Light The Fuse History

Light the Fuse Background Research

In the early 20th century, California became the battle grounds of one of the most famous water wars in U.S. history. It was the dawn of progress for the city of Los Angeles but progress requires an exorbitant amount of money and resources. Unfortunately for the citizens of Owens valley, the leaders of the growing city would target the river that provided thousands of ranchers with water as their primary source for water.

Most of the pioneers came to the valley in search of wealth from mining. Fortunately for them, water was plentiful in the form of the Owens river which also made raising livestock and farming relatively easy processes. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave new settlers a window of five years in which they could claim a title for a plot of land for only a small filing fee and approximately $1.25 per acre up to a maximum of 160 acres. As attractive as this offer was, it was not until the Desert Land Act of 1877 that expanded the maximum number of acres available per person from 160 to 640 that settlers began to flood the area.

The water wars began proper in 1898 when Frederick Eaton was elected as the mayor of Los Angeles. One of Eaton’s first business matters was to appoint his friend William Mulholland as the superintendent of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The two held a grand vision that Los Angeles could become one of the nation’s great cities if given the proper time and care to expand. The one factor that seriously limited growth was a lack of a water supply that could support such a massive undertaking. The solution was simple- to build an aqueduct, which would become the world’s largest water system at the time, from the Owens Valley 223 miles away. The val...

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... a series of players. While it is not exactly historically accurate, it is not exactly implausible. Mulholland was responsible for a vast majority of decisions and he was the single man responsible for the construction of the St. Francis Dam. Both Sam and Frank grow older over the course of the narrative and in doing so, Sam evolves from a naïve 12 year old to a 38 year old man fully invested in helping his father keep their way of life alive. The Owens Valley Water War was an incredibly fascinating sliver of history to research as the basis of my play. In my opinion it is one of the many great examples of history lending itself perfectly to dramatic narrative. In writing this play, I hope to not only educate people on a conflict that I know many of my peers are unaware even existed but also to do so in a way that is a little more creative and easy to engage in.