along the aqueduct so
21:57 he was equally responsible for the clean
21:59 energy fueling the ever burgeoning film
22:02 industry the expansion of ship and
22:05 aircraft manufacturing and the increased
22:08 demand for oil and gas production oh and
22:10 for copious amounts of air conditioning
22:12 when it was first made available for
22:13 home use in the late
22:17 20s Maria E Montoya an associate
22:19 professor of history and American
22:21 studies at the University of Michigan
22:23 has spent a lot of time studying the
22:26 Latino experience in Southern California
22:30 she told PBS it's very easy to picture
22:31 Mulholland as
22:34 corrupt but he wasn't doing this because
22:36 he was getting paid off to do it or he
22:38 was making money off of
22:43 it I think for him it's really about his
22:46 own vision and his power and his ability
22:50 to remake nature I think that's what's
22:52 driving him Katherine mollen's
22:55 granddaughter agreed but added that my
22:58 grandfather had too much power in the
23:01 sense that it had been given to him
23:03 people wanted him to have it and that's
23:06 a very beguiling position to be in to
23:08 have people give you power very hard to
23:11 say no to [Music]
23:13 [Music]
23:17 that the rry that accompanied the 1913
23:19 opening of the floodgates was not
23:21 appreciated by those who felt Owens
23:24 Valley had been at best misled and at
23:28 worst robbed raped and left for dead La
23:30 was the fastest growing city in the
23:33 world approaching a population of 1
23:36 million this of course meant more need
23:38 for water and serve to step up the
23:40 city's land buying spree in the Owens
23:43 Valley the Great Depression came early
23:45 in that part of California that included
23:48 cities like Bishop Big Pine Lone Pine
23:51 and Independence Farms dried up and
23:54 Banks were not taking chances to offer
23:57 Farmers a reprieve people moved away
24:00 schools and churches were emptying out a
24:02 few Farmers figured they could reason
24:04 with the folks from the big city let us
24:07 just say they were wrong used to having
24:09 enough water and now fearing a coming
24:18 in by May of 1924 near the town of Lone
24:22 Pine a bunch of the Fed Up changed taxs
24:25 they dynamited a length of the aqueduct
24:29 at the Alabama Dam employing 5 100 lb of
24:32 dynamite they sent a clear signal South
24:35 Bishop resident Cynthia Irwin is still
24:37 pretty proud of that talk about
24:39 Community involvement I know that my
24:42 grandfather was there I have spoken
24:46 recently with my mother's cousin and she
24:48 said that she remembers that it was a
24:52 party that her mother got her up early
24:55 and got her dressed up and she was only
24:59 four so there was a
25:02 I mean that was a great step and those
25:03 people didn't move from the Alabama
25:05 Gates they didn't
25:08 move that took a lot of Courage it
25:12 did local papers back up Irwin's account
25:14 including that some women cooked for the
25:16 dynamiters While others cared for the
25:19 children on site Tom Mick an early
25:21 Western film star was making a movie
25:24 nearby and sent musicians to entertain
25:27 the bombers a bunch of local teenage
25:29 girls formed an orchestra ra to join
25:31 them when the girls weren't there the
25:33 men listened to enrio Caruso on
25:35 photographs and their wives Sayang
25:38 Onward Christian Soldiers hopefully not
25:39 at the same
25:43 time anyway The Irate law Breakers have
25:45 been variously reported as numbering 40
25:49 50 and 100 doesn't matter they stopped
25:57 temporarily the news went Nationwide
25:59 though hardly with the Vigor that those
26:04 locally felt Mulholland fumed this was
26:06 terrorism he sent a whole raft of men
26:08 North to uncover the plot finger the
26:12 evildoers and press charges of vandalism
26:14 but nobody in that Valley talked it was
26:17 them against the world moholland even
26:20 received death threats in the mail
26:22 forced arbitration followed and what
26:24 must have been an odd standoff pitting
26:26 those who had unlawfully behaved by
26:28 blowing up the aqueduct against the city
26:31 of La which had rather shiftily
26:33 absconded with her water where was the
26:36 moral High Ground did anyone have legal
26:39 feat to stand on while the lawyers
26:41 exchanged memos and filed Court briefs
26:43 representatives from Los Angeles bought another
26:45 another
26:48 2,140 Acres of omen Valley land and
26:51 successfully got control of 90% of the
26:55 water rights under dispute for 7 years
26:59 the negotiations slogged on the aqueduct
27:03 was dynamited 11 times in the interim La
27:05 managed to slake its thirst with the
27:07 water after it repaired the breaches and
27:09 dipped into the wet stuff it had stashed
27:13 in reservoirs nobody was jailed M
27:15 Holland sure he was right in the regard
27:18 hired 600 armed guards to keep the
27:22 aqueduct safe the Big Pine Herald at one
27:24 point reported that quote the defendants
27:27 in this case the water owners and the
27:29 users of this section are the men who
27:33 helped build the West end quote yes and
27:37 no as the PBS documentary made clear
27:39 those so-called good guys who had plowed
27:41 the valley into Lush Farmland were the
27:43 same people who had used violence and
27:46 deceit to dispossess the PES of the land
27:49 they had lived on for maybe centuries
27:53 turn about being fair play hard to say
27:55 it makes it hard to pinpoint the crime
27:57 of the century here but looks like we
28:00 have a slew of
28:02 candidates for now I'm going to stick
28:05 with M Holland who despite his finer
28:08 qualities showed few qualms in executing
28:11 his grand scheme greater good is a valid
28:14 argument I guess but like the saying
28:18 goes mother nature always has the final
28:40 California's little Civil War not
28:42 withstanding we are back to where I
28:45 started in 1928 and the failure of the
28:48 dam which may have been a real crime of
28:51 negligence it is no stretch to extend
28:54 that negligent homicide and to what
28:56 exactly caused what happened in San
28:59 francisquito Canyon on that horrible
29:01 night for those who know Southern
29:04 California the canyon is about 40 m
29:07 north and west of downtown LA and about
29:09 10 mil north of the city of Santa
29:12 Clarita today instead of a dam you'll
29:14 find a California historical marker
29:17 indicating that this is the St Francis
29:21 dam disaster site the dam was something
29:23 called a gravity Dam that defines
29:26 Loosely how it was built the way it was
29:29 curved and the base on which it stood it
29:32 was designed to hold back Water by using
29:34 only the weight of the materials and its
29:36 resistance against the
29:39 foundation M Holland was very familiar
29:41 with the terain at the site he did not
29:43 skip the important step of determining
29:45 the rock composition of both sides of
29:48 the canyon walls and found the two sides
29:51 were indeed of different makeup he then
29:53 did exploratory Drilling and was
29:56 satisfied that this was a good place for
29:58 a dam I mean it's not like the the man
30:01 just threw a dam up there any which way
30:04 he did the work he did the math later
30:07 his decisions about appropriateness of
30:09 the land would be questioned as some
30:11 geologists felt that the dam may have
30:14 been built on the inactive San Franciso
30:16 fault line you know a place where the
30:18 Earth opens up when a quake shakes the
30:21 out of it or more scientifically
30:23 where rigid tectonic plates within the
30:26 Earth's crust move from time to time to
30:28 accommodate the movement of magma
30:30 farther below I think I got that right
30:34 but my point is fault line bad anyway he
30:37 designed this Dam as a twin to his first
30:40 concrete Dam the malland Dam located
30:42 closer to town in the Hollywood Hills
30:45 knowing that La was outpacing its own
30:47 growth estimates and that he had already
30:51 drained Owen's Lake dry sometime in 1924
30:53 the chief decided to make the St Francis
30:57 Dam 10 ft taller without increasing the
31:00 size of its base Cas this he added after
31:02 he'd gotten a thumbs up from his bosses
31:05 on the design though he did add a wing
31:07 on the western side of the dam to
31:09 increase the Dam's capacity to
31:11 compensate for the height that also
31:14 meant he had added 8,000 acre feet of
31:16 water to the load it would have to
31:18 contain I won't make you do the math
31:23 that's 2.6 billion more gallons of water
31:26 leaks showed up in April 1927 when the
31:28 water was allowed to accumulate behind
31:31 the dam it leaked where the fault line
31:33 would have intersected with the wing
31:37 Edition uh-oh and yet the records show
31:40 that the seepage through 1927 had not been
31:41 been
31:44 extraordinary then came early 1928 when
31:46 new cracks appeared and those working on
31:49 SES spent a lot of time plugging
31:51 leaks a week before the dam failed a
31:54 trusted employees saw that new leaks had
31:56 occurred and they were not leaking clean
31:58 water but muddy water
32:00 this meant that the foundation was
32:03 eroding and water may be undermining the concrete
32:04 concrete
32:07 structure that's when molland and
32:09 another water department engineer
32:11 inspected it and decided that because an
32:13 access road was being built alongside
32:16 the dam that was what was muddying the
32:19 water the foundation they said was in
32:22 the clear a week later they were called
32:25 out for the last time and gave the dam
32:28 their seal of approval Catherine Holland
32:30 explained that she loved her grandfather
32:33 immensely but grandfather molland was
32:35 not a sentimentalist he was a very
32:37 hardheaded realistic person and given
32:40 the conditions of his childhood and and
32:43 upbringing he not hard to understand
32:46 that his loyalty to the city and to the
32:49 water department were unswerving I think
33:01 one in in 1860 textile manufacturer pton
33:03 Mills Factory in Lawrence Massachusetts
33:06 suddenly lost all of its structural
33:09 Integrity hundreds of its workers were
33:11 caught under the weight of the building
33:15 as many as 145 were killed and 166 more
33:18 were critically injured in trying to
33:20 locate survivors someone accidentally
33:23 started a fire by way of a handheld lamp
33:26 likely killing more who might have been
33:29 rescued what caused the Calamity an
33:31 inquiry revealed that too much weight on
33:33 the building's floors substandard
33:35 construction improperly mortared walls
33:38 and cheap iron used in The Columns that
33:40 held up the building worked together to
33:43 force the implosion nobody was charged
33:46 with a crime in more modern times in
33:49 June 1981 two overhead walkways that
33:52 hung from the Hyatt Regency hotel lobby
33:54 in Kansas City Missouri were overloaded
33:56 with partygoers and collapsed killing
34:01 114 and injuring 216 more those who had
34:03 constructed the hotel a few years
34:05 earlier had hurried to make deadlines
34:08 skirting necessary oversight of the
34:10 Skywalk design and
34:12 construction the engineering company
34:14 responsible for the structures failure
34:17 was convicted of gross negligence and
34:19 professional misconduct the company's
34:22 president took full responsibility he
34:27 was not convicted for causing 114 deaths
34:29 which from reminds me that the courts of
34:31 this country are littered with product
34:33 liability cases where people are injured
34:37 even killed because products explode or
34:39 malfunction examples range from the
34:42 small and incidental to the 2002 Earth
34:44 shattering 28 billion dollars in
34:47 punitive damages awarded to middle-age
34:49 Betty bollock Who contracted lung cancer
34:51 and argued successfully in a case
34:53 against Philip Morris that the company
34:56 had failed to warn her of the risks of
34:59 smoking public policy in these kinds of
35:01 cases changed dramatically though still
35:05 no one went to jail until finally
35:08 someone did in 2014 an architect who
35:10 built his own home in the Hollywood
35:12 Hills was sentenced to a year in prison
35:15 because he drew up plans for and oversaw
35:18 the interior installation of a fireplace
35:21 that was meant for outdoor use when his
35:23 house caught fire a Los Angeles
35:26 firefighter died when the roof collapsed
35:29 the homeowner knowingly violated the
35:32 rules he lied to house inspectors and
35:34 then to investigators during their
35:37 inquiry into the cause of the fire
35:39 business insurance magazine wrote that
35:41 the case was a wakeup call for
35:43 professional liability for those who
35:46 build things which makes me wonder what
35:49 California would do with William Mulholland
35:50 Mulholland [Music]
35:59 today the utter collapse of the St
36:01 Francis dam is considered the country's
36:03 worst man-made disaster of the 20th
36:06 century it killed more than those who
36:09 perished in 1906 when an earthquake
36:11 nearly threw San Francisco into the bay
36:13 before the fire that followed almost
36:17 burned it down along with the dam also
36:19 gone was M Holland's reputation and his
36:22 great lifelong belief in himself he had
36:25 built so much the St Francis was his
36:28 19th Dam but it had undone [Music]
36:34 [Music]
36:37 him the coroner's jury the one in which
36:40 he had laid blame on himself agreed with
36:43 him summing up that he was responsible
36:46 for the deaths of so many and as well as
36:49 $20 million in property damage yes the
36:52 report admitted the foundation of the
36:55 dam had been flawed from a geological
36:57 point of view but someone should have
37:00 known own that it was also noted that
37:02 while some traces of dynamite had been
37:04 found in the reubel that was not the
37:07 cause of the collapse it also wasn't an
37:09 area of investigation that the city
37:12 pursued I mean to what end really except
37:14 to further in sense the locals who were
37:16 already grieving their
37:19 dead the report in history would blame
37:22 MH Holland's mantle of absolute power in
37:24 the water department no dam in the
37:27 United States would ever be built with
37:30 so little scrutiny in fact hooverdam
37:32 which was under consideration at the
37:35 time of the collapse would be designed
37:38 by a total of 200 Engineers not just the
37:41 one and slowed considerably by the
37:44 review process it under went
37:47 construction on it began just 3 years
37:49 after the St Francis
37:52 collapse no indictment was forthcoming
37:54 for the chief the families of those who
37:57 died Downstream from the dam were paid
38:00 $5,000 each by the
38:03 city molland went home as his
38:06 granddaughter reported to quickly retire
38:09 he then endured the rest of his life she
38:19 family in the spring of 1929 the city
38:21 bulldozed and carried away the remains
38:23 left at the dam site to erase the memory
38:27 of the event but Los Angeles remained as
38:31 ever thirsty all those new people and
38:33 their Gardens and golf courses all that
38:35 vegetation that had been brought from
38:38 somewhere else imp planted and watered
38:41 enough to thrive geez even the trademark
38:43 palm trees along Beverly Hills Boulevard
38:46 were chucked in as were the bright pink
38:49 Bugan via that bloom year round on the
38:53 ramps to the five and 1934 a year before
38:56 M Holland's death at 80 some plans he'
38:58 laid out to redirect more water the
39:01 city's way were given a fresh look
39:03 William witell the chairman of the board
39:05 of the Metropolitan water district of
39:07 Southern California had sounded the
39:10 scarcity alarm unless we take immediate
39:13 steps to bring in water from an outside
39:15 Source the people of Southern California
39:18 will be up against a serious water
39:20 shortage but we are fortunate in having
39:23 within our reach a water source capable
39:26 of supplying our needs this source is
39:28 the Colorado
39:31 River Work began again using M Holland's
39:33 map to blast a conduit to the Arizona
39:36 State Line where the Arizona State
39:39 militia stood waiting to stop them I
39:41 won't belabor this but the lawsuit that
39:43 followed proved to be the longest
39:45 running court case in American history
39:49 lasting 30 years guess who
39:52 won the Colorado River Aqueduct now
39:54 brings water across the Mojave Desert
39:56 for the benefit of those who live in
39:58 Southern California
40:00 when the Chief died in his sleep of a
40:03 stroke in July 1935 he was laid to view
40:06 in the rotunda at City Hall the Los
40:09 Angeles Times reported that people from
40:11 all walks of life showed up in throngs
40:14 to pay their respects and this from an
40:17 inside page on the day of his funeral
40:19 quote the flow of water in the Owens
40:22 River Aqueduct which malland built was
40:24 stopped for a moment as it came from the
40:27 intake in the Omens Valley along another
40:30 great Aqueduct line now building 10,000
40:32 men working on the Colorado Aqueduct
40:35 paused with reverence end
40:38 quote the city school district declared
40:41 a week in October 1939 as William
40:43 molland week so that teachers could
40:45 spend time teaching little angelinos
40:48 about his legacy and Los Angeles got
40:51 bigger and stayed
40:54 thirsty throughout the midcentury La
40:56 topped Mono Lake a lake in Eastern
40:58 California about
41:01 Midstate extending the existing Aqueduct
41:04 North the desert Lakes three ancient
41:07 sources of fresh water Rush Creek lining
41:09 Creek and mil Creek were diverted away
41:13 from mono and on to La this proved ugly
41:18 as well monol lake is a saine ecosystem
41:20 that would only get progressively more
41:23 so when freshwater was withheld from it
41:25 this meant 2 million annual migratory
41:28 birds were dying and alkal dust storms
41:32 swept the area in 1964 there were even
41:34 some plans floated that would see the
41:36 aqueduct extend to tap the Colombia
41:38 River which I should note actually
41:41 starts in Canada the idea was to
41:42 irrigate Nevada along the way maybe
41:46 throw some water to Arizona and Texas
41:47 that was scrapped but not before it got
41:52 a good airing in late 1963 the aqueducts
41:55 Baldwin Hills Dam burst built after the
41:58 second world war it only took five lives
42:00 the Los Angeles city police helicopter
42:01 is here the Los Angeles City Fire
42:04 Department helicopter is here the police
42:06 are on the ground with motorcycles and
42:08 Automobiles trying to effectively
42:11 activate people from here so there can't
42:13 possibly be any more loss of life than
42:16 there is property no telling how much
42:18 property has already been
42:20 lost in
42:23 1966 the Feather River a tributary of
42:25 the Sacramento River was added to the
42:27 garden hose flowing South
42:30 in 1980 good sense and good manners
42:34 returned deals were struck Los Angeles
42:36 even had to give back some water to the
42:38 people of owens's Valley the movie
42:41 Chinatown the 1974 Roman palansky
42:44 Masterpiece that saw Jack Nicholson get
42:46 his nose sliced was a Neo Noir fiction
42:49 which had the malland water grab as
42:52 backstory Robert Town won an Oscar for
42:54 the screenplay he had his own take on M
42:56 Holland and the man's ultimate place in
42:59 Los Angeles history some crimes are so so
43:00 so
43:02 monstrous they can't figure out how to
43:05 punish them so they actually sort of
43:08 reward them the mone's name is on the
43:10 scenic route of the city the criminals
43:13 names are on plaques as City Founders
43:15 rather than in jail where they
43:19 belonged Los Angeles gets its water now
43:20 as I said from the Colorado River
43:23 Aqueduct but also from the ens River the
43:26 Mono Lake Basin the Feather River and
43:28 the reservoirs of of snow melt in the Sierra
43:29 Sierra
43:32 Nevadas the city is recycling water
43:34 capturing storm water and has in recent
43:37 years begun to return the LA River to
43:39 its natural state after Decades of being
43:42 nothing more than a cemented drainage
43:45 ditch children can play in it fish even
43:48 swim in it as for the aqueduct the
43:51 original pipeline it still delivers a
43:53 billion gallons of water a day to the
43:57 city of 3.8 million and to much of the
44:00 metro area that includes 12.5 million
44:04 people because the people well they have
44:11 coming to research this case journalist
44:13 Amy Wilson read and highly recommends
44:16 Mark risner's Cadillac desert a book she
44:18 read when she first got to Southern
44:21 California in 1995 she also read The
44:24 Mirage Factory by Gary Christ and a wide
44:26 array of stories from the Los Angeles
44:29 Times both archival and present day she
44:31 watched a slew of documentaries as
44:33 indicated in the text and waxed
44:40 [Music]
44:43 Chinatown Crimes of the centuries is
44:45 available early and adree through grabag
44:49 cab join us at patreon.com grabag cab to
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44:57 sharing Network unless not in the
44:59 citations this show was researched and
45:01 written by me Amber hunt and produced by
45:04 Amanda Rossman and Henry Lavoy original
45:06 music is by Bruce hunt Andrew Higley and
45:08 occasionally by my son hunt fan Ben
45:11 scoten other music comes from sound
45:13 stripe and epidemic sound if you like
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45:19 more information or to recommend a case
45:21 go to centuries pod.com [Music]
