This CD contains the page images and searchable text from a contemporary history of the hotly-contested encroachment upon Yosemite National Park for development of the Hetch Hetchy water and power system.
The story of a successful city often includes a principal chapter on its aqueducts. From the Gold Rush on, the peninsula settlement of San Francisco struggled to obtain water to drink and to protect it from fires. In 1849, supplies were carried into town by burro from nearby sources, at the price of $1.00 per bucket. By 1858, the five-mile aqueduct of the San Francisco Water Works brought water from Lobos Creek near Sea Cliff. Competing efforts by the Mountain Lake Water Company, Islais and Salinas Water Company, Spring Valley Water Works had varied degrees of success, with Spring Valley Water Works surviving as a monopoly for over 50 years.
From 1869 onward, tensions between the water company and the city drove debate over city ownership of its water supplies, and unrelenting demand for more water drove the engineers' search for an ample, reliable, and high-quality supply. By 1882, the high valley of Hetch Hetchy was under study, and by 1900 it was the focus of the city's water planners. Taylor tells how, against the first organized preservationist movement, the city prevailed, building the Hetch Hetchy dam and aqueduct, and consolidating all of its water supplies under municipal operation.
