In November 1913, water began pouring through the Los Angeles Aqueduct, making the city of Los Angeles as we know it possible. As social critic David Ulin recounted, photographs from the dedication ceremony in Sylmar captured “the apotheosis of the city’s creation myth.” One shot shows the water gushing into the waiting San Fernando Reservoir, a system that would pump life into a city with fewer people at the time than San Francisco.

There were men and women in suits and hats and long skirts, clutching American flags. Then there was William Mulholland himself, the legendary engineer who against overwhelming odds spearheaded the 233-mile aqueduct across the blistering Mojave Desert to the Owens River. “This rude platform,” he declared, “is an altar, and on it we are here consecrating this water supply and dedicating this aqueduct to you and your children and your children’s children — for all time.” Then he shouted to the crowd: “There it is. Take it.” Boom California | L.A. Times

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