The History and Settlement of the Owens River Valley Region

The History and Settlement of the Owens River Valley Region PDF Author: Eleanor Pyle Thomas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Owens Valley (Calif.)
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Lost Frontier

The Lost Frontier PDF Author: Robert A. Sauder
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Owens Valley not only reveals much about the arid West's past, it also allows us to peer into, and perhaps influence, the region's future. The Lost Frontier now provides a yardstick against which recent environmental issues in the Owens Valley might be measured and offers insights into our options for protecting agriculture from urban growth.

Water and Power

Water and Power PDF Author: William L. Kahrl
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520907418
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 605

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is not the purpose of this work to propose a specific format for the settlement of the city's current difficulties with the valley, to resolve the environmental questions associated with Los Angeles's proposed groundwater pumping program, or to promote any cause associated with the developing situation in the Owens Valley. But by performing the essential historical task of separating what happened from what did not, and by distinguishing in this way the choices which have been made from those which have yet to be decided, it is my hope that this effort will help to establish that common basis for understanding which is essential for the debate over specific issues to proceed most effectively. This book, then, is scarcely the last word on the Owens Valley conflict: the final chapter, after all, has yet to be written. The story that has emerged here is at once very different and more troubling than the conventional treatments of the conflict as a simplistic political morality play. Any attempt to deal with so controversial a subject, however, is almost certain to spark controversy itself. For that reason, with the exception of a small collection of private letters, this work is constructed entirely from the published documents and other materials available to the general public, anchoring the narrative in sources the reader can consult to trace the line of my argument on any point with which he or she may disagree. In addition, the work as a whole has been reviewed for technical accuracy by officials of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, although the department is in no way responsible for the content of this study or the conclusions drawn from it.

Cadillac Desert

Cadillac Desert PDF Author: Marc Reisner
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440672822
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 674

Get Book Here

Book Description
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Cadillac Desert in the past few weeks, as the rain fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought. Reisner anticipated this moment. He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it.” – Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, January 20,2023 "The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West. Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--an Eden that may only be a mirage. This edition includes a new postscript by Lawrie Mott, a former staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, that updates Western water issues over the last two decades, including the long-term impact of climate change and how the region can prepare for the future.

The Land of Little Rain

The Land of Little Rain PDF Author: Mary Austin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
Originally published in 1903, this classic nature book by Mary Austin evokes the mysticism and spirituality of the American Southwest. Vibrant imagery of the landscape between the high Sierras and the Mojave Desert is punctuated with descriptions of the fauna, flora and people that coexist peacefully with the earth. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

We Are the Land

We Are the Land PDF Author: Damon B. Akins
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520976886
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Get Book Here

Book Description
“A Native American rejoinder to Richard White and Jesse Amble White’s California Exposures.”—Kirkus Reviews Rewriting the history of California as Indigenous. Before there was such a thing as “California,” there were the People and the Land. Manifest Destiny, the Gold Rush, and settler colonial society drew maps, displaced Indigenous People, and reshaped the land, but they did not make California. Rather, the lives and legacies of the people native to the land shaped the creation of California. We Are the Land is the first and most comprehensive text of its kind, centering the long history of California around the lives and legacies of the Indigenous people who shaped it. Beginning with the ethnogenesis of California Indians, We Are the Land recounts the centrality of the Native presence from before European colonization through statehood—paying particularly close attention to the persistence and activism of California Indians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The book deftly contextualizes the first encounters with Europeans, Spanish missions, Mexican secularization, the devastation of the Gold Rush and statehood, genocide, efforts to reclaim land, and the organization and activism for sovereignty that built today’s casino economy. A text designed to fill the glaring need for an accessible overview of California Indian history, We Are the Land will be a core resource in a variety of classroom settings, as well as for casual readers and policymakers interested in a history that centers the native experience.

Lower Owens River Project

Lower Owens River Project PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 632

Get Book Here

Book Description


River City and Valley Life

River City and Valley Life PDF Author: Christopher J. Castaneda
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822979187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Get Book Here

Book Description
Often referred to as “the Big Tomato,” Sacramento is a city whose makeup is significantly more complex than its agriculture-based sobriquet implies. In River City and Valley Life, seventeen contributors reveal the major transformations to the natural and built environment that have shaped Sacramento and its suburbs, residents, politics, and economics throughout its history. The site that would become Sacramento was settled in 1839, when Johann Augustus Sutter attempted to convert his Mexican land grant into New Helvetia (or “New Switzerland”). It was at Sutter’s sawmill fifty miles to the east that gold was first discovered, leading to the California Gold Rush of 1849. Nearly overnight, Sacramento became a boomtown, and cityhood followed in 1850. Ideally situated at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers, the city was connected by waterway to San Francisco and the surrounding region. Combined with the area’s warm and sunny climate, the rivers provided the necessary water supply for agriculture to flourish. The devastation wrought by floods and cholera, however, took a huge toll on early populations and led to the construction of an extensive levee system that raised the downtown street level to combat flooding. Great fortune came when local entrepreneurs built the Central Pacific Railroad, and in 1869 it connected with the Union Pacific Railroad to form the first transcontinental passage. Sacramento soon became an industrial hub and major food-processing center. By 1879, it was named the state capital and seat of government. In the twentieth century, the Sacramento area benefitted from the federal government’s major investment in the construction and operation of three military bases and other regional public works projects. Rapid suburbanization followed along with the building of highways, bridges, schools, parks, hydroelectric dams, and the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant, which activists would later shut down. Today, several tribal gaming resorts attract patrons to the area, while “Old Sacramento” revitalizes the original downtown as it celebrates Sacramento’s pioneering past. This environmental history of Sacramento provides a compelling case study of urban and suburban development in California and the American West. As the contributors show, Sacramento has seen its landscape both ravaged and reborn. As blighted areas, rail yards, and riverfronts have been reclaimed, and parks and green spaces created and expanded, Sacramento’s identity continues to evolve. As it moves beyond its Gold Rush, Transcontinental Railroad, and government-town heritage, Sacramento remains a city and region deeply rooted in its natural environment.

A Land Between

A Land Between PDF Author: Rebecca Fish Ewan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
A landscape history, this text explores the central idea of how people's preconceptions and perceptions of a place - in this case, Owen's Valley - influence their interventions on the land. Rebecca Fish Ewan draws on primary sources, oral histories and conversations, offering a story that reaches beyond the tale of water wars with Los Angeles. The poetic essays, illustrated with historical images and Ewan's own photographs of the region, provide a multifaceted perspective on the land, the history and the people of Owens Valley.

The Evacuation and Relocation of Persons of Japanese Ancestry During World War II

The Evacuation and Relocation of Persons of Japanese Ancestry During World War II PDF Author: Harlan D. Unrau
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Concentration camps
Languages : en
Pages : 534

Get Book Here

Book Description