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15
Chapter 4: Early American Period
Using Local
Water 1848 – 1870s
I
n 1846, while the Americans were still fighting
the Mexican War for control of
California,
Captain Samuel F. Dupont raised the 27-star
American flag over the town plaza of San Diego
and declared, “A more miserable and naked
sight I never saw.” He must have wondered
what his country was
fighting for. Never-
theless, others saw
possibilities.
Another army officer,
a Major Canby, fol-
lowed the San Diego
River upstream past
the ruined mission
and found the dam
and aqueduct still in fair shape. He thought
that at least 300 to 400 people could live in
Mission Valley!
2
Most of the county’s
water supply, however,
was still
meager. The
people in the back-
country got by with
small-scale, privately
installed irrigation
ditches, wells and windmills. The townspeople
bought water by the bucket and barrel from
private water vendors who hauled it from the
river, stored it in cisterns and delivered it by
wagon. Some homes channeled rainwater
from their roofs into private cisterns.
3
In 1850, when
California became the
31st state, San Diego
County stretched from
the Colorado River to
the coast and from the
Mexican border to
today’s San
Bernardino County.
Within a month, the
city of San Diego incorporated. The original
city census counted just 650 residents.
4
A CITY TAKES FLIGHT
As the American period began, the county’s
economy was shifting away from ranchos to
commercial ventures in the new “city” of San
Diego. Civic leaders saw the need for a
municipal
water supply, perhaps using water
from the mountains. With so few inhabitants,
however, the city had no money for such a
“We boiled it; we screened it;
we boiled it again; and then
we drank something else.”
Standing joke about the city of San Diego’s
well
water, 1873
1
Right:
Water works — tower and wagon
at southwest corner of Front and B Streets
Below: San Diego street scene —
Fifth Street south of Broadway
The San Diego Historical
Society