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Chapter 5: Creating Water Companies
of San Diego. He organized a group of
investors to form the San Diego Flume
Company and build the Cuyamaca Dam on
Boulder Creek in the headwaters of the San
Diego River. At first, the company faced
ridicule because the system seemed utterly
excessive. Yet ti
me was on its side. It was
not long before even this i
mpressive water
project could not
meet the demand
for water.
The most famous feature of this
water project was a remarkable
wooden flume, a unique and won-
drous engineering achievement of
its ti
me, consisting of
many trestles
over ravines hundreds of feet long,
as well as tunnels and siphons.
Water was released from Cuyamaca
Dam, where it ran 18 miles down
Boulder Creek to a diverting dam at its
confluence with Boulder Creek and the San
Diego River, upstream of today’s El
Capitan
Reservoir. At the diverting dam, the water
entered the flume, which was 6 feet wide and
16 inches high. It ran approxi
mately 33 miles
down the south side of the river to El
Cajon
Valley and into the city of La Mesa, where the
water flowed into the La Mesa Ditch and then
through pipes to the City Heights area of San
Diego. The exact length changed over the
years with route alterations. Later repairs also
added some height to the flume so it could
carry up to 18 inches of
water. Eucalyptus
Reservoir and a small diverting dam in
Grossmont were added in 1892 to provide
storage at the end of the flume line.
Later, the La Mesa
Ditch carried water
from the storage
area in Eucalyptus
Reservoir to a larger
storage reservoir
formed by the La
Mesa Dam (now covered by Lake Murray) and
then into the city's water main system.
3
Left: Flume at east side of Chocolate Creek, 1887-1888
Right: Construction of Los Coches “Sweetwater” Trestle
The San Diego Historical
Society