The flume wildcatters: San Francisco, private waterworks, and urban development in the American West's hydraulic society, 1850--1930.

摘要

Aridity geographically defines the Trans-Mississippi West and water resource issues have been at the core of the region's history. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the American West was also an intensely urbanized area. The historiography connecting Western hydraulic and urban studies, however, has been limited. This study of San Francisco's private waterworks addresses the gap.;Population pressures related to the mid-19th century Gold Rush meant that San Franciscans faced a water crisis as soon as they founded their municipality on a semi-arid peninsula. When the United States seized California, the nation introduced a laissez-faire system of hydraulic allocation that replaced the communal Hispanic model. Saddled with a weak municipal government, San Francisco residents were further burdened by a set of state laws that tacitly favored private water development.;In reaction to these geographic and political limitations, the Bay City developed a corporate hydraulic system that was at once ingenious and undemocratic. For over 75 years, control of San Francisco's waterworks rested with an elite group that organized during the Gold Rush and then ran the municipality's water monopolies. To negotiate the area's aridity and topography, these entrepreneurs used techniques developed in nearby mining districts where the terrain and hydro-resources closely matched the Peninsula's. Their approaches were later applied to other California cities. During the first 50 years of corporate service (1858--1908), San Franciscans were not allowed to participate in any meaningful referenda concerning their hydraulic system.;"The City" generally evolved toward greater citizen control of its waterworks, however, even as the system became larger, more technologically sophisticated, and remained under elite control. From the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries, Populist and Progressive philosophies influenced urban leaders and public access to the hydraulic policy arena vastly increased. When citizens were finally given the opportunity to vote, they consistently and overwhelmingly supported the public Hetch Hetchy system which replaced San Francisco's last hydraulic monopoly.