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Heritage in practice: a study of two urban rivers

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Heritage in practice: a study of two urban rivers

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Content Heritage in Practice: A Study of Two Urban Rivers
by
Leslie Dinkin
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
(MASTER OF HERITAGE CONSERVATION/
MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE)
May 2024
Copyright 2024 Leslie Dinkin

ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This thesis was a collaborative effort, none of which would have been possible
without my community of friends, family, classmates, mentors, and professors who
supported me every step of the way. Reflecting on the past three and half years of
graduate school, I am grateful for every winding conversation, each reassuring moment,
and every shared instance of laughter and joy. I would like to thank my thesis
committee, Cindy Olnick, Trudi Sandmeier, and Alexander Robinson, who tirelessly
read every word of my thesis multiple times and challenged me to keep pushing my
ideas forward. Cindy is an exceptional cheerleader and a considerate editor. Trudi is
strong in her convictions and knows everything there is to know about Los Angeles.
Alex is dedicated to his practice and has continuously encouraged me to do the same.
To my writing partner, Kira Williams, thank you for our weekly check-ins.
To my amazing and dedicated professors at USC, Alison Hirsch, Jessica
Henson, Takako Tajima, Vinayak Bharne, Aroussiak Gabrielian, Esther Margulies,
Meredith Drake Reitan, Lauren Elachi, Farre Nixon, and Jasmine Benyamin, among
others, thank you for your time and for expanding my world as a student and as an
individual. I hold on to your lessons and wisdoms firmly. To all of my river mentors,
Nathan Nuñez, Tina Orduno Calderon, Char Miller, Dennis Mabasa, Jessica Rodriguez,
Steve Dywer, Tilly Hinton, Steve Appleton, Issac Brown, Lino Jubilado, Kat Superfisky,
Lauren Bon, Sue Yank, Graham Coffman, and Vincent Michael, among so many others,
thank you for generously sharing your connection and love for rivers with me. To my
classmates in Heritage Conservation and Landscape Architecture, I am entirely
indebted to you all for your encouragement, your complex ideas, and your friendship. I
would also like to express gratitude toward USC Arts-in-Action, President Folt’s
President’s Leadership Funds for Sustainability, the Landscape Architecture
Foundation, and the USC Arts and Climate Collective for your mentorship and financial
support. Special thanks to Lucy Zepeda for your continuous guidance.
To my walking team, Nina Weithorn, Camille Shooshani, and Hannah Flynn, this
thesis would not have existed without the three of you. Thank you for embarking on
such an unusual yet exciting journey with me along the Los Angeles River. Each of you

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brought a perfect blend of expertise and playfulness to the project. To Lucia Bayley,
with whom I’ve discussed the Los Angeles River endlessly, thank you for your creativity
and your enthusiasm for adventure. To Rio Asch Phoenix who walked and
photographed both the Los Angeles River and the San Antonio River with me, thank
you for your endless support, your grounding, and your eye for light. To my dear friends
who have listened to endless stories about rivers, thank you for your love and your
curiosity. To my family who have given me everything I could ever ask for, thank you for
your unwavering encouragement and for always picking up the phone. To my grandma
who I can never thank enough, thank you for our weekly conversations, your thoughtful
questions, and your generosity. To my dad, who would have walked with me anywhere,
thank you for always believing in me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments...……………………………………………………………………………. ii
List of Figures...…………………….....……………………………………………………...viii
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………… xiv
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..1
Defining Heritage ……………………………………………………………………………..1
Comparing Two Urban Rivers ………………………………………………………………3
Who am I? ……………………………………………………………………………………..5
Research Methodology ………………………………………………………………………6
Why Walking?………………………………………………………………………………6
Limitations…………………………………………………………………………………..7
Preconceived Notions................................................................................................9
Chapter One: History of the San Antonio River………………………………………... 10
Yanaguana………………………………………………………………………………….. 10
Spanish Settlement and the Missions…………………………………………………….15
“Little Infrastructure”………………………………………………………………………...19
Whose Water is it… Anyways? …………………………………………………………...27
Flooding in the San Antonio River ………………………………………………………...32
Shifting Perspectives ……………………………………………………………………….42
The River Park ………………………………………………………………………………49
Selecting their River as a Site of Heritage………………………………………………..52
Chapter Two: Walking the San Antonio River………………………………………….. 54
Our Route ……………………………………………………………………………………54
Day One: Olmos Dam and the San Antonio River’s Headwater Springs ……………..56
Day Two: Brakenridge to the Great Bend ………………………………………………..61
Brackenridge Park………………………………………………………………………..61
The Historic Pearl………………………………………………………………………...69
South of Highway 35……………………………………………………………………..74
The Great Bend …………………………………………………………………………..79

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Day Three: The Great Bend to the Espada Mission …………………………………….84
King William……………………………………………………………………………….88
South Town....…………………………………………………………………………….93
Confluence Park………………………………………………………………………...102
The Mission Reach…………………………………………………………………….. 105
Espada Mission …………………………………………………………………………113
Impressions ………………………………………………………………………………...116
Chapter Three: History of the Los Angeles River....................................................117
Paayme Paxaayt …………………………………………………………………………..119
Spanish Settlement and the Missions …………………………………………………...122
“Little Infrastructure” ……………………………………………………………………….123
Whose Water is it… Anyways? …………………………………………………………..129
“Big Infrastructure” …………………………………………………………………………131
Flooding and the Los Angeles River …………………………………………………….133
Alternative Proposals ……………………………………………………………………..146
Burying their River in Concrete …………………………………………………………..148
Chapter Four: Walking the Los Angeles River ………………………………………..152
Our Route …………………………………………………………………………………..152
Day One: Canoga Park through Sherman Oaks ……………………………………….155
The Headwaters………………………………………………………………………...155
Sepulveda Basin ………………………………………………………………………..174
Day Two: Sherman Oaks through Glendale ……………………………………………188
Studio City………………………………………………………………………………..197
Burbank…………………………………………………………………………………..200
Day Three: Glendale through Frogtown………………………………………………... 205
Atwater…………………………………………………………………………………...217
Frogtown…………………………………………………………………………………221
Day Four: Frogtown through Vernon…………………………………………………….226
Arts District ……………………………………………………………………………..226
Boyle Heights …………………………………………………………………………...238
Vernon …………………………………………………………………………………...243
Day Five: Vernon through North Long Beach…………………………………………..247

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Lynwood ……….………………………………………………………………………..253
Paramount…………………………………………………………………..…………....256
Day Six: North Long Beach to the Pacific Ocean………………………………………260
The Estuary ……………………………………………………………………………...267
Impressions ………………………………………………………………………………..278
Chapter Five: Comparing Two Urbans Rivers …………………………………………279
Comparing the Rivers’ Histories …………………………………………………………279
Walking the San Antonio River And Los Angeles River……………………………….282
Heritage and the Future of the Los Angeles River……………………………………..286
Heritage Persists …………………………………………………………………………..288
The Turning Point ........…………………………………………………………………...289
Conclusion and Future Research………………………………………………………..291
Future Research …………………………………………………………………………...291
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………..293

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure I.1 Photograph from the Orange Bridge, Los Angeles River........................... 8
Figure I.2 Photograph from the Orange Bridge, Los Angeles River........................... 8
Figure 1.1 Map of the San Antonio River and the Headwater Springs...................... 11
Figure 1.2 Photograph of the San Antonio River, 1895............................................. 13
Figure 1.3 Photograph of the San Antonio River, 1895............................................. 13
Figure 1.4 Photographs of the Five San Antonio Missions ....................................... 17
Figure 1.5 Photograph of the San Antonio de Valera Mission, 1980......................... 18
Figure 1.6 Photograph of the Espada Acequia, 1969 ............................................... 20
Figure 1.7 Map of San Antonio’s Acequia Network in San Antonio .......................... 21
Figure 1.8 Postcard of the San Antonio River, 1859................................................. 23
Figure 1.9 Photograph of the San Antonio River, 1895............................................. 25
Figure 1.10 Photograph of the San Antonio River, 1895 ............................................. 25
Figure 1.11 Photograph of Brackenridge Park Bridge, 1968........................................27
Figure 1.12 Photograph of an Artesian Well, 1891 ..................................................... 23
Figure 1.13 Map of Flowing and Non-Flowing Artesian Wells in San Antonio ............ 30
Figure 1.14 Map of San Antonio de Bexar, 1836 ........................................................ 33
Figure 1.15 Photograph of Flooding in San Antonio, October 1913............................ 35
Figure 1.16 Photograph of Flooding in San Antonio, December 1913........................ 35
Figure 1.17 Photograph of Flooding in San Antonio, September 1921....................... 37
Figure 1.18 Photograph of Flooding in San Antonio, September 1921....................... 37
Figure 1.19 Photograph of St. Mary’s and Travis Streets, September 1921............... 38
Figure 1.20 Map of the Extent of Flooding in San Antonio, 1923................................ 39
Figure 1.21 Photograph of the Red Cross Headquarters, 1921.................................. 39
Figure 1.22 Postcard of the Olmos Dam, 1926........................................................... 40
Figure 1.23 Map of the Great Bend............................................................................. 41
Figure 1.24 Postcard of Students Boating in the San Antonio River, 1907................. 43
Figure 1.25 Hand-Colored Photograph of “Surkey’s Sea Walls”................................. 46
Figure 1.26 Photograph of Robert H. H. Hugman’s Design for the Great Bend.......... 50
Figure 1.27 Construction Drawing of Hugman’s Arneson River Theatre..................... 51

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Figure 2.1 Map of our Walking Route Along the San Antonio River ......................... 55
Figure 2.2 Photograph of Olmos Dam, View Northwest............................................ 57
Figure 2.3 Photograph of Olmos Dam, View Northwest............................................ 58
Figure 2.4 Photograph of Olmos Dam, View Southeast............................................ 59
Figure 2.5 Photograph of Vegetation in the San Antonio River................................. 59
Figure 2.6 Photograph of the Blue Hole Spring ........................................................ 60
Figure 2.7 Photograph of Mud Downstream of the Blue Hole................................... 60
Figure 2.8 Photograph of an Amphitheater within Brackenridge Park....................... 62
Figure 2.9 Photograph of Amenities within Brackenridge Park ................................. 62
Figure 2.10 Photograph of Stairs Leading to the San Antonio River........................... 63
Figure 2.11 Photograph of No Swimming or Wading Signs ........................................ 63
Figure 2.12 Photograph of the San Antonio River within Brackenridge Park .............. 64
Figure 2.13 Photograph of the San Antonio River within Brackenridge Park .............. 64
Figure 2.14 Photograph of Brackenridge Park Bridge................................................. 66
Figure 2.15 Photograph of an Unchannelized San Antonio River............................... 67
Figure 2.16 Photograph of a Closed River Walk, South of Brackenridge Park ........... 68
Figure 2.17 Photograph of a Seating Area along the River Walk................................ 70
Figure 2.18 Photograph of Landscaping along the River Walk ................................... 70
Figure 2.19 Photograph of the Historic Pearl .............................................................. 71
Figure 2.20 Photograph of Small Seating Areas along the River Walk....................... 72
Figure 2.21 Photograph of the Newell Street Bridge................................................... 72
Figure 2.22 Photograph of Artists Donald Lipski’s Sunfish ......................................... 73
Figure 2.23 Photograph of VFW Post 76 Sam Houston Post ..................................... 74
Figure 2.24 Photograph of the San Antonio River Lock & Dam .................................. 76
Figure 2.25 Photograph of the Mosaic beneath St. Mary’s Street............................... 77
Figure 2.26 Photograph of a Decorated Storm Drain.................................................. 78
Figure 2.27 Photograph of a Rescue Ladder.............................................................. 78
Figure 2.28 Photograph of the Cypress Trees along the River Walk .......................... 80
Figure 2.29 Photograph of the Great Bend................................................................. 81
Figure 2.30 Photograph of Hugman’s Copper Plaques............................................... 82
Figure 2.31 Photograph of the Arneson River Theatre ............................................... 82

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Figure 2.32 Photograph of the Great Bend................................................................. 83
Figure 2.33 Photograph of the Kallison Love Lock Bridge .......................................... 83
Figure 2.34 Photograph of a Mural on the San Antonio River..................................... 85
Figure 2.35 Photograph of the River Walk South of the Great Bend .......................... 86
Figure 2.36 Photograph of Vegetation Growing out of the Concrete .......................... 86
Figure 2.37 Photograph of Stairs Leading to the San Antonio River........................... 87
Figure 2.38 Photograph of the River Walk Hovering above the San Antonio River .... 89
Figure 2.39 Photograph of a Decorated Bench along the River Walk......................... 90
Figure 2.40 Photograph of the Signage along the San Antonio River......................... 91
Figure 2.41 Photograph of Vegetation along the River ............................................... 91
Figure 2.42 Photograph of a Bucolic San Antonio River............................................. 92
Figure 2.43 Photograph of a River Walk River Crossing............................................. 94
Figure 2.44 Photograph of a Green Sunfish ............................................................... 96
Figure 2.45 Photograph of an Informal Social Trail along the San Antonio River ....... 97
Figure 2.46 Photograph of G. W. Brackenridge High School...................................... 97
Figure 2.47 Photograph of the San Antonio River Control Tunnel Outlet.................... 98
Figure 2.48 Photograph of the San Antonio River Control Tunnel Outlet.................... 99
Figure 2.49 Photograph of a River Authority River Warrior....................................... 101
Figure 2.50 Photograph of an Apple Snail and Snail Eggs ....................................... 102
Figure 2.51 Photograph of Confluence Park............................................................. 103
Figure 2.52 Photograph of the San Pedro Creek/San Antonio River Confluence ..... 104
Figure 2.53 Photograph of a Segment of the Mission Reach.................................... 105
Figure 2.54 Photograph of a Prescribed Burn Area .................................................. 106
Figure 2.55 Photograph of a Highway Underpass .................................................... 108
Figure 2.56 Photograph of Two Boys Fishing ........................................................... 109
Figure 2.57 Photograph of the Espada Dam............................................................. 110
Figure 2.58 Photograph of the Espada Acequia ....................................................... 111
Figure 2.59 Photograph of the Espada Aqueduct ..................................................... 112
Figure 2.60 Photograph of the Arbol de la Vida: Memorias Y Voces de la Tierra ..... 114
Figure 2.61 Photograph of the Espada Mission ........................................................ 115
Figure 3.1 Photograph of the Los Angeles River, 1920 .......................................... 118

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Figure 3.2 Map of Los Angeles, 1854 ..................................................................... 120
Figure 3.3 Photograph of a Zanja Diverted from the Los Angeles River, 1895 ....... 124
Figure 3.4 Photograph of a Zanja Diverted from the Los Angeles River, 1895 ....... 125
Figure 3.5 A Concrete Zanja along Figueroa Street, 1890...................................... 125
Figure 3.6 Photograph of an Oil Field Off Toluca Street, 1895 ............................... 127
Figure 3.7 Newspaper Clipping of the Opening of the Owensmouth Cascades ..... 133
Figure 3.8 Photograph of the Prechannelized Los Angeles River........................... 135
Figure 3.9 Photograph of Flooding in Los Angeles, 1914 ....................................... 137
Figure 3.10 Photograph of Flooding in Los Angeles, 1938 ....................................... 139
Figure 3.11 Photograph of Flooding in Los Angeles, 1938 ....................................... 140
Figure 3.12 Photograph of Flooding in Los Angeles, 1938 ....................................... 140
Figure 3.13 Photograph of Construction on the Los Angeles River, 1948 ................ 142
Figure 3.14 Photograph of Construction on the Sepulveda Dam, 1941.................... 142
Figure 3.15 Photograph of Construction on the Los Angeles River .......................... 144
Figure 3.16 Photograph of the Los Angeles River, Prechannelization, 1952............ 145
Figure 3.17 Photo of the Los Angeles River, Following Channelization, 1955.......... 145
Figure 4.1 The Team Walking the Los Angeles River............................................. 153
Figure 4.2 Map of our Walking Route along the Entire Los Angeles River ............. 154
Figure 4.3 Photograph of the Los Angeles River’s Headwaters.............................. 156
Figure 4.4 Photograph of the Los Angeles River’s Headwaters.............................. 157
Figure 4.5 Photograph of a Los Angeles River Sign in Canoga Park...................... 157
Figure 4.6 Photograph of an Exposed Los Angeles River ...................................... 159
Figure 4.7 Photograph of the Canoga Avenue Bridge ............................................ 160
Figure 4.8 Photograph of a Shopping Cart in the Los Angeles River...................... 161
Figure 4.9 Photograph of the Los Angeles River and its Low-Flow Channel .......... 162
Figure 4.10 Photograph of Paint Concealing Graffiti................................................. 163
Figure 4.11 Photograph of New Development along the Los Angeles River ............ 164
Figure 4.12 Photograph of Spray-Painted Street Names Under Bridges.................. 165
Figure 4.13 Photograph of Algae Growing in the Channel........................................ 166
Figure 4.14 Photograph of Crimson Fountain Grass................................................. 167
Figure 4.15 Photograph of a Western Sycamore Growing within the Channel ......... 168

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Figure 4.16 Photograph of Nina Weithorn Collecting a Plant Sample....................... 169
Figure 4.17 Photograph of Water Bubbling up from the Cracks in the Concrete ...... 171
Figure 4.18 Photograph of Puddles on the Los Angeles River Channel Floor.......... 172
Figure 4.19 Photograph of Seagulls Flying Above the Los Angeles River................ 173
Figure 4.20 Photograph of the Entrance of the Sepulveda Basin ............................. 175
Figure 4.21 Photograph of Trash and Debris in the Sepulveda Basin ...................... 176
Figure 4.22 Photograph of a Broken Shopping Cart in the Sepulveda Basin............ 177
Figure 4.23 Photograph of a Clothesline Hung Across the Los Angeles River ......... 178
Figure 4.24 Photograph underneath Balboa Boulevard............................................ 180
Figure 4.25 Photograph of the Los Angeles River within Sepulveda Basin .............. 181
Figure 4.26 Photograph of a Bucolic Los Angeles River........................................... 182
Figure 4.27 Photograph of Lake Balboa ................................................................... 183
Figure 4.28 Photograph of a Hole in the Fence at Woodley Lakes Golf Course....... 184
Figure 4.29 Photograph of Sunflowers growing along Woodley Creek..................... 185
Figure 4.30 Photograph underneath Burbank Boulevard.......................................... 186
Figure 4.31 Photograph of the Sepulveda Dam at Sunset........................................ 187
Figure 4.32 Photograph of a No Trespassing Sign ................................................... 189
Figure 4.33 Photograph of the Los Angeles River as a Box Channel ....................... 190
Figure 4.34 Photograph of a Ruler along the Los Angeles River Channel Wall........ 191
Figure 4.35 Photograph of a Frog Gate Entrance..................................................... 193
Figure 4.36 Photograph of a Surfboard along the Los Angeles River....................... 194
Figure 4.37 Photograph of Neighboring Apartments................................................. 195
Figure 4.38 Photograph of a Large Billboard Towering over the River ..................... 196
Figure 4.39 Photograph of the Tujunga Wash/Los Angeles River Confluence ......... 197
Figure 4.40 Photograph of Los Angeles River, Facing East on Vineland Avenue .... 198
Figure 4.41 Photograph of the River Trail at Tujunga Avenue .................................. 199
Figure 4.42 Photograph of the Equestrian Trail near Burbank.................................. 201
Figure 4.43 Photograph of a Lawn adjacent to the Los Angeles River ..................... 202
Figure 4.44 Photograph of the Tunnel underneath the 134 Freeway........................ 203
Figure 4.45 Photograph of Mariposa Bridge ............................................................. 204
Figure 4.46 Photograph of the Los Angeles River in Burbank .................................. 206

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Figure 4.47 Photograph of the Concrete Channel Wall............................................. 207
Figure 4.48 Photograph of an Individual Walking their Dog...................................... 208
Figure 4.49 Photograph of the Transition between Concrete and a Muddy Bottom.. 210
Figure 4.50 Photograph of an Informal River Entrance............................................. 211
Figure 4.51 Photograph underneath the 5 Freeway ................................................. 213
Figure 4.52 Photograph of an ABC7 Sign across the Los Angeles River ................. 214
Figure 4.53 Photograph of the 134 Freeway Crossing the Los Angeles River.......... 215
Figure 4.54 Photograph of the Glendale Narrows..................................................... 216
Figure 4.55 Photograph of a River Island in the Glendale Narrows .......................... 218
Figure 4.56 Photograph of the North Atwater Pedestrian Bridge .............................. 219
Figure 4.57 Photograph of the Baum Bicycle Bridge ................................................ 220
Figure 4.58 Photograph of a Lone Chair in the Glendale Narrows ........................... 222
Figure 4.59 Photograph of the Taylor Yard Bridge ................................................... 223
Figure 4.60 Photograph of the Los Angeles River Bike Path.................................... 224
Figure 4.61 Photograph of the 5 Freeway and the Arroyo Seco Parkway ................ 225
Figure 4.62 Photograph of Vertical Walls and Barbed Wire Bordering the Channel . 227
Figure 4.63 Photograph of the Team Walking within the River Channel................... 228
Figure 4.64 Photograph of Algae Carpeting the Channel Floor ................................ 229
Figure 4.65 Photograph of Riverside-Figueroa Street Bridge ................................... 230
Figure 4.66 Photograph of the Arroyo Seco/Los Angeles River Confluence............. 231
Figure 4.67 Photograph of Oil in the Los Angeles River ........................................... 232
Figure 4.68 Photograph of Construction and the North Broadway Bridge ................ 234
Figure 4.69 Photograph of Openings in the Fence ................................................... 235
Figure 4.70 Photograph of the César Chavez Bridge ............................................... 236
Figure 4.71 Photograph of Maintenance in the Channel........................................... 237
Figure 4.72 Photograph of the Recently Opened Sixth Street Viaduct ..................... 239
Figure 4.73 Photograph of Washington Boulevard Bridge........................................ 240
Figure 4.74 Photograph of Seagulls Sitting along the Channel Floor ....................... 241
Figure 4.75 Photograph of Algae Growing within the Los Angeles River.................. 242
Figure 4.76 Photograph of the Los Angeles River in Maywood ................................ 243
Figure 4.77 Photograph of the Los Angeles River in Maywood ................................ 244

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Figure 4.78 Photograph of a Buffalo Gourd Growing Along the Levee ..................... 245
Figure 4.79 Photograph of Broken Concrete in the Channel .................................... 246
Figure 4.80 Photograph of Riverfront Park ............................................................... 248
Figure 4.81 Photograph of Grass Growing in the Channel ....................................... 249
Figure 4.82 Photograph of Cracked Mud along the Concrete................................... 250
Figure 4.83 Photograph of a Warehouse along the Los Angeles River .................... 251
Figure 4.84 Photograph underneath the 105 Freeway.............................................. 252
Figure 4.85 Photograph of an Individual Exercising within the Channel ................... 253
Figure 4.86 Photograph of the Team Walking with Sun Umbrellas........................... 254
Figure 4.87 Photograph of Cargo Containers Stacked on top of Each Other ........... 256
Figure 4.88 Photograph of a Mile Marker Sign ......................................................... 257
Figure 4.89 Photograph of Horse Stables Neighboring the Los Angeles River......... 258
Figure 4.90 Photograph of a Lone Shopping Cart in the Middle of the River............ 259
Figure 4.91 Photograph of the Los Angeles River Levee in North Long Beach........ 260
Figure 4.92 Photograph of the Los Angeles River Bike Path in North Long Beach .. 260
Figure 4.93 Photograph of the Trapezoidal Channel in North Long Beach............... 261
Figure 4.94 Photograph of Algae Growing along the Channel Floor......................... 263
Figure 4.95 Photograph of the Virginia Country Club/Dominguez Gap Wetlands..... 264
Figure 4.96 Photograph of the Wide Concrete Channel in Long Beach.................... 265
Figure 4.97 Photograph of the Wrigley Greenbelt in Long Beach............................. 266
Figure 4.98 Photograph of West Willow Street Bridge.............................................. 268
Figure 4.99 Photograph of a Los Angeles River with a Soft, Muddy Bottom............. 269
Figure 4.100 Photograph of a Red Toy Cay and Sunflowers in the Riverbed............. 270
Figure 4.101 Photograph of the Transition Point between the River and the Ocean .. 272
Figure 4.102 Photograph of the Port of Long Beach on the Opposite River Bank ...... 273
Figure 4.103 Photograph of a Burned Informal Structure along the River .................. 274
Figure 4.104 Photograph of the Los Angeles River Estuary........................................ 275
Figure 4.105 Photograph of the Queen Mary and the Pacific Ocean .......................... 276
Figure 4.106 Photograph of the Estuary and the Port of Long Beach ......................... 277
Figure 5.1 Photograph of a Drainage Hole ............................................................. 285

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ABSTRACT
Despite sharing similar histories, the Los Angeles River and the San Antonio
River, both of which run through sprawling metropolitan areas, diverge significantly in
their contemporary perception, management, and everyday human experience. While
the San Antonio River is revered as the “crown jewel of Texas” and a site of heritage,
the Los Angeles River, despite current revitalization efforts, is still seen by many as little
more than a flood control channel. This research delves into the nuanced values
assigned to each river in the early twentieth century, analyzing how these sentiments
manifested in radically different river infrastructure design. Additionally, this study
explores the contemporary relationship between these two urban landscapes and their
natural elements through extensive fieldwork. As both cities navigated severe flood risk,
I believe the disparity can partially be attributed to whether or not decision makers
regarded their river as heritage and integral to their city’s narrative for future generations
to understand and celebrate. When contrasting the present experiences of the two
rivers, it is obvious that the choices we make in selecting and protecting certain heritage
can have a profound impact well into the future. Additionally, it becomes clear that
heritage intrinsic to natural landscapes like rivers can withstand remarkable challenges.

1
INTRODUCTION
Any inheritance of heritage involves a selection process. Whether it is a single
building or an entire national park, at some point in time, a group of individuals decided
that certain heritage should be preserved for future generations. Conversely, at other
times, different aspects of heritage were overlooked or entirely neglected. This thesis,
which examines the histories and current experiences of two urban rivers, seeks to
explore the profound influence that the process of selecting heritage can have on a citywide scale. Despite sharing similar histories, the San Antonio River and the Los
Angeles River diverge significantly in their contemporary perception, management, and
everyday human experience. While the San Antonio River is revered as the “crown
jewel of Texas” and a site of heritage, the Los Angeles River, despite current
revitalization efforts, is still seen by many as little more than a flood control channel.
Chapter One of this thesis delves into the historical account of the San Antonio River in
the early twentieth century, focusing on its transformation from a natural or wild river to
a more urbanized landscape. Chapter Two then explores the contemporary relationship
between San Antonio and its river through extensive fieldwork and narrative
ethnography. Chapters Three and Four follow a comparable framework, this time
focusing on the Los Angeles River. When contrasting the present experiences of the
two rivers, it is evident that the choices we make in selecting and protecting certain
heritage can have a profound impact well into the future. Additionally, it becomes clear
that heritage intrinsic to natural landscapes like rivers can withstand remarkable
challenges.
DEFINING HERITAGE
I find it incredibly difficult to apply any single definition to heritage as heritage
operates at multiple scales and encompasses almost anything that anyone deems
important (if they have the necessary tools or influence to advocate for its conservation).
Whether as heritage conservationists or simply humans, we are constantly confronted
with the responsibility of determining where to focus our attention and consequently,
what should be prioritized and conserved. While almost anything might be eligible, only

2
selected elements are passed on as heritage to the next generation. In the face of
inevitable change, choices must be made. In their book, Dissonant Heritage: The
Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict, J.E. Tunbridge and G.J. Ashworth
suggest that within the process of heritage, “The present selects an inheritance from an
imagined past for current use and decides what should be passed on to an imagined
future.”1 Indeed, the present and its current circumstances dictate which links to the
past should be maintained, and therefore which links are sustained for future
generations. In the introduction to her book, Uses of Heritage, Laurajane Smith expands
on the idea that heritage involves a selection process, suggesting that the choices made
serve as a reflection of societal values. She states,
Heritage is heritage because it is subjected to the management and
preservation/conservation process, not because it simply ‘is.’ This process
does not just ‘find’ sites and places to manage and protect. It is itself a
constitutive cultural process that identifies those things and places that
can be given meaning and value as ‘heritage,’ reflecting contemporary
cultural and social values, debates and aspirations.2
Certainly, what could constitute as heritage extends far beyond what is formally
recognized as heritage. Therefore, the aspects we choose to acknowledge and
celebrate provide insights into the dominating cultural and social values of a particular
time. In their book, Managing Cultural Landscapes, Ken Taylor and Jane Lennon affirm,
“Heritage results from a selection process, often government-initiated and supported by
official regulation; it is not the same as history, although this, too, has its own element of
selectivity.”3 From Taylor and Lennon, we learn that the process of selecting heritage is
often political and intertwined with contemporary economics and cultural systems. In the
following chapters, I explore the impacts of this selection and cultural process on urban
rivers in two large cities, San Antonio and Los Angeles. By examining the histories of
the two rivers, we can begin to understand the profound influence of choosing to
manage and protect certain threads of heritage and not others.
1 J.E. Tunbridge and G.J. Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in
Conflict (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1996), 6.
2 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 3.
3 Ken Taylor and Jane Lennon, Managing Cultural Landscapes (New York: Routledge, 2012), Foreword.

3
COMPARING TWO URBAN RIVERS
The “Rivers and Heritage” initiative, launched in 2012 by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “proposes to support the
process of cultural development of rivers and to contribute to the protection and the
management of river sites. For the territories concerned, the river is considered a
resource with multiple cultural, economic, environmental and social values.”4 In this
statement, UNESCO acknowledges the numerous benefits associated with rivers.
However, what does the practical implementation of “the management of river sites''
actually look like in practice, and how has it functioned in the past? In his 1965
publication, The City is the Frontier, author Charles Abrams paints a very different
picture of waterway management in the United States in the last century. He writes,
Water has been the age-old magnet for people—the Roman bath, the
fountain, falls, village well, beach, spa, and more recently the resort
swimming pool. Yet while preservation of natural access to water has
been the pride and stabilizing force of great cities, American cities have
been relinquishing their waterways so recklessly that the last vestige of
the acqueous will soon be the laundromat.5
Despite serving as the essential bedrock upon which most cities are built, urban rivers
today are often neglected. When confronted with selecting a topic for my thesis, I found
myself particularly intrigued by the diverse strategies employed by different cities to
‘manage’ their rivers. I was curious what these strategies might reveal about historic
and contemporary relationships between a city and its urban waterways. More broadly, I
wondered what these strategies might unveil about a city and its consideration for its
surrounding environment and beyond.
Los Angeles and San Antonio are two metropolitan cities, both characterized by
arid climates and vulnerability to flooding. Additionally, each city is home to a river that
shares it name. In their book, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow,
authors Christopher Armstrong, Matthew Evenden, and H.V. Nelles state, “A river is an
4“Rivers and Heritage,” UNESCO, accessed December 12, 2023,
https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/810/.
5 C.A. Gunn, D.J. Reed, R.E. Couch, “Cultural Benefits from Metropolitan River Recreation—San Antonio
Prototype,” Texas Water Sources Institute, Texas A&M University, 1972, 7-8; Charles Abrams, The City is
the Frontier (New York: Harper and Row, 1965).

4
archive; it records and retains what has been done to it and by it. The conditions of
rivers is in some sense the measure of the societies dependent on them.”6 Until the
early twentieth century, both San Antonio and Los Angeles relied almost entirely on
their rivers as their primary source for water. As the two cities expanded, however, with
both rivers drained nearly dry, each city looked for alternative sources to supplement
their water needs. At this point in the story, the two rivers and “what has been done to
[them]” deviate considerably.
As one of the longest concrete waterways in the world, the Los Angeles River
stands as an example of a waterway designed without consideration of its historical
significance to its city. While one million people live within a ten-minute walk of the Los
Angeles River, the fifty-one-mile channel was not designed for them.7 Since it was fated
to be lined with concrete in 1938, the river’s singular purpose has been to defend the
city from flooding.8 Once a symbol of the city's vitality, the river was transformed into an
overlooked and neglected large landscape infrastructure project, mostly hidden from
view and often littered with trash. Most of the time, the river exists as a tiny stream in a
sun-bleached gray vat. Over the past century, a strange intersection between the
industrial, ecological and social has emerged from and within the Los Angeles River.
However, this phenomenon is almost in defiance of its hostile design rather than being
facilitated through programming or adequate accommodating features.
Despite its crucial role as a flood control channel, the San Antonio River, in
contrast, was intentionally designed with considerations that extend beyond flood
control. Several different flood control methods are employed to preserve the river’s
visual appeal, protect its historic trees, and maintain an intimate pedestrian landscape.
These alternative techniques contributed to the gradual development of the San Antonio
River Walk, where the aesthetic heritage of the river is central to its design. Indeed, in
the case of San Antonio, not all heritage was valued. Civic groups led by affluent white
6 Christopher Armstrong, Matthew Evenden, and H.V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental
History of the Bow (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 200.
7 “About,” LA River Master Plan, https://larivermasterplan.org/about/, accessed December 14, 2023.
Calculated from U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2012–2016 5-Year Estimates, Table
B01001, 2016; U.S. Census Bureau, 2016 TIGER/Line Geodatabase (machine-readable data files), 2016.
8 Matthew Gandy, “Riparian Anomie: Reflections on the Los Angeles River,” Landscape Research 31
(2006): 138.

5
women in the early twentieth century advocated for the protection of the downtown river
stretch, neglecting entirely the rich Indigenous heritage in the region and the
predominantly Latino west side of San Antonio.9 Swimming is also forbidden due to the
high levels of water pollution. However, acknowledging and preserving certain aspects
of the river’s heritage, such as its appearance and general ambiance, yielded a
markedly distinct outcome compared to the Los Angeles River, which did not consider
heritage at all in its construction.
10 As both cities navigated severe flood risk, I believe
the disparity in infrastructural design can partially be attributed to whether or not
decision makers regarded their river as heritage and integral to their city’s narrative for
future generations to understand and enjoy.
WHO AM I?
I attended high school just two hundred feet from the northern stretch of the Los
Angeles River, but I was completely unaware of the river’s historical and ecological
significance to the region. I remember teachers and friends used to mock the nearby
‘oversized gutter,’ but we never actually ventured to explore it. In his journal article titled,
"51 Miles of Concrete: The Exploitation and Transformation of the Los Angeles River,"
Blake Gumpretch states, “To many southern Californians, the Los Angeles River is a
joke.”11 My experience as a child aligned with this perspective.
After high school, I moved to Colorado and majored in anthropology, engaging in
both field work and narrative ethnography. For almost a decade, I committed myself to
areas of designated wilderness—leading backpacking trips into the Rocky Mountains
with students from across the country. We drank water from rushing rivers if we were
lucky and water from cow troughs if we were not. When the sky looked clear enough,
we slept under the stars and scrambled up 14,000 foot mountains. Way up there, we
9Char Miller, Westside Rising: How San Antonio’s 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino
Environmental Justice Movement (Maverick Books, 2021), 46.
10Interview with Charles S. Dwyer, United States Army Corps of Engineers, November 10, 2023; Interview
with Char Miller, Historian and Professor at Pomona College, December 1, 2023.
11 Gumprecht, Blake. “51 Miles of Concrete: The Exploitation and Transformation of the Los Angeles
River.” Southern California Quarterly 79, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 431.

6
debated definitions of nature and stewardship. We asked ourselves where we belonged
in this rugged landscape, and if humans and wilderness could coexist.
When I returned home to Los Angeles in pursuit of a master’s degree in landscape
architecture, I hoped my studies would give me an intellectual framework to see cities
just as alive and dynamic as the mountains. I approach heritage conservation through
the lens of landscape architecture, where I have found heritage is often an afterthought.
In addition to conservationists who likely already recognize the importance of integrating
heritage into design, my thesis targets individuals who may be less familiar with this
concept.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Having thoroughly explored the historical narratives of the San Antonio River
and the Los Angeles River in Chapter One and Three respectively, concentrating
particularly on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I walked along both
waterways, taking detailed notes and photographs. In early August 2023, I completed a
six-day walk of the entire length of the Los Angeles River. Subsequently, in late
September 2023, I embarked on a three-day walk along the first sixteen miles of the
San Antonio River, traversing through the city’s urban core. I sought to understand and
physically experience the impact of previous decisions on both rivers’ present-day state.
On a bodily level, I was curious—what did each waterway hear, smell, feel, and look
like? How did these current sensations directly correlate to each rivers’ historical
background and the intricate process of heritage selection?
Why Walking?
Although walking is not conventionally utilized as a methodological tool in
academia, the practice has been used to study vernacular landscapes.12 For example,
journalist Dick Roraback with the Los Angeles Times completed a full exploration of the
Los Angeles River, titled “In Search of the L.A. River,” beginning in Long Beach and
12 William Littman, “Viewpoint: Walk this Way. Reconsidering Walking for the Study of Cultural
Landscapes,” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 27, no. 1 (Spring
2020): 3.

7
walking upstream in 1985.13 Geographer and urbanist Mathew Gandy explored the Los
Angeles River on foot in 2006 and wrote about his journey in the form of narrative
ethnography in his journal article titled, “Riparian Anomie: Reflections on the Los
Angeles River.” 14 In my experience, walking has enabled a thorough and intimate
exploration of both the San Antonio River and the Los Angeles River. At the slow speed
of walking, I noticed subtle shifts in the ground terrain, listened to the mission bells and
a reoccurring chorus of frogs, and recognized the significance of shade. I paused and
conversed with people, lingered when I wanted to, and captured hundreds of
photographs. In his journal article, “Viewpoint: Walk this Way,” William Littman
describes a similar experience after completing a week-long walk with his son across
Los Angeles in 2020. He writes,
The walk … helped us see the landscape in a richer and more granular
way. We noticed small changes in elevation or terrain, heard music
coming out of parks or churches, smelled the cooking in apartments and
restaurants, and saw the buildings and artifacts that are nearly impossible
to perceive when driving in the car.15
Or to witness digitally, for that matter. Rebecca Solnit in her book, Wanderlust: a History
of Walking, suggests that the mind operates at about the same speed as walking, about
three miles per hour.16 A walking pace provided me the space and time to wander, feel,
listen, and question.
Limitations
The utilization of walking and narrative ethnography as primary research
methods comes with some constraints. Firstly, perhaps most importantly, like all
humans, I am biased thinker. As I walked, I took extensive notes and translated them
into narrative ethnographies, capturing what I saw along each journey. Chapters Two
and Four consist of my personal observations and initial impressions, shaped and
informed by my studies in anthropology, landscape architecture, and heritage
conservation. Secondly, in walking these landscapes thoroughly only once, it is
13 Dick Roraback, “Up a Lazy River, Seeking the Source.” The Los Angeles Times. October 20, 1895.
14 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 139.
15 Littman, “Viewpoint: Walk this Way,” 3.
16 Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (New York: Viking, 2000), 14.

8
inevitable that I missed certain details. I caution my readers against presuming that the
way I perceived the landscape during one particular week in August or September 2023
is the only perspective or the persistent reality. Los Angeles, for instance, experienced a
particularly wet winter and summer in 2023, possibly resulting in a greener landscape
than what is typically expected in August (Figure I.1, I.2). Indeed, the well-quoted fifthcentury BCE Greek philosopher and academic, Heraclitus stated, “No man ever steps in
the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”17 I believe
this to be true. Indeed, both explorations capture a distinct moment in time for each river
and hopefully can serve as historical records in their own right.
17 Daniel W. Graham, “Heraclitus.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta,
Library of Congress Catalog Data, 2021.
Figure I.1: Looking south off of the Orange Bridge in Frogtown on September 4, 2022. This
photo and the photo below, captured in the same location, intend to demonstrate the diversity of
conditions witnessed within the Los Angeles River throughout the year. Photo by author.
Figure I.2: Looking south off of the Orange Bridge in Frogtown during a significant rain event
on January 9, 2023. Photo by author.

9
Preconceived Notions
Before embarking on both river walks, I anticipated a significant difference in
difficulty between the two journeys. I expected to encounter more people along the San
Antonio River than the Los Angeles River. I also expected to see a far lusher landscape
in San Antonio than Los Angeles. In San Antonio, I looked forward to discovering
heritage prominently displayed with historical explanations around every river bend.
Conversely, in Los Angeles, I anticipated finding more trash and graffiti with only subtle
hints of heritage. I hoped that walking both rivers would provide me with the confidence
to speak about each waterway and overcome my hesitancy to overstep as a visitor (I
am still working toward this).
I travelled to San Antonio hoping to learn about the strategies they use to
enhance accessibility and promote connection to their river, with the goal of
implementing similar techniques along the Los Angeles River. I heard the San Antonio
River was called the “crown jewel of Texas” and thought perhaps it could be used as a
model for revitalizing the river in Los Angeles. What I found in San Antonio was exactly
what I imagined—there were benches, water fountains, native trees shading the River
Walk, art, and countless signs and maps, providing context to each particular stretch of
the river. The flood control features built to tame the river are enormous, but easy to
ignore among the overwhelmingly pleasant feeling of walking alongside the wellmaintained, landscaped waterway. In contrast, walking the length of the Los Angeles
River was challenging for the majority of the time. There is very little shade, many
sections are fenced off and inaccessible, there are few bathrooms or water fountains,
and the concrete expanses make it impossible to ignore its sole purpose as a flood
control channel. What the Los Angeles River does, however, is confront you with the
reality of what was lost. Because walking along the San Antonio River is so pleasant, it
allows its visitors to forget that it is also a flood control project. Even though both rivers
are heavily manipulated, only one asks its visitors to reckon with what could have been
and what could be.

10
CHAPTER ONE: HISTORY OF THE SAN ANTONIO RIVER
This chapter traces the historical narrative of the San Antonio River and its
transformation from a natural feature to a multi-functional flood control channel, focusing
specifically on moments of human interaction and protest. Demonstrating similarities
with the Los Angeles River across numerous aspects and following a similar timeline of
transformation, the history of the San Antonio River emerges as a relevant case study
for further examination. Understanding the river’s various societal roles and its context
is essential for comprehending its current state and significance. In this chapter, we
explore how the river served the city in the past, examine its current functionality,
analyze the priorities in its infrastructure design, and identify what and who were
excluded from the planning process. Despite sharing almost parallel histories with the
Los Angeles River, the San Antonio River is now celebrated as one of Texas’ most wellvisited sites.
YANAGUANA
The story of human engagement with the San Antonio River and the surrounding
area, both originally called Yanaguana, begins eleven thousand years ago.18 For
millennia, the Payaya, the predominant Indigenous community of the region, and their
predecessors depended on the San Antonio River and surrounding water bodies such
as the San Pedro Creek, a tributary of the San Antonio River, as a vital source for food
and water.19 The 240-mile-long San Antonio River follows a gentle slope from its
northern source in central Bexar County to the Guadalupe River near the Gulf of
Mexico. 20 The upper stretch of the river once looked very different than it does today.
The region was host to a diverse ecosystem comprising lowlands, uplands, terrestrial
18 Adrian Chavana, “Reclaiming Tribal Identity in the Land of the Spirit Waters: The Tāp Pīlam
Coahuiltecan Nation,” NACCS Annual Conference Proceedings (2019): 21.
19 Char Miller, San Antonio: A Tricentennial History (Texas State Historical Association, 2018), 3. A
tributary is a stream or river that flows into another often larger river. In this case, the San Pedro Creek
flows into the San Antonio River.
20 Lewis Fisher, American Venice, The Epic Story of San Antonio’s River (Maverick Publishing Company,
2015), 2.

11
and riparian areas, as well as woodlands and prairies.21 The headwaters of San Antonio
River originate from a collection of springs just four miles north of the present-day
downtown San Antonio (Figure 1.1).22 In his book, San Antonio: A Tricentennial History,
professor Char Miller points out that geographer James F. Peterson calls this part of
Texas “the Texas Spring Line” with springs bubbling up from the Edwards Aquifer
stretching from Del Rio to Austin, passing directly through San Antonio.23
Supplementing the river’s flow, Olmos Creek also empties into the San Antonio River
just below its headwaters.24
21 Miller, San Antonio, 3.
22 Frances Donecker, “San Antonio River,” Texas State Historical Association, accessed October 3, 2023,
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/san-antonio-river.
23 Miller, San Antonio, 3.
24 Donecker, “San Antonio River.”
Figure 1.1: The San Antonio River runs for 240-miles, originating from a collection of springs and
supplemented by Olmos Creek. Source: Perry-Castañeda Library, Walter Geology Library and Dolph
Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Map adapted by author.

12
The topography, geography and climate of the area makes San Antonio very
vulnerable to flooding.25 San Antonio sits within the transition zone between the Great
Plains, known in Texas as the Edwards Plateau, and southern coastal plain extending
to the Gulf of Mexico. The changes in topography and landforms produce significant
shifts in weather patterns, switching between prolonged periods of drought and heavy
rainfall.26 Due to the severity of these weather fluctuations, the National Weather
Service nicknamed the region “Flash-Flood Alley.”27 In his book Westside Rising: How
San Antonio’s 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental
Justice Movement, Miller writes, “Within moments, the almost dry San Antonio River
and its arroyo-like tributaries could become churning torrents.”28 In between major flood
events however, Miller continues, “… the San Antonio River have attracted and
sustained generation of Indigenous communities and in time Spanish, Mexican, and
American settler-colonists” (Figure 1.2, 1.3).29
25 Miller, Westside Rising, 4.
26 Miller, Westside Rising, 4.
27 Miller, Westside Rising, 5; C. Terrell Bartless, “The Flood of September 21, at San Antonio, Texas,”
Paper 1485, Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 85: 355.
28 Miller, Westside Rising, 6.
29 Miller, Westside Rising, 6-7.

13
Figure 1.2: A shallow San Antonio River in 1895. Source: Library of
Congress.
Figure 1.3: Diverse ecology within the San Antonio River in 1895.
Source: Library of Congress.

14
While the San Antonio Valley was fertile due to intermittent flooding, under typical
conditions, the river rarely exceeded a width of twenty feet and a depth of fifteen feet.30
Miller describes the region pre-channelization as having “life-sustaining properties” and
an “ecological abundance.”31 The area was known to be rich with roots, seeds, grasses,
prickly pear cactus, and various nuts including pecans, which grew abundantly
throughout most of the year. The Indigenous population also relied on a variety of
mammals for their diet; fossilized remains of ancient mastodons and giant bison have
been found buried in the floodplain.32 The Coahuiltecan Indians, which include the
Payaya, Pajalat, Xarame, Orejonos, Borrados, and Manos de Perro, were mostly
foragers, not known to practice agriculture.33 Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish
explorer and participant in the Conquest of Mexico, who found himself shipwrecked on
the Texas coast in 1528, noted that “nothing is planted [in] support” of the Indigenous
communities’ diet.
34 Archaeologist Karen Stothert highlights the effectiveness of the
Payaya People’s hunting and gathering practices, noting that they “were able to support
themselves because they defined such a wide range of biomatter as food.”35 The
Payaya People along with other tribal bands in the area were highly mobile due to flood
risk among other factors, contributing greatly to their self-sufficiency and prosperity in
the region.36
In 1691, Domingo Terán de Los Ríos and Father Damian Massanet journeyed
through the area, calling it San Antonio de Pádua. The name honored the current date
of their expedition, June 13, which in the Spanish calendar corresponds to the feast day
dedicated to St. Anthony of Pádua.37 Terán and his crew, who approached San Antonio
from the south, following the path of the Medina River, described the landscape as “a
fine country with broad plains—the most beautiful in New Spain.”38 Near the San Pedro
Springs, Terán noted clear water and abundant oaks and cedars supported by the
30 Fisher, American Venice, 2.
31 Miller, Westside Rising, 6.
32 Fisher, American Venice, 1.
33 Chavana, “Reclaiming Tribal Identity,” 24.
34 Miller, San Antonio, 4.
35 Karen E. Stothert, The Archaeology and Early History of the Head of the San Antonio River. San
Antonio: Incarnate Word College, 1989, 44, as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 4.
36 Miller, San Antonio, 3.
37 Fisher, American Venice, 1.
38 Miller, San Antonio, 2.

15
region’s fertile soils.39 The Spanish explorers wrote about the Payaya People, for what
is believed to be the first time. Terán stated in his diary, “Here we found certain
rancherías in which the Peyaye [Payaya] live.”40 Massanet also recorded the original
name of the region, “In the language of the Indians, it is called Yanaguana… I called
this place San Antonio de Pádua, because it was his day.”41 This act of renaming
places was not unusual; Spanish explorers frequently renamed different locations
during their colonial conquest.42 While Terán and Massanet endeavored to convert the
Payaya People to Catholicism, the Spanish would not establish a lasting residence in
San Antonio for several decades.43 Instead, multiple expeditions, led by both the
Spanish and French, would document the landscape’s suitability for settlement until the
Spanish finally established their first mission in 1718 and four more by 1731.44
SPANISH SETTLEMENT AND THE MISSIONS
In 1709, during an expedition led by the Spanish Captain Pedro de Aguirre, who
commanded the presidio of the Río Grande del Norte, Fray Isidro Félix de Espinosa
documented that the San Pedro Creek, which runs parallel and eventually flows into the
San Antonio River, showed significant potential. He stated, “The river, which is formed
by this spring, could supply not only a village, but a city, which could easily be founded
here because of the shallowness of said river.”45 Miller highlights that “of utmost
concern to these early town planners was a ready supply of water, which Spanish
visitors assessed in relation to the size and significance of the community it could
support.”46
In 1714, Louis Juchereau de Saint Dennis, hoping to establish a French trade
relationship between Louisiana and Mexico, stopped near the headwaters of the San
Antonio River during an expedition, believing the area to be an ideal location for a
39 Miller, San Antonio, 2.
40 Miller, San Antonio, 2.
41 Miller, San Antonio, 2.
42 Miller, San Antonio, 2.
43 Miller, San Antonio, 3; Claude B. Aniol, San Antonio: City of Missions (New York, 1942), 1.
44 Chavana, “Reclaiming Tribal Identity,” 24; Miller, San Antonio, 15.
45 Miller, San Antonio, 10.
46 Miller, San Antonio, 9.

16
permanent settlement.47 Robert Carlton Clark in his journal article titled, “Louis
Juchereau de Saint-Denis and the Re-establishment of the Tejas Missions,” documents
that Saint Dennis and “the party continued the journey, passing the San Antonio River,
where was an Indian village. Saint-Denis remarked on the spot, observing that it was
very suitable for a village, and worthy of a good presidio.”48
In 1716, Spanish Captain Domingo Ramón documented the same region in his
diary, describing the “scenery along the San Antonio River [as] very beautiful, for there
are pecan trees, grape vines, willows, elms, and other timbers.”49 Having observed a
shallow level of streamflow, Captain Ramón evaluated that there was “sufficient water
here for a city of one-quarter league” or a little bit less than one-mile wide.50 Two years
later, due to Ramón’s reports and a looming French threat, the viceroy of New Spain
directed Martín de Alarcón, the newly appointed governor of Texas, to establish a chain
of missionaries and Spanish communities from San Antonio to East Texas.51 Alarcón
decided his settlement, Villa de Béxar, would be built between the San Antonio River
and the San Pedro Creek.52 Professor Miller notes that while the soils were rich
because the new development was located within the floodplain, it also “meant that from
the very beginning, rampaging floodwaters would be a troubling (and frequent) hazard
in San Antonio.”53
Five Spanish colonial-era Catholic missions were established on the banks of the
San Antonio River in the early 1700s. The first mission, originally named San Antonio
de Valera, but more widely recognized as the Alamo, was founded in 1718, further
establishing a permanent Spanish presence within the floodplain.54 Historian Félix
Almaráz notes that “throughout the entire colonial period the proximity of church and
state institutions in a riparian environment contributed to an atmosphere of cooperation
47 Aniol, San Antonio: City of Missions, 1; Clark, Robert Carlton, “Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denis and the
Re-establishment of the Tejas Missions,” Texas Historical Association Quarterly (July 1902): 25.
48 Clark, “Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denis,” 12.
49 Miller, San Antonio, 10.
50 Miller, San Antonio, 10.
51 Miller, San Antonio, 10.
52 Karen E. Stothert, The Archaeology and Early History of the Head of the San Antonio River (San
Antonio: Incarnate Word College, 1989), 44, as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 12.
53 Miller, San Antonio, 12.
54 Chavana, “Reclaiming Tribal Identity,” 24

17
and conflict.”55 By the late 1720s, about three-hundred people resided along the San
Antonio River.56 The other four missions—Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción
de Acuña, San José y San Miguel de Aguayo, San Juan Capistrano, and San Francisco
de la Espada—were all constructed by 1731 to form an eleven-mile stretch of religious
establishments along the San Antonio River (Figure 1.4, 1.5).
57 During this period,
multiple bands of Coahuiltecan Indians, suffering from diseases introduced by the
Spanish and attacks by the Apaches and Comanches from the north, occupied the
missions periodically.58 Historian Pekka Hämäläinen confirms, “the nomadic
Coahuilteco speakers steered clear of Spanish settlements but incorporated Spanish
missions into their season cycle as resource depots.”59
55 Andrés Resendéz, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), 175, as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 15.
56 Miller, San Antonio, 13.
57 Chavana, “Reclaiming Tribal Identity,” 15.
58 Chavana, “Reclaiming Tribal Identity,” 24
59 Pekka Hämäläinen, Contested Spaces of Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2014), 36.
Figure 1.4: The five San Antonio missions—San José y San Miguel de Aguayo, Nuestra
Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña, San Antonio de Valera, San Juan Capistrano,
and San Francisco de la Espada—in 1895. Source: Library of Congress.

18
Only a week after the missions were officially established along the San Antonio
River in 1731, sixteen families from the Canary Islands, known locally as Isleños, settled
in the recently founded presidio, San Fernando de Béxar, named in honor of the heir to
the Spanish throne, Fernando VI.60 The new settlement was located just east of the
presidio established in 1718 between the San Antonio River and the San Pedro
Creek.61 Forty-nine additional families, who were not affiliated with the missions or the
presidio, lived in the area as well, but the region’s population as a whole remained
small.62 Due to San Antonio’s remote location and infrequently used surrounding trail
system, growth and development was notably slow over the next half-century.63 While
the missions were initially populated in the 1730s, they would eventually face decline.

60 Aniol, San Antonio: City of Missions, 2; Miller, San Antonio, 15. Olmsted notes that San Antonio was
founded by a colony of twelve families from the Canary Islands, contrary to the sixteen families mentioned
by other sources. He elaborates, “The town of San Antonio was founded in 1730 by a colony of twelve
families of pure Spanish blood, from the Canary Islands. The names of the settlers are perpetuated to this
day by exiting families which have descended from each, such as Garcia, Flores, Navarro, Garza, Yturri,
Rodriquez” (see Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas: A History of the Lone Star State on
the Eve of the Civil War (1856), 152).
61 Jesús De la Teja, “San Fernando de Béxar,” Texas State Historical Association, August 4, 2020,
accessed September 18, 2023, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/san-fernando-de-bexar.
62 Miller, San Antonio, 16.
63 Aniol, San Antonio: City of Missions, 2; Fisher, American Venice, 2.
Figure 1.5: The San Antonio de Valera Mission (better known as the
Alamo), photographed in 1980. Source: Library of Congress, Historic
American Buildings Survey.

19
As a result, the Canary Islanders were offered many incentives to continue to live
in the region. Historian Gerald E. Poyo wrote that they were offered “full control of the
town’s cabildo, or city council. Ten Isleños received life appointments to govern the new
villa, San Fernando de Béxar.”64 This authority also included the Islanders’ rights and
jurisdiction over the region’s water resources. Juliana Barr, in her journal article,
“Beyond their Control: Spaniards in Texas,” wrote that the Canary Islanders “claimed
rights to virtually all the non-mission land west of the San Antonio River and sought to
monopolize water from the river itself and the San Pedro Creek.”65 Subsequently, water
was strictly managed through acequias, narrow irrigation canals that extended from the
San Antonio River and the San Pedro Creek.66 By 1750, only five-hundred settlers, just
two-hundred more people than several decades before, lived in the presidio.
“LITTLE INFRASTRUCTURE”
To transport water, Spanish engineers constructed a system of acequias,
providing water to both residential homes and the five missions several blocks away.67
This canal technique was introduced to San Antonio by the Moors from North Africa.68
The earliest acequia, called the Concepción or Pajalache, was built in 1729 and was
thought to be so large that residents could row small boats within it.69 The Concepción
acequia experienced continuous use until it was abandoned in 1869.70 The San
Francisco de la Espada Mission acequia was constructed between 1731 and 1745,
featuring the stone Espada aqueduct (Figure 1.6). The Espada aqueduct is recognized
today as the last operational Spanish structure of its kind in the entire country and is a
National Historic Landmark.71
64 Resendéz, The Other Slavery, 175, as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 16.
65 Miller, San Antonio, 16; Julianna Barr, “Beyond their Control: Spaniards in Texas,” in Choice,
Persuasion, and Coercion: Social Control on Spain’s North American Frontiers, ed. Jesús F. De la Teja
and Ross Frank (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 151.
66 Fisher, American Venice, 2.
67 Fisher, American Venice, 2.
68 Fisher, American Venice, 4.
69 Christopher Long, “Acequias.” Texas State Historical Association. Accessed: September 18, 2023.
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/acequias.
70 Long, “Acequias,” https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/acequias.
71 Long, “Acequias.”

20
Figure 1.6: The Espada Aqueduct photographed in 1969. Source: Historic American Engineering
Record.

21
Figure 1.7: A map of the extensive acequia network in San Antonio, drawn by Gary
Rogers in 1973. Source: Historic American Engineering Record.

22
The acequia madre, which translates to “mother ditch,” is located near the Blue
Hole, one of the primary springs of the San Antonio River. Because the river meandered
back and forth, many of the homes were built within the bends of the river in a long and
narrow fashion, enabling each house to have street access in the front and access to an
acequia on the other side.72 In certain sections, due to the numerous bends in the
waterway’s path, it reportedly took thirteen miles of river to travel only six miles on
foot.73 For well over a century, a fifty-mile network of canals supported residents in the
region, which was host to the most extensive acequia system in the entire state (Figure
1.7).
74 In his book, A Journey Through Texas: A History of the Lone Star State on the
Eve of the Civil War, published in 1856, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted,
who traveled through San Antonio in 1853 reports that “the system of aqueducts
(acequias), for artificial irrigation, extends for many miles around San Antonio… in the
immediate neighborhood of the city they are still in use, so that every garden-path may
be flowed at will.”75 The canals, however, were costly to build and maintain.76 As a
result, irrigated land, predominantly owned by the Canary Islanders, was limited and
expensive.77
As San Antonio’s water system developed, the city focused on building up its
surrounding infrastructure as well. The first documented pedestrian bridge crossing the
San Antonio River was constructed in the 1730s and was located at the end of
Commerce Street near the Alamo.78 The first weight-bearing wagon bridge was built on
the same street in 1842, but the bridge was washed out by a flood only a couple of
years later.79 During the same period, prior to the construction of private bathhouses in
72 Fisher, American Venice, 2.
73 Interview with Vincent Michael, Director of the San Antonio Conservation Association, October 3, 2023.
74 Fisher, American Venice, 4; Long, “Acequias,” https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/acequias.;
Charles R. Porter, Spanish Water, Anglo Water: Early Development in San Antonio (College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 2009), 33.
75 Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas: A History of the Lone Star State on the Eve of the
Civil War, 1856, 152.
76 Long, “Acequias.”
77 Long, “Acequias.”
78 Fisher, American Venice, 6.
79 Fisher, American Venice, 6.

23
the 1840s, residents would bathe in the river (Figure 1.8).
80 During his visit, Olmsted
writes,
The temperature of the river is of just that agreeable elevation that
makes you loath to leave a bath, and the color is the ideal blue. Few
cities have such a luxury. It remains throughout the year without
perceptible change of temperature, and never varies in height or volume.
The streets are laid out in such a way that a great number of houses
have a garden extending to the bank, and so a bathing-house, which is
in constant use.81
In San Antonio, the river played a large role in the daily life of its residents. For
example, women washed their clothes in the river and hung them to dry on neighboring
shrubs.82 As another instance, despite the river’s modest drop in elevation of only thirtyfive feet from its headwaters to the edge of downtown, waterwheels were built in the
San Antonio River to support small mills.83 Multiple local businesses, including two iron
foundries and two ice factories, would stack stones to redirect water from the river
toward the wheels, which would then power belt-driven equipment.84 Olmstead
recorded in 1853 that “the fall of the river is such as to furnish abundant water-power,
which is now used but for a single corn-mill.”85

80 Fisher, American Venice, 9.
81 Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas, 153.
82 Fisher, American Venice, 11.
83 Fisher, American Venice, 10.
84 Fisher, American Venice, 10-11.
85 Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas, 153.
Figure 1.8: The San Antonio River, due to its moderate temperature, saw regular yearround bathing. Source: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 15, 1859.

24
Beyond its utility, the river was highly admired among residents and visitors for its
beauty (Figure 1.9, 1.10). During his visit, Olmsted described the river’s waters as “rich
blue and as pure as crystal.”86 Observing the San Antonio River from a bridge “close
down upon the water,” Olmsted continued, “We irresistibly stop to examine it, we are so
struck with its beauty… flowing rapidly but noiselessly over pebbles and between reedy
banks. One could lean for hours over the bridge-rail.”87 In his book, Olmsted explored
the cluster of springs at the river’s headwaters as well, offering praise for the lush
landscape and recognizing its role as one of beauty and use. He writes,
The San Antonio Spring may be classed as of the first water among the
gems of the natural world. The whole river gushes up in one sparkling
burst from the earth. It has all the beautiful accompaniments of a smaller
spring, moss, pebbles, seclusion, sparkling sunbeams, and dense
overhanging luxuriant foliage. The effect is overpowering.88
From his extensive notes and descriptions, it is clear the San Antonio River and its
headwaters captivated the landscape architect's attention. Olmsted was also well aware
of the river’s relationship to the surrounding soil’s fertility. He documented that, “the soil
in the neighborhood of the city is heavy and sometimes mixed with drifts of limestone
pebbles and deposits of shell, but is everywhere black and appears of inexhaustible
fertility if well cultivated and supplied with moisture.”89
86 Fisher, American Venice, 3; Miller, San Antonio, 43; Lewis Newton, “Olmsted, Frederick Law (1822-
1902),” Texas State Historical Association, accessed September 23, 2023,
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/olmsted-frederick-law.
87 Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas, 149-150.
88 Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas, 153.
89 Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas, 153.

25
Figure 1.10: A photograph capturing the San Antonio River in 1895, offering a
glimpse into what the landscape used to look like. Source: Library of Congress.
Figure 1.9: A wild and lush San Antonio River in 1895. Source: Library of
Congress.

26
Following the Civil War, San Antonio’s population increased from roughly three
thousand people in 1850 to more than twelve thousand people in 1870, prompting the
city to assess its water system and surrounding infrastructure.90 Dependent on gravity,
the acequia system could only provide water for populations downstream.91 As new
neighborhoods formed upstream, the acequias alone were no longer sufficient to meet
the increasing demand for water.92 Exacerbating the issue, prompted by the introduction
of rail to the region, the city's population would continue to grow over the next several
years. In 1877, a rail line east from Houston shortened travel time from San Antonio to
the coast from multiple days to a mere number of hours.93 Subsequently, another rail
line was constructed extending both north and south, and then one more running
westward to reach California. By 1880, San Antonio’s population surged to over twenty
thousand people.94 The expanding population necessitated additional infrastructure,
prompting city officials to seek alternative water sources and build additional bridges to
facilitate easier river crossings (Figure 1.11).
Rail also brought new industries and development to San Antonio neighboring
the river including the City Brewery—eventually the Pearl Brewing Company—and the
Lone Star Brewing Company in the early 1880s.95 While these new businesses were
exciting for both residents and visitors, expanded development along the riverbanks and
within the watershed increased the city’s susceptibility to flooding.96 Decreased
permeability inhibits the absorption of rainwater, resulting in water flowing more swiftly
into the river.
90 Fisher, American Venice, 12.
91 Long, “Acequias.”
92 Long, “Acequias”; Fisher, American Venice, 19.
93 Fisher, American Venice, 12; Miller, San Antonio, 53.
94 Fisher, American Venice, 13.
95 Fisher, American Venice, 13.
96 Fisher, American Venice, 15.

27
WHOSE WATER IS IT… ANYWAY?
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ownership of water in San
Antonio was tumultuous, transitioning from the public sector to the private sector and
back to the public sector again. In the 1840s, the acequia system had reached its limits,
partially due to residents disposing of their waste in the channels, consequently putting
the public’s health at risk.97 Epidemics from water-borne diseases such as cholera in
1846, 1849, and 1866 claimed the lives of over three hundred residents.98 On
September 30, 1866, the San Antonio Board of Health made recommendations
concerning the stagnant water and waste floating in the acequias. The numerous
epidemics had caused both physical and spiritual hardships on the residents.99 Doctor
Ferdinand Peter Herff later described the prevailing conditions in San Antonio during
97 Miller, San Antonio, 58.
98 Miller, San Antonio, 58; Porter, Spanish Water, 97.
99 Porter, Spanish Water, 97.
Figure 1.11: Brackenridge Park Bridge, constructed in 1890 and photographed in
1968. The bridge is still open to both vehicles and pedestrians. Source: Historic
American Engineering Record (Library of Congress).

28
this period, which included “muddy streets, filth-infested vacant lots, polluted river water,
and grossly ineffectual methods of sanitation.”100 Deteriorating conditions expanded
beyond the acequias as well. During his visit in 1853, for example, Olmsted described
his experience visiting the missions. He wrote, “Not far from the city, along the river are
these celebrated religious establishments … The Alamo was one of the earliest of these
establishments. It is now within the town, and in extent, probably a mere wreck of its
former grandeur.”101
In 1877, a group of private investors took matters into their own hands and
developed a more modern water system, incorporating pumps and reservoirs as
essential components.102 Although Jean Baptiste Lacoste started the San Antonio
Water Works Company, within two years of its initiation, George W. Brackenridge
became its president and majority stock owner.103 As president, Brackenridge
personally purchased additional land along the San Antonio River, including the river’s
headwaters to ensure an ample water supply for the company.104 In his book, Spanish
Water, Anglo Water: Early Development in San Antonio, Charles R. Porter reports that
“Brackenridge knew water was the key to the growth of cities, and as cities grew,
ownership of land with water frontage would deliver great power and influence…”105
Indeed, on April 3, 1877, after extensive public debate, the San Antonio Water Works
Company was given an exclusive twenty-five-year contract to provide “pure and
wholesome water from the San Antonio River, San Pedro Creek or any other source of
supply” for the city.106 Historian Lewis F. Fisher reports that while a municipal water
system would be more hygienic, “it was not sanitation but the need for more water for
fighting fires that in 1877 finally prompted the city to change directions and sign up with
the new San Antonio Water Works Company.”107 By controlling the headwater spring,
the purest of waters without any contamination from downtown, Brackenridge had
100 Miller, San Antonio, 59.
101 Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas, 152.
102 Miller, San Antonio, 59.
103 Miller, San Antonio, 59; Porter, Spanish Water, 100.
104 Porter, Spanish Water, 100.
105 Porter, Spanish Water, 100, 105.
106 Porter, Spanish Water, 100.
107Lewis F. Fisher, Crown Jewel of Texas: The Story of San Antonio’s River (Maverick, 1997), 13; Porter,
Spanish Water, 98.

29
positioned his company as indispensable.108 Alderman Nelson Mackey accused
Brackenridge—who also owned the San Antonio Bank—of being a “monopolizer” and a
“war profiteer.”109 In the San Antonio Daily Express in 1886, Mackey published, “If
Brackenridge owns the head of the river, he can govern the city by curtailing the supply
of pure water. If the city owns it, we can govern him.”110 Despite multiple efforts, Mackey
was unsuccessful in limiting the president of the San Antonio Water Works Company’s
power.
In order to distribute water from the headwaters to downtown, it was first
necessary to direct the water through a raceway, an artificial channel, and then pump it
into an open reservoir. To Brackenridge’s dismay, however, this process discolored the
water due to algae in the mains, a large pipe network.111 According to Basil Young Neal,
who interviewed M. C. Judson, an associate of Brackenridge, “Mr. Brackenridge and his
associate … tried various means to prevent this growth from forming in the water, but
with no permanent success. Finally they decided that the only permanent pure supply
would have to be artesian in source,” demonstrating the city’s first formal shift in
reliance away from the San Antonio River and upon other sources of water.
112
In 1887, the San Antonio River experienced “an almost unprecedented lack of
water,” which caused city-wide alarm.113 Porter writes, “The river and springs were
simply not adequate to fulfil the demand of the new population,” which would reach
almost forty thousand people by 1891.114 Historian Fisher reports that, “Waterwork
officials pleaded for limits to commercial and industrial water use and the watering of
lawns and gardens.”115 In 1893, after drilling a number of fruitless wells and completing
a thorough review of the land conditions, Brackenridge and Judson successfully drilled
a deep well on land owned by Brackenridge south of Market Street.116 The San Antonio
108 Porter, Spanish Water, 100.
109 Porter, Spanish Water, 113.
110 San Antonio Daily Express, October 20, 1886, as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 60; Porter, Spanish
Water, 113.
111 Porter, Spanish Water, 115.
112 Basil Young Neal, George W. Brackenridge: Citizen and Philanthropist (Austin, Texas, 1939), M.A.
Thesis, University of Texas, 21, as cited in Porter, Spanish Water, 115.
113 Fisher, American Venice, 19.
114 Porter, Spanish Water, 115.
115 Express, “Low State of the River,” August 23, 1887, 5, as cited in Fisher, American Venice, 19
116 Porter, Spanish Water, 100.

30
Express exclaimed, “The fresh water supply of San Antonio is apparently unlimited. It
has increased three million gallons for each twenty four hours by a splendid strike in the
artesian well being drilled on the property of George Brackenridge.”117 According to
Porter, the well supported the city’s increasing water demands for multiple years. Due to
the artesian well’s success, by 1896, nearly seventy wells were drilled into the Edwards
Aquifer in Bexar County alone (Figure 1.12, 1.13).
118
117 San Antonio Express, January 10, 1893, as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 60. An artesian well is a
specific type of well that taps into an underground aquifer. Due to the difference in pressure within the
aquifer and the ground surface, when an artesian well is drilled, water rises from the aquifer to the
surface without the need of a pump.
118 San Antonio Express, “Will the River Run Dry?” October 26, 1922, 8-A, as cited in Fisher, American
Venice, 21.
Figure 1.12 (left): An artesian well in San Antonio in 1891. Figure 1.13(Right): Map illustrating the location of
both flowing and non-flowing artesian wells along the San Antonio River. Source: Davis, M.W., R. T. Hill,
T.W. Vaughan, W.H. Dall, I.C. Russell, G. O. Smith, J.E. Wolff, A. H. Brooks, W.S.T. Smith, N.S. Shaler, and
G. K. Gilbert. Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the
Interior, 1896-1897: Part II - Papers Chiefly of a Theoretical Nature. Annual Report 18-2.

31
At the turn of the century, the city of fifty-thousand people no longer relied on the
river nor the acequias for its water supply.119 Porter explains that, “Pure water was no
longer available from the river in reliable quantity to meet the city’s needs, and its needs
were growing by leaps and bounds.”120 Instead the waterworks company pumped water
from the Edwards Aquifer, but not without serious consequences. Local springs, which
were also fed by the Edwards Aquifer, were run completely dry and the flow of the San
Antonio River waned significantly. Brackenridge, in a letter to a friend in 1897 wrote, “I
have seen this bold, bubbling laughing river dwindle and fade away. It is now only a little
rivulet, whose flow a fern leaf could stop and its water are hardly enough to quench the
thirst of a red bird. This river is my child and it is dying, and I cannot stay here to see its
last gasps. It is probably the sinking of many artesian wells.”121 Subsequently,
Brackenridge sold his waterworks shares to other investors and established a riverfront
park, donating two hundred acres of riverfront land.122
Two decades later, in 1920, the City finally purchased the private San Antonio
Water Works Company and established the City Water Board.123 Efforts to institute a
public system, however, progressed very slowly. Forty years passed before the Water
Board created a citywide water-distribution system.124 Historian David Johnson notes
that during this period in San Antonio while private investment in the city was welcomed,
public investment lagged far behind.125 He writes, the City “did nothing to promote or to
provide for it.”126
119 Porter, Spanish Water, 115.
120 Porter, Spanish Water, 115.
121 Bobbie Whitten Morgan, “George W. Brackenridge and His Control of the San Antonio Water Supply,
1869-1905” (master's thesis, Trinity University, 1961), 101 as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 61.
122 Miller, San Antonio, 61.
123 Miller, San Antonio, 61.
124 Miller, San Antonio, 61.
125 Miller, San Antonio, 61.
126 David R. Johnson, “Frugal and Sparing: Interest Groups, Politics and City Building in San Antonio,
1870-85,” in Charm Miller and Heywood T. Sanders, eds., Urban Texas: Politics and Development
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1990), 55.

32
FLOODING IN THE SAN ANTONO RIVER
The earliest recorded hundred-year-flood event in San Antonio occurred in 1819.
In his book, American Venice: The Epic Story of San Antonio’s River, Fisher reports, “...
a culebrad de agua—a serpent of water or cloudburst—fell into the drainage area of
Olmos Creek. Waters surged into the San Antonio River, already swollen by rain. They
joined floodwaters overflowing San Pedro Creek and rampaged through Main and
Military Plaza, washing away a dozen adobe and stone buildings.”127 Tragically, sixteen
people died. Then Governor Antonio Martínez stated of the flood that “no special
incident has occurred in this province under my command so terrible that no object
could resist its fury.”128 He continued, admitting it “was impossible to give immediate
aid to the miserable souls who struggled against death because no one could do
anything except look out for himself.”129 The 1819 storm destroyed bridges, government
offices including important documents, residential property, and agricultural lands.130
Governor Martínez pleaded with his superiors to send supplies or resources, but
Commandant General Arredondo apparently sent no money or aid, revealing the
disorder of New Spain at the time.131
In 1845, another flood struck San Antonio. Mayor Edward Dwyer proposed
constructing an ambitious dam near the mouth of Olmos Creek to help contain torrential
floodwaters.132 Less than a decade later, in 1852, a severe storm caused the river to
surge eight feet above normal, flooding the city again. During the storm’s aftermath,
Mayor Dwyer's successor revisited the idea of building the Olmos Dam, however, still no
significant measures were taken by the city due to its high expense.
133
127 Fisher, American Venice, 15, 18.
128 Miller, San Antonio, 26.
129 Miller, San Antonio, 26.
130 Miller, San Antonio, 26.
131 Miller, San Antonio, 27.
132 Fisher, American Venice, 18.
133 Miller, San Antonio, 50.

33
As expected from the region’s history, San Antonio flooded once more on March
26, 1865.134 Driftwood piled up forming an informal dam, causing water to pool
downtown, and at least three people drowned (Figure 1.14). Miller reports, “By 1865,
many of the town’s nearly 10,000 residents no longer could accept this pattern of
destruction as a condition of living in the floodplain. They demanded action…”135 San
Antonio subsequently formed a study committee and hired three engineers to assess
the benefits of building a dam that would span Olmos Creek just north of its confluence
with the San Antonio River, as Mayor Dwyer had suggested two decades before.136
Instead of building the dam however, the committee chose less expensive methods to
manage potential flooding, such as removing obstructions in the floodplain.
134 Fisher, American Venice, 18.
135 Miller, San Antonio, 50.
136 Miller, San Antonio, 50.
Figure 1.14: A map of San Antonio de Bexar from 1836 by Andrew Jackson
Houston, illustrating the meandering path of the San Antonio River through
downtown. Source: Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

34
At the turn of the century, despite another moderate flood in 1903 and minimal
investment in flood control, Miller describes a strange calmness that fell over San
Antonio after a lengthy period of drought in the late 1800s.137 To illustrate the sentiment,
a journalist during this time wrote that, “every possible danger from the Olmos has been
averted merely by converting the hard unbroken prairie into cultivated fields. The man
who would venture to predict an overflow today would be called an idiot.”138 Due to the
effects of little rain and the rapid drilling of artesian wells, the San Antonio River’s flow
had slowed to a mere dribble.139 Fisher writes, “Downstream, the river dwindled to a
trickle through the slime of refuse no longer swept away by a swift current.”140
In 1913, however, an October storm delivered nine inches of rain to the region,
racing from Olmos Creek into the San Antonio River (Figure 1.15). Four people
drowned, reminding the city of the storm of 1865.141 Just two months later, still in the
midst of a citywide clean up from the October deluge, another series of storms flooded
San Antonio (Figure 1.16). The prevailing sense of calmness and apathy towards flood
control quickly dissipated.
The ensuing year, 1914, a notable storm year for Los Angeles as well, witnessed
yet another storm following the same path from Olmos Creek into the San Antonio
River. Within three hours, five inches of rain rushed through the town leaving behind a
trail of debris and sediment. An additional nine people drowned, and two thousand
residents lost their homes.142 These three consecutive disasters launched a second
flood study enlisting Rhode Island engineer Samuel M. Gray to assess the situation.
After his initial report, the city decided against supporting a more in-depth study of the
river conditions due to the engineer’s high fees.143
137 Miller, San Antonio, 64; Fisher, American Venice, 23.
138 San Antonio Express, July 15 1887, as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 64.
139 Morgan, “George W. Brackenridge and His Control of the San Antonio Water Supply,” 101 as cited in
Miller, San Antonio, 61.
140 Fisher, American Venice, 21.
141 San Antonio Express, October 3, 1913, as cited in Miller, San Antonio, 72.
142 Miller, San Antonio, 72.
143 Miller, San Antonio, 73; Fisher, American Venice, 41.

35
Figure 1.15: October storm floods East Houston Street, 1913. Source: General
Photograph Collection, UTSA Special Collections.
Figure 1.16: A flooded St. Mary’s street in December, 1913. Source: General
Photograph Collection, UTSA Special Collections.

36
In 1920, due to persistent flooding, San Antonio finally did complete a six-month
long hydrological analysis study with Boston firm Metcalf & Eddy to come up with a
lasting solution for the city.144 They recommended constructing a dam at Olmos Creek,
widening and deepening the channel downtown, and straightening the San Antonio
River at six strategic points through the city’s developing core, with an estimated project
cost of $4 million.145 They also suggested that all vegetation and trees be removed from
the banks, to prevent any obstructions to swift-moving flood waters. Obstacles in the
channel could result in water dragging or pooling and potentially overflowing into the
surrounding city. The San Antonio city commissioners adopted the firm’s suggestions in
December of 1920.146 Miller describes that, “Metcalf & Eddy, which had a good sense of
the community’s penny-pinching proclivities and its historical amnesia, warned against
inaction.” To illustrate, the Boston firm stated,
We doubt the citizens realize the ruinous loss which would result today
with the present condition of the river channels, from such a flood as of
that of a century ago (1819). When such a flood will recur, no man can
say. But that it will recur is certain… We counsel the wisdom of pushing
this work… while the memory of recent floods is vivid, lest the public mind
relapse into inaction in a false sense of security when the inevitable flood
shall come. We urge that your citizens shall remember that this flood is
just as likely to come next year as at any other time.147
Sufficiently forewarned, a mere nine months later, San Antonio would face the most
destructive storm in its history.148
Professor Miller states that, “Late in the evening of September 9, San Antonio
went under water. So did the other communities lying along the Texas Spring Line…
Farms, ranches, and feedlots were inundated. Houses and barns were swept off their
foundations and careened downstream” (Figure 1.17, 1.18, 1.19, 1.20, 1.21).149
144 Miller, San Antonio, 74; Lewis F. Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio],” Texas State
Historical Association, accessed October 4, 2023, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/sanantonio-river-walk-paseo-del-rio.
145 Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio].”
146 Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio].”
147 Fisher, American Venice, 51-53; Miller, San Antonio, 74.
148 Miller, San Antonio, 94.
149 Miller, San Antonio, 94.

37
Figure 1.17: The 1921 flood destroyed the South Alamo Street Bridge. Source: Ellsworth, C.
E. “The Floods in Central Texas in September, 1921.” Department of the Interior. United
States Geological Survey. Prepared for the State of Texas. 1923. 488.
Figure 1.18: Another destroyed bridge following the 1921 flood at Romana Street. Source: Ellsworth,
C. E. “The Floods in Central Texas in September, 1921.” Department of the Interior. United States
Geological Survey. Prepared for the State of Texas. 1923. 487.

38
Miller continues, “Upstream ditches and creeks rose swiftly and then slammed
into San Pedro Creek and the San Antonio River, which could not contain the turbulent
waters, sending wave after wave down alleys and avenues. The peculiar nature of the
city’s siting proved disastrous.”150 A ten-foot wall of water tore through the city’s
business district. A thousand acres of the city flooded and more than fifty people died,
most from the West Side of San Antonio, home to a Latino barrio.151 The San Antonio
Light on September 10, 1921 read, “Area two miles wide and six miles long in city swept
by most disastrous flood in San Antonio’s history, which comes without warning after
cloudburst in Olmos Valley… Estimates of loss of life vary from 100 to as high as 500…
Thousands rescued by police, firemen, soldiers, and volunteer workers… Funds
urgently needed.”152 The front page in the Austin American reported that the “placid
rivulet of water became a rushing torrent in less than half an hour.”153
150 Miller, San Antonio, 94.
151 Miller, San Antonio, 94; Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio].”
152 The San Antonio Light, “37 Bodies Found; Dead May Total 200 Property Loss Estimated 5 Million.
Relief Work Proceeds at Rapid Pace,” September 10, 1921, accessed October 3, 2023,
https://www.mysanantonio.com/150years/major-stories/article/The-1921-flood-caused-death-destructionnew-6177194.php.
153 Miller, San Antonio, 95; Gunn et al., “Cultural Benefits from Metropolitan River Recreation,” 11.
Figure 1.19: At the intersection of St. Mary’s and Travis Streets, following the 1921
Flood. Three men canoe in the street. Source: San Antonio Light Photograph
Collection, MS 359, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.

39
Figure 1.20: The extent of flooding in San Antonio from September 9-10, 1921 Source:
Ellsworth, C. E. “The Floods in Central Texas in September, 1921.” Department of the
Interior. United States Geological Survey. Prepared for the State of Texas. 1923. 489.
Figure 1.21: The Red Cross Headquarters at City Market in downtown San
Antonio following the 1921 San Antonio River flood. Source: Library of Congress.

40
The flood of 1921 was the tipping point for San Antonio. It took three years to
finalize the flood prevention plans and to approve $2.8 million in municipal bonds to
begin the project.154 The Olmos Dam, a structure measuring 1,900 feet in length (over
five football fields long) and 80 feet in height, was completed in 1926 (Figure 1.22). A
bypass channel which cut off a major bend in the meandering river running through
downtown San Antonio, dubbed the Great Bend, was finished in 1930 (Figure 1.23).
155
Samuel F. Crecelius, a retired colonel in the United States Army Corps of Engineers,
oversaw the project.156
154 Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio].”
155 Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio].”
156 Fisher, American Venice, 78.
Figure 1.22: The Olmos Dam was completed in 1926 to retain and control flood
waters emptying from the Olmos Creek into the San Antonio River. Photographed in
1928. Source: Library of Congress.

41
Figure 1.23: A bypass channel was built into 1930 to help mitigate the risk of flooding in downtown San
Antonio. Map by author.

42
SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES
Despite sharing historical similarities, flood control measures in San Antonio
differed greatly from strategies employed in Los Angeles. While the Los Angeles River
was engineered exclusively to channel water to the ocean, discussed further in Chapter
Three, the San Antonio River’s design fundamentally integrated social programming
and an aesthetic ambiance with extensive flood control measures to protect its
residents.157 Despite the significant loss of life and costly destruction caused by
numerous floods throughout San Antonio’s history, for over a century, several civic
groups and local leaders have continuously fought to protect their river.
In 1887, the San Antonio Express published an anonymous writer’s wishes for
the river to become a park. The author wrote that the riverbanks “could be converted
into flowerbeds, and pleasure boats [could] afford recreation to hundreds.” The writer
continued, “Many of our citizens are prone to look entirely upon the utility side of every
question, and the river as an ornament would be likely to excite ridicule, but… our river
would be the crown jewel of Texas,”—the same words are used to describe the San
Antonio River today.158 A couple of years later, the newly established Civic
Improvement Association, suspicious of tree trimmers damaging the large trees lining
the river’s banks, protested at city hall. As a result, city officials vowed “to beautify the
stream and protect it in every manner possible.”159 The following year, at the annual
spring festival, the spring festival’s chosen king, who typically made his ceremonious
arrival to the festival at the railroad station, made his grand entrance by boat as part of
the city’s inaugural river parade.160 During the same period, Park Commissioner Ludwig
Mahncke personally funded the planting of three-hundred cypress tree saplings along
157 Vincent Michael, interview, October 3, 2023; Louis Sahagún, “Steelhead Trout in the L.A. River?
These Experts Envision a Fish Passage Through Downtown,” Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2020.
158 San Antonio Express, “The San Antonio River,” August 23, 1887, 7, as cited in Fisher, American
Venice, 21.
159 Fisher, American Venice, 21. Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio].”
160 Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio]”; Mrs. Willard E. Simpson, Jr., “Fiesta San Antonio,”
Texas State Historical Association, 1979, updated September 1, 2023, accessed December 12, 2023,
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/fiesta-san-antonio. In the early years of the Spring Festival
tradition, also known as Fiesta San Antonio, the coronation of a king was an integral part of the week's
festivities. Initially, the kings were chosen by the Spring Carnival Association, the Downtown Business
Club, and the Chamber of Commerce.

43
the river’s course. With deep structural roots, these trees helped stabilize the
surrounding soils.161
The Civic Improvement Association continued their work, installing permanent
lighting and planting flowers along three sections of the San Antonio River. In 1910,
during a drought year, the association built a twenty-foot canoe as their float with a
banner that stated “What the Civic Improvement League is going to do with the San
Antonio River.”162 Concurrently, the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word
encouraged boating among their students and sought to maintain sufficient water levels
at the river’s headwaters (Figure 1.24).
Efforts to enhance the river aligned with the prevailing City Beautiful movement.
Popular in the early 1900s, the movement encouraged civic pride and participation and
advocated for a comprehensive approach to urban planning, highlighting the benefits of
community centers and parks.163 The movement originated following a significant period
of industrialization in the United States.164 The American League for Civic Improvement,

161 Fisher, American Venice, 25.
162 The San Antonio Light: “River Illumination,” April 23, 1910, 5, as cited in Fisher, American Venice, 27.
163 Ida Yalzadeh and Naomi Blumberg, “City Beautiful Movement,” Britannia, accessed October 4, 2023,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/City-Beautiful-movement. The City Beautiful Movement has since faced
criticism for prioritizing aesthetics over broader social and economic concerns, often neglecting the needs
of marginalized communities. 164 Jon A. Peterson, “The City Beautiful Movement,” Journal of Urban History 2, no. 4 (1976): 416.
Figure 1.24: A 1907 postcard features students boating in the San Antonio River near
campus. Source: Edwards Aquifer Website by Gregg Eckhardt, www.edwardsaquifer.net.

44
one of the leading national City Beautiful organizations defined its goals as “the
promotion of outdoor art, public beauty, town village, and neighborhood
improvement.”165 During this period, people were divided about what to do with the
downtown portion of the San Antonio River. On one end were individuals who
envisioned a beautified river complete with a shaded river walk, while on the other were
businessmen hoping to stimulate economic development. The latter group’s plan
involved paving over the river through downtown San Antonio, effectively transforming it
into an underground sewer while creating space for prime real estate on top.166 Both
daily newspapers endorsed the proponents of the River Walk. In 1911, for example, the
Express published, “Few cities possess so great a natural asset as a winding, treeshaded stream, such as the San Antonio River… [With] its banks beautified, dredged
and made a clear, swift stream as it was in the ‘the old days,’ it would be the chief factor
in the San Antonio Beautiful.”167 Simultaneously, certain businessmen released a study
completed by engineer William Simpson who outlined the possibilities of paving over the
Great Bend downtown and constructing an underground conduit. Filling in the river
would create a stretch of land seventy feet wide and over a mile-long suitable for
development.168 Both plans gained national attention as tensions escalated between
those who favored a utilitarian approach and those who sought a more aesthetic future
for the river.169
In response to the report, on September 26, 1911, three dozen residents
organized at the Chamber of Commerce headquarters, establishing the San Antonio
River Improvement Association. The City Federation of Women’s Clubs also endorsed
the beautification efforts, eager to see the river flowing once again. Due to these group’s
efforts, Mayor Bryan Callaghan approved a fifty-horsepower pump at an abandoned
artesian well.170 Pumping 1,500 gallons a minute from the well into the river, water
gradually soaked into the riverbed’s deep crevices and cracks. On October 22, 1911, an
165 Peterson, “The City Beautiful Movement,” 423; “Successful Civic Beauty Rally,” Home and Flower 10
(September 1901): 9.
166 Miller, San Antonio, 74; Fisher, American Venice, 30.
167 Fisher, American Venice, 30.
168 Fisher, American Venice, 31.
169 Miller, San Antonio, 75. 170 Fisher, American Venice, 32. The water from this particular abandoned artesian well no longer
sufficiently flowed to the surface on its own and required a pump.

45
Express journalist reported that the new water “brought out the greenness and changed
the appearance of everything in this valley.”171 The following year, the newly elected
Mayor Augustus H. Jones prioritized beautifying the river and the city at the top of his
agenda. One of San Antonio’s most well-known architects, Alfred Giles envisioned the
river as a landscaped promenade with concrete walls and terraced banks adorned with
flowers and trees. The Civic Improvement League’s director T. Noah Smith asserted
that “No city plan will be complete that does not include space along its banks for
flowers, colonnades, pergolas, etc.”172 The mayor appointed architect Atlee B. Ayres to
lead the City Plan Committee. Only four days after Ayres’ appointment, the committee
endorsed architect Harvey L. Page’s plan to both line a thirteen-mile stretch of the
riverbed with concrete and add a series of bridges and dams to help maintain the river’s
water level. The Express supported the committee’s recommendations. To demonstrate
their commitment to the river, one of their headlines read: “City Beautiful in Sight.”173
River Commissioner George Surkey, a proponent for shops and colorful lights at
the river level, carried out the first major phase of the beautification efforts. He led the
effort to standardize the river’s width in the downtown core and lined the banks with low
concrete-covered rock walls, known as the “Surkey’s Sea Wall” (Figure 1.25).174 He
also sought the use of a second artesian well to increase the river’s flow. The Chamber
of Commerce’s promotion booklet of 1915 celebrated the river's “blue waters rippling
between banks that are being parked into green esplanades of flowering shrubs and
plants.”175
171 San Antonio Express, “Irrigation Ditches Dry,” October 22, 1911, 39-B, as cited in Fisher, American
Venice, 32.
172 The San Antonio Light, “The San Antonio River,” August 18, 1887, 4, as cited in Fisher, American
Venice, 33.
173 San Antonio Express, “Plan to Change,” September 6, 1912, 14; San Antonio Express, “San Antonio
River,” September 8, 1912, 1, as cited in Fisher, American Venice, 34.
174 Fisher, American Venice, 34.
175 Fisher, American Venice, 45.

46
In 1919, as the river beautification project gained traction, Architectural Record
sent reporter I. T. Fray from New York to San Antonio to review the city’s progress. He
writes,
Few municipalities recognize the possibilities for civic improvement, which
are to be found in even a small stream of water. Fewer still develop these
possibilities when they are recognized. Occasionally there is a city,
however, in which a stream is appreciated and is regarded as something
more than part of a drainage system. Among these may be recorded the
name of San Antonio, Texas… The average City Council would have built
an intercepting sewer, the stream would have disappeared from view and
the city would have become as commonplace as any other good hustling,
enterprising town…. Winding about as it does, it passes under a myriad of
bridges, each bridge affording the passersby delightful vistas of fresh
green foliage and quiet waters, a welcome relief from the torrid heat and
scorching sun of southern summer days.176
176 I. T. Frary, “The River of San Antonio,” Architectural Record, April 1919, 380-381, as cited in Fisher,
American Venice, 46-47.
Figure 1.25: A hand-colored photograph of “Surkey’s Sea Walls.”
Source: www.edwardsaquifer.net.

47
Through the 1910s, residents persisted in their efforts to protect their river. When the
Fiesta de San Jacinto Association’s yearly tree decorating permit was denied, as there
would be “nothing to decorate but the walls” due to the recommended removal of all
vegetation, San Antonians jumped into action.177 One protester, quoted in the Express,
stated, “I think that the man who would lift an ax to remove the beautiful old trees and
landmarks along the San Antonio River should be ostracized from the community.” The
next day, the mayor and parks commissioner told the public that they would find another
way to manage flooding.178
However, as previously discussed, the devastating flood of 1921 challenged the
river’s fate, serving as the ultimate catalyst for greater flood control measures.179 Still,
Mayor John W. Tobin assured the city, “The river is one of San Antonio’s real assets,
and we are to develop plans that will make it a thing of beauty and something visitors
will remember and comment on long after their leave.”180 The newly formed San
Antonio Conservation Society vigorously advocated to preserve the city’s natural
beauty, as well.181 To support the efforts, the Conservation Society organized a boat
ride through the river with Mayor Tobin, Park Commissioner Ray Lambert and project
lead, Samuel Crecelius. During the two-hour boat ride, Crecelius explained that the
large trees could lead to further flooding issues. Margaret Lewis, the Society’s Chairman
of Natural Beauty and the president of the Battle of Flowers Association apparently
yelled in reference to a cottonwood, “That does NOT have to go.”182 The city’s new
flood engineer suggested an alternative to wide-spread tree removal: building a 650-
foot-long underground box culvert to carry overflow water past the Great Bend
downtown.183 Author of the “San Antonio Conservation Society Newsletter” in
September 1966, Emily Edwards stated that saving the cottonwood was the San
Antonio Conservation Society’s first victory.184
177 Fisher, American Venice, 45.
178 Fisher, American Venice, 54.
179 Fisher, American Venice, 75.
180 Fisher, American Venice, 80.
181 Gunn et al., “Cultural Benefits from Metropolitan River Recreation,” 10.
182 Lewis Fisher, Saving San Antonio: The Precarious Preservation of a Heritage (Lubbock, Texas: Texas
Tech University Press, 1996), 183. Fisher, American Venice, 81.
183 Fisher, American Venice, 82.
184 Fisher, Saving San Antonio, 183.

48
Over the next several years, as mayorship of San Antonio continued to change
hands, debates over the width of the channel would ensue. The businessmen also
reintroduced their idea of paving over the Great Bend (sometimes referred to as the Big
Bend or Horseshoe Bend), citing that the covered riverbed could be sold for between $2
million and almost $15 million.185 Again, the civic clubs, particularly several women’s
clubs, opposed the plan. In support of the civic groups, the new mayor C. M. Chambers
declared, “As long as I am in this office, the Big Bend Channel will never be filled up. I
am absolutely against abandoning the river. In my opinion the San Antonio River is the
biggest asset of this city.”186
Construction of the cutoff channel to divert flood waters away from the Great
Bend and downtown resumed in March 1929.187 To create the cutoff channel, certain
historic buildings, such as the 1855 French Building located in the path of the future
channel, needed to be sacrificed. Limestone blocks from the demolished structure were
used to line sections of the riverbanks.188 The construction crews initially used concrete,
but Mayor Chambers called the new channel “one of the biggest eyesores of the city.”
Subsequently, he dismissed the operating planning firm and ordered the city engineer to
build a wider channel with dirt instead. Quoted in the Express, Mayor Chambers
exclaimed, “Dig to Hades! I had rather spend a half million dollars beautifying this river
than a million dollars making it a concrete-lined sewer.”189 City Hall rejected both
Crecelius’ proposal to line the river with concrete and Metcalf & Eddy’s idea to
straighten and widen the entire channel. This was a big win for the conservationists who
wanted to maintain the beauty of their natural river.
Just a few months later, however, the battle between developers and
conservationists persisted. The Swiss Plaza Company proposed the construction of two
identical sixteen-story towers, necessitating tree clearing and the straightening of a river
bend. In response, the Woman’s Club, the Conservation Society and a committee
formed from the Federation of Women’s Clubs formally filed protests with City Hall,
185 Fisher, American Venice, 83; Emily Edwards, “The San Antonio Conservation Society and the River,”
San Antonio Conservation Society Newsletter, September 1966.
186 Fisher, American Venice, 84.
187 Fisher, American Venice, 86.
188 Fisher, American Venice, 86.
189 Fisher, Saving San Antonio, 191. Fisher, American Venice, 86.

49
stating their “united opposition” to any modifications to the river’s course upstream.190
With major concessions, the Swiss Plaza Company’s plans were eventually approved,
but because of the imminent Great Depression, their plans quickly fell into disarray.191
Historian Fisher states, “As the 1920s passed and flood control elements took final
form, public attention was shifting from “Where should the river go?” back to “How
should the river look?”192 This shift in mindset marked another significant victory for the
conservationists. Though a long challenging road filled with conflict lay ahead, a linear
river park would eventually be established.
THE RIVER PARK
By the end of 1929, two competing concepts for the river emerged. Harland
Bartholomew and Associates, the nation’s top urban planning firm at the time who also
co-wrote a 1930 plan for Los Angeles, proposed a linear pastoral park along the river
with all commercial activity confined to the street level. Their intention was to preserve a
bit of tranquility amidst an otherwise bustling city.193 Robert H. H. Hugman, a young
architect who had just returned to San Antonio from New Orleans, had a very different
idea.194 He believed the river could serve as the vibrant heart of the city, featuring
commercial buildings along its banks as well as the street level. Historian Fisher writes
of Hugman’s position, “If New Orleans could capitalize on its French heritage, why
shouldn’t San Antonio benefit along the river by drawing on its Spanish heritage?”195
Drawing inspiration from the old cities of Spain and Mexico City, he named his proposed
colorful downtown core “Shops of Aragon and Romula,”' and envisioned a busy river
filled with people shopping, dancing, and dining (Figure 1.26). Mayor Chambers
appreciated Hugman’s ambition, stating that the plan would be “a municipal
190 San Antonio Express, “Women’s Clubs to Oppose,” September 8, 1929, 28, as cited in Fisher,
American Venice, 88.
191 The San Antonio Light, “City Accepts Swiss Plaza,” January 27, 1930, 1, as cited in Fisher, American
Venice, 88.
192 Fisher, American Venice, 88.
193 Fisher, American Venice, 97.
194 Gunn et al., “Cultural Benefits from Metropolitan River Recreation,” 10.
195 Fisher, American Venice, 91.

50
improvement that will do much to preserve the enthusiastic support of our loyal
citizenship.”196
After some dispute, Hugman’s proposal was ultimately deemed an “idle dream”
and instead, Bartholomew and his firm produced a four-hundred-page report with the
last section titled, “Proposed Treatment of the San Antonio River in the Central
Business District.”197 Bartholomew imagined tall evergreen cypresses, date and banana
palms and only a few benches placed along the riverbanks for very moderate
recreation. The proposal, however, was formally published in March 1933 during the
peak of the Great Depression, which had pushed an already toiling San Antonio into a
deep economic slump.
196 C. M. Chambers, “To Whom It May Concern,” May 29, 1929, as cited in Fisher, American Venice, 94.
197 Fisher, American Venice, 95-96; Harland Bartholomew, and Associates. A Comprehensive City Plan
For San Antonio (St. Louis: 1933). Hugman’s proposal was called an “idle dream” by Newton H. White,
the chairman for the City Plan Committee.
Figure 1.26: Hugman’s 1929 plan for the Great Bend of the San Antonio River including
shops and hotel at river level. Source: Photo by author of a sign on the River Walk.

51
Even still, three years later and well into the Great Depression, the city continued
to celebrate its river, hosting a fiesta river parade. The excitement generated from this
event eventually led the construction of the River Walk. Enthralled by the parade,
businessman Jack White resurfaced Hugman’s plans, and Hugman revised his proposal
which included stone pathways, limestone walls, and the Arneson River Theater (Figure
1.27). White declared of the architect’s recommendations, “The committee believes that
the river can be made the outstanding beauty spot of this country. Other cities can have
beautiful parks, great zoos, magnificent stadiums and other attractions, but we know of
no city that has a beauty spot as we propose to make the river.”198 Subsequently, Mayor
Maury Maverick channeled almost half a million dollars of Work Progress Administration
(WPA) funding into the long discussed River Walk project.
199 In 1938, the initial funds
were committed to “river beautification” from a WPA grant, coinciding with the same
year of the great flood of 1938 in Los Angeles.200 Construction in San Antonio on the
initial portion of the River Walk began in 1939.
198 Fisher, American Venice, 105.
199 Miller, San Antonio, 113; Gunn et al., “Cultural Benefits from Metropolitan River Recreation,” 11.
200 Harrison Price Company, “A Study of Historic Development of San Antonio’s River Walk” (1994),
Harrison “Buzz” Price Papers, University of Central Florida, 1.
Figure 1.27: Section of Hugman’s Arneson River Theatre depicting an outdoor
amphitheater on one bank of the river and a stage on the opposite bank. Source: Library
of Congress.

52
SELECTING THEIR RIVER AS HERITAGE
Choosing to select different aspects of the San Antonio River’s heritage such as
its aesthetic appeal in the 1920s and 30s caused a domino effect that influenced
subsequent improvement efforts and master plans in the region. Over the ensuing
decades, the San Antonio River Walk and its network of pathways and bridges have
been maintained, enhanced, and extended on multiple occasions. While the River Walk
received minimal attention in its first two decades following its initial construction, the
Chamber of Commerce established the Paseo Del Rio Association in 1964. The
Association’s mission statement included ecology and heritage as two of their primary
goals: 1. “Protect the environmental integrity of the San Antonio River by working in
cooperation with the Department of Parks and Recreation and the San Antonio River
Authority.” And 2. “Preserve the charm and historic significance of the River Walk
Architecture by working closely with the Historic Design and Review Committee and the
San Antonio Conservation Society.”201
In the late 1960s, the Walk Advisory Commission and the Tourist Attraction
Committee commissioned the Paseo Del Rio Master Plan. As a result, the River Walk
was expanded to connect to the Tower of Americas, a 750-foot-tall observation tower, in
preparation for the HemisFair ’68, an international exposition commemorating San
Antonio’s 250th anniversary.202 In 1973, the city published the River Corridor Feasibility
Study, which established long term river objectives and supported the preliminary
planning for the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park.203 In 1981, a pedestrian
walkway connecting the Alamo Plaza and the River Walk opened to the public,
prioritizing the city’s native planting palette.204 By 1992, any new construction on the
River Walk needed approval from the Board of Directors for the Department of
Planning, Historic Preservation and Urban Design Division. John M. Keeling’s 1994
report, “A Study of Historic Development of San Antonio’s River Walk,” states, “The
201 Harrison Price Company, “A Study of Historic Development of San Antonio’s River Walk" (1994), 5.
202 "Tower of the Americas,” https://www.toweroftheamericas.com/history/, accessed December 18, 2023.
Harrison Price Company, “A Study of Historic Development of San Antonio’s River Walk" (1994), 2; "Brief
History of the San Antonio River Authority,” San Antonio River Authority, accessed December 18, 2023.
204 Scott Huddleston, “‘Vital’ Link between Alamo and River Walk to Get a Major Do-Over,” San Antonio
Express News, December 18, 2023, https://www.expressnews.com/news/texas/article/alamo-river-walkpaseo-18512107.php.

53
purpose of having such a Board is to protect the park like setting and historical heritage
from development that would be inconsistent with the rest of the River Walk.”205
In 1998, Bexar County, the City of San Antonio, and the San Antonio River
Authority formed the San Antonio River Oversight Committee (SAROC) to identify
potential areas for river improvement and revitalization.206 In 2001, SAROC published
the San Antonio River Improvements Project Concept Design with the SWA Group, a
landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm. The Master Plan imagined a
four-mile extension known as the Museum Reach to the north and a nine-mile extension
called the Historical Mission Reach to the south.207 The guiding design principals
consisted of three major components: “hydrology, nature, and people.” One of the plan’s
guidelines states, “Design solutions will enhance the appreciation of the river’s historic
significance in the life and development of San Antonio.” The plan also ensures, “A key
goal of the Master Plan is to not compromise the current floodwater capacity of the river
and to increase it, if possible.” 208 The city opened the Museum Reach in 2009 and the
Mission Reach in 2011. The entire project amounted to almost $400 million.
Today, the San Antonio River comprises a sixteen-mile linear park, equipped
with an array of extensive flood control measures, running through the city’s urban core.
A. Gunn, D. J. Reed, and R. E. Couch in their 1970-1972 report for the Texas Water
Resources Institute, “Cultural Benefits from Metropolitan River Recreation—San
Antonio Prototype” wrote that the San Antonio River was “an outstanding design and
development of a park-business complex along a natural river in the heart of a major
city.”209 They continue, “a small amount of water can become a powerful social force,”
and the river “is an object of great pride, intensive use, and strong social value for both
citizens and visitors.” While fully functioning as a flood control channel, San Antonio
serves as a compelling case study as a city that embraced both its river and its river’s
aesthetic heritage.
205 Harrison Price Company, “A Study of Historic Development of San Antonio’s River Walk” (1994), 4.
206 SWA Group, “San Antonio River Improvement Project Concept Design: Design Guidelines,” prepared
for Bexar County, the City of San Antonio, the San Antonio River Authority, and San Antonio River
Oversight Committee (July 2001), 6.
207 SWA Group, “San Antonio River Improvement Project Concept Design: Design Guidelines” (2001), 6.
208 SWA Group, “San Antonio River Improvement Project Concept Design: Design Guidelines” (2001), 17.
209 Gunn et al., “Cultural Benefits from Metropolitan River Recreation,” 1.

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CHAPTER TWO: WALKING THE SAN ANTONIO RIVER
From September 29 through October 1, 2023, I spent three days walking along
the San Antonio River with photographer Rio Asch Phoenix. Our focus area
encompassed the river’s confluence with Olmos Creek and continued to the southern
end of the Mission Reach, concluding at the Espada Mission, nearly sixteen miles south
of the river’s headwater spring. This chapter intends to take the reader on a journey,
offering my firsthand experience of what it feels like to walk the San Antonio River in
2023. From the foundation of Chapter One, which delves into the history of the San
Antonio River, I aim to illustrate how decisions made during the early twentieth century
as well as the city’s early emphasis on preserving its river as heritage have materialized
on the ground roughly a century later. Although I had studied San Antonio's river history
and had collected hundreds of current and historic photographs of the river, I had never
visited the city prior to this study. I was excited to explore a landscape that was entirely
new to me, yet strangely familiar due to my research.
On our walk, we carried essential items in our backpacks including water,
snacks, sunscreen, our phones, notebooks, and two cameras, one digital and one film.
We photographed anything that captured our attention and documented our
conversations with the people we encountered along with any sudden realizations that
occurred during our walk. I focused specifically on flood control infrastructure, access
points, and moments celebrating heritage. Temperatures averaged in the high eighties.
OUR ROUTE
• September 29: We walked from Brackenridge Park along the Museum
Reach through the historic Great Bend, a total of 8.55 miles.
• September 30: We walked from the southern end of the Great Bend to the
Espada Mission, a total of 12.49 miles.
• October 1: We returned north and explored the Olmos Dam and the San
Antonio River’s headwater springs including the Blue Hole.

55
Using the Strava app, we recorded our exact route (Figure 2.1). For clarity and to
prevent confusion, although we explored the headwaters of the San Antonio River on
our last day, I will discuss our walk proceeding from the Olmos Dam and the headwater
springs to the Espada Mission, sixteen miles downstream. Crisscrossing the river
repeatedly, from September 29 to 30, we covered slightly more than twenty-one miles
on foot.
Figure 2.1: Our walking route following the first sixteen miles of the San Antonio River
from September 29 - October 1, 2023. Map by author.

56
DAY ONE: OLMOS DAM AND THE SAN ANTONIO RIVER’S HEADWATER
SPRINGS
We began our day at Olmos Dam, about four miles north of San Antonio’s
downtown. The dam, constructed between 1925 and 1927 following the destructive
flood of 1921, appears like a concrete mountain and opens up to an incongruously
manicured turf grass field with a sampling of trees (Figure 2.2). The concrete is a rich
smattering of yellowish-gray. Completely smooth from end to end, the wall is far too
steep to climb. Despite my curiosity to see what lay behind the dam, Rio and I refrained
from attempting the ascent. A chain-link fence blocks off pedestrian access to the water
(Figure 2.3 and 2.4). The south side of Olmos Dam marks the very beginning of the San
Antonio River, lined with thick concrete walls. The river floor retains a soft, muddy
bottom, abundant with vegetation (Figure 2.5).
Walking south and descending a hill, we reached the Blue Hole located on the
University of the Incarnate Word’s campus (Figure 2.6). Rising from the Edwards
Aquifer, the Blue Hole is the largest spring that feeds the San Antonio River. In 1857,
Frederick Law Olmsted described his astonishment of the spring. He wrote, “… It is
beyond your possible conceptions of a spring. You cannot believe your eyes, and
almost shrink from sudden metamorphosis by invaded nymphdom.”
210 When we visited,
the stone-lined well and the creek bed had both run dry, but the surrounding area was
lush and green (Figure 2.7).
210 Gregg Eckhardt, “San Antonio Springs and Brackenridge Park,” The Edwards Aquifer Website,
accessed November 8, 2023, https://www.edwardsaquifer.net/saspring.htm; Frederick L. Olmsted,
Journey Through Texas, A Saddle-trip on the Southwestern Frontier (Reprinted, UT Press, Austin, 1978).

57
Figure 2.2: Looking north-east towards Olmos Dam. The towering structure spans 1900-feet.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

58
Figure 2.3: The Olmos Dam was completed in 1927 to mitigate flooding downstream. Just past the
concrete barrier and chain-link fence, the land descends, and the river begins its course. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

59
Figure 2.4: A chain-link fence blocks pedestrian access to the water. Photo
by author.
Figure 2:5: Abundant vegetation grows from the San Antonio River’s muddy,
soft bottom. Photo by author.

60
Figure 2.6: Rising from the Edwards Aquifer, the Blue Hole is one of the largest
springs that feeds the San Antonio River. Photo by author.
Figure 2.7: While the Blue Hole spring was dry when we visited, the
ground just downstream of the spring was muddy and cracked.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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DAY TWO: BRACKENRIDGE PARK TO THE GREAT BEND
We began our day at the northern edge of Brackenridge Park, a sprawling 349-
acre site, recognized as a Texas State Antiquities Landmark and listed in the National
Register of Historic Places in 2011. 211 In 1899, George W. Brackenridge, former
president of the San Antonio Water Works Company, donated over half of the acreage
that now constitutes the current riverside park.
Brackenridge Park
We followed the river trail within the park, meandered down River Road, and
briefly lost our way within the Brackenridge Park Golf Course during an all-women's
golfing tournament. Brackenridge Park was filled with wandering children wearing
backpacks accompanied by their parents and their teachers. A man camped at one of
the picnic tables neighboring the river asked us if it was Friday, and we told him that it
was. Large oak trees shade the decomposed-granite river path, while stone vertical
walls line the riverbanks. Passive programming includes stone benches arranged to
create an informal amphitheater (Figure 2.8), pedestrian bridges enabling visitors to
approach the water, and numerous picnic tables on circular concrete slabs, each with
their own trash and recycling receptacle (Figure 2.9). After a little while, the path turns to
concrete. I found myself particularly drawn to the moments where the river’s
infrastructure leads visitors right to the water’s edge, seemingly asking them to reach
out and dip a hand in (Figure 2.10), despite red and brown signs dug into the ground
every hundred feet or so explicitly prohibiting swimming and wading in the river (Figure
2.11). There is no lack of flood control infrastructure in the park; small check dams and
strategically positioned stones slow the velocity of the river’s flow (Figure 2.12). During
211 Brackenridge Park Conservancy, “History of the Park,” accessed October 30, 2023,
https://www.brackenridgepark.org/visit-the-park/history-of-the-park; Texas Historical Commission, "Details
for Brackenridge Park (Atlas Number 2011000513)," Texas Historic Sites Atlas, accessed October 30,
2023, https://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/Details/2011000513. In 1899, George Brackenridge donated 199-acres
of the current 349-acres in hopes to establish a riverfront park. The park is recognized under Criteria A, C
and D for historic events, design/architecture and information potential/archeology respectively.

62
our visit, ducks gathered within the pooling water and rested on the evenly spaced
stones (Figure 2.13); we watched as children pondered the ducks curiously.
Figure 2.8: An informal amphitheater inside Brackenridge Park along the
San Antonio River. Photo by author.
Figure 2.9: There are numerous picnic tables with accompanying
trashcans and recycling receptacles within Brackenridge Park. Photo by
author.

63
Figure 2.10: An example of infrastructure within the park that bring visitors directly to
the water’s edge. Photo by author.
Figure 2.11: No swimming or wading signs are scattered throughout the park.
Photo by author.

64
Figure 2.12: Strategically placed stones, attenuation structures, slow the water down.
Photo by author.
Figure 2.13: Several ducks grazed in the pooling waters. Photo by author.

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Early in the morning, we crossed Brackenridge Park Bridge, which was
constructed in 1890 (Figure 2.14). Maps and informational signage are abundant in the
park. The first sign we saw was titled “San Antonio River” and provided us with a very
brief history of the surrounding region, including a historic picture of the river channel
under construction. The caption read “Stone retaining walls were built by the WPA to
prevent erosion and channel flood waters in the upper park of Brackenridge Park. The
natural channel has been preserved in the southern part of the park” (Figure 2.15) 212
The river trail continues through a tunnel under Highway 281, but “due to construction
until further notice,” we had to navigate around the freeway to reconnect with the river
on East Josephine Street (Figure 2.16). 213 The San Antonio River Tunnel Inlet Facility
and the Flood Control Tunnel Inlet Park are just south of Highway 281. Completed in
December of 1997, through a joint effort by Martin K. Ebay Construction Company, Inc,
the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and the San Antonio River Authority, a
diversion tunnel, twenty-four feet wide and constructed one-hundred-fifty feet
underground, carries excess water from the river three miles southward to help manage
flooding within downtown San Antonio. 214 From this point on through the city’s urban
core and along the Museum Reach, completed in 2009, the river’s water levels are
carefully managed, and pedestrians have the choice to either walk at street level or
along the concrete-lined riverbank several feet below.
212 Sign along the San Antonio River.
213 Sign along the San Antonio River.
214 San Antonio River Authority, “San Antonio River Tunnel,” accessed October 30, 2023,
https://www.sariverauthority.org/services/flood-management/engineering-projects/san-antonio-rivertunnel.

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Figure 2.14: The Historic Brackenridge Park Bridge was constructed in 1890. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

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Figure 2.15: The San Antonio River is unchannelized through the Brackenridge Park Golf Course,
allowing it to flood the surrounding region. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 2.16: The River Walk was closed underneath Highway 281. Photo by author.

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The Historic Pearl
As one walks along the San Antonio River, the pedestrian experience is varied.
While the concrete pathway runs mostly adjacent to the river on both sides, several
platforms extend into the river, offering spaces to sit closer to the water (Figure 2.17).
This region of the river is heavily landscaped. Both formal and informal planter beds line
the River Walk with towering cypress trees overhead (Figure 2.18). Early in the day, we
passed by the Pearl Brewing Company, originally founded in 1883, and since
transformed into a twenty-three-acre mixed-use development space (Figure
2.19).215 Spanning the entire site, the former brewery’s infrastructure has been
repurposed at multiple scales for reuse as restaurants, fountains, and planters. Another
informal amphitheater, built in 2011, sits right at the water’s edge in front of the old
brewery. Visitors can access the Historic Pearl from both the street above and the river
below.
Throughout the morning, we passed by several people jogging or walking their
dogs. Noticing a considerable ten or fifteen-degree temperature difference at river level,
we discussed how pleasant it was to walk along the San Antonio River repeatedly. At
nearly every bend, there are additional benches for resting or new signs for reading
(Figure 2.20). Each bridge is distinctly marked with the street name above, assisting
visitors with navigation (Figure 2.21), and overhead lighting spaced about fifty feet apart
illuminates the channel at night. Apartments and hotels with balconies, oriented to face
the water, offer scenic views of the river for both visitors and residents.
The San Antonio River Foundation pays special attention to underpasses
experienced by pedestrians while walking along the river. Under Highway 35, for
example, artist Donald Lipski designed and fabricated twenty-five seven-foot-long-eared
sunfish, which hang underneath the freeway bridge and light up at night (Figure 2.22).
The artwork was installed in 2009 and was made possible through private donations to
the San Antonio River Foundation. 216 The water reflects each fish, native to the San
Antonio River.
215 Pearl, “The Legacy Lives,” accessed October 30, 2023, https://atpearl.com/about/history/.
216 Sign along the San Antonio River.

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Figure 2.17: There are several places to sit along the River Walk. Photo by author.
Figure 2.18: The landscape balances both formal and informal planting. Photo by author.

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Figure 2.19: The Historic Pearl, a mixed development site, repurposes the Pearl Brewing Company
through adaptive reuse. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 2.20: Small seating areas are dispersed all along the River Walk. Photo by
author.
Figure 2.21: Each bridge is marked with the street name above. Photo by author.

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Figure 2.22: Artist Donald Lipski crafted twenty-five sunfish that suspend underneath Highway 35 and
light up at night. Photo by author.

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South of Highway 35
While walking, I was struck by the range of colors we observed, especially how
green it was along the river’s edge. Vegetation drapes over the concrete retaining walls,
and purple and yellow flowers are abundant. We noticed several wayfinding markers,
including mile markers set into the concrete walkway, brown metal River Walk signs
identifying significant streets or landmarks above, and detailed mosaics embedded into
the channel walls. Some of the mosaics are more decorative while others illustrate a
story or a specific moment in San Antonio’s history. We strolled past the VFW Post 76
Sam Houston Post, a large white and stone Queen Anne style house featuring a twolevel porch (Figure 3.14). Also known as the Petty House, it is listed as both a San
Antonio Historical landmark and a Texas State Historical landmark, recognized as the
last remaining house of the pre-1900 neighborhood, Milam Bend. The VFW Post was
founded in 1917 by Spanish American War veterans, and now functions as a gathering
space with a stage adjacent to the river. 217
217 Veterans of Foreign Wars, “VFW Post 76,” accessed October 30, 2023,
https://vfwpost76.org/di/vfw/v2/default.asp?nid=1.
Figure 2.23: VFW Post 76 Sam Houston Post along the San Antonio River. Photo
by author.

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Completed in 2009, the San Antonio River Lock & Dam is just southwest of “The
Oldest Post in Texas” and allows boats to travel further upstream. 218 The dam’s gates
operate by either opening or closing in order to maintain the water levels required for
boat travel. 219 With two locks, two boats can successfully travel upstream and
downstream at the same time. We observed a lone individual wearing a blue shirt and a
sun hat operating the lock system traveling northeast upriver (Figure 2.24). Amenities
next to the dam include a public restroom and a shaded pavilion featuring a compasslike mosaic embedded into the concrete ground. A short distance downstream, an
intricate mosaic beneath St. Mary’s Street maps out the five San Antonio missions and
the neighboring San Antonio River (Figure 2.25). The tiles are blue, white, green, and
yellow—despite the prevalence of concrete, the channel walls often exhibit moments of
color.
218 Sign along the San Antonio River.
219 Sign along the San Antonio River.

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Figure 2.24: A river boat heads upstream through the San Antonio River Lock & Dam. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 2.25: A detailed mosaic beneath St. Mary's Street depicts the five San Antonio missions and
the San Antonio River. Photo by author.

78
I found the “little infrastructure” we observed along the way particularly exciting.
Rainbow tiles and stone line the drainage ditches and outlets, each serving as small
moments of celebration and demonstrating an acute attention to detail. I appreciated
this personal touch in what could otherwise be overlooked infrastructure, designed to be
somewhat invisible. Elements such as alternating patterns within the river path or
concrete molded to look like opened seashells were welcomed and surprising (Figure
2.26). A rescue ladder integrated into a stone retaining wall that separated the river
level from the street level, reminded me that we were indeed in a box channel (Figure
2.27). 220 Even with the diversion tunnel, safety measures such as ladders are
necessary in case flood waters ever rush through this portion of the river again, and
people need to escape the channel quickly.
220 In urban areas, the box channel is widely used for flood control. Its rectangular shape is designed to
effectively manage and control water flow.
Figure 2.26: An elaborately detailed storm
drain. Photo by author.
Figure 2.27: A rescue ladder integrated
into the retaining wall. Photo by author.

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The Great Bend
As the concrete pathway turns to limestone, we approached the historic River
Walk and the Great Bend, conceived by architect Robert H. H. Hugman in the early to
mid-1900s and built in the late 1930s and early 1940s. 221 The Great Bend was
intentionally cut off from the main river in 1929 and a cutoff channel was constructed to
help mitigate flooding downtown. 222 Although water still flows through the Great Bend,
flood gates can be deployed to prevent flooding during periods of intense rain. In the
downtown area, towering cypress trees loomed over us—potentially descendants of the
saplings planted by Park Commissioner Ludwig Mahncke in the late 1800s (Figure
2.28). 223 As anticipated, this portion of the River Walk was expectedly crowded.
Restaurant patios line the San Antonio River with tourists filling almost every seat
(Figure 2.29). There are no barriers between the path and the water, yet swimming is
still not permitted. I could see colorful lights and umbrellas everywhere I turned. During
our visit, water reflected underneath several round pedestrian bridges. I was curious if
anyone else was as excited about the patterns created by the light and the river current.
Several boats filled with passengers floated in both directions. In multiple locations in
the Great Bend, elevators are available to bring visitors from the street level to the river
level and vice versa. Signs detailing different river reconstruction projects are
numerous. Copper plaques (Figure 2.30) indicate the specific infrastructure that was
designed by Hugman including the Arneson River Theater, built in 1941, with stone
amphitheater seating on one side of the river (Figure 2.31) and a small stage with
copper bells on the other.
Neighboring the River Walk, visitors can tour historic sites such as the Alamo or
La Villita, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a Historic District respectively.
Both locations were filled with people. We overheard discussions about what actually
happened at the Alamo and recommendations for the best place to eat in San Antonio.
We ate lunch at a small taco shop along the river and enjoyed the shade. With an
extensive network of braided roots, the cypress trees look to be over a century old
221 Gunn et al., “Cultural Benefits from Metropolitan River Recreation,” 10.
222 Fisher, American Venice, 86.
223 Fisher, American Venice, 25.

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(Figure 2.32). As we finished our walk for the day, we passed by the Kallison Love Lock
Bridge, covered in thousands of locks (Figure 2.33).
Figure 2.28: Through the Great Bend, the San Antonio River is adorned with tall cypress trees.
Photo by author.

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Figure 2.29: Tables with colorful umbrellas line the River Walk and the water reflects underneath the
pedestrian bridge. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 2.30: Copper plaques along the River Walk identify the structures
designed by Robert H. H. Hugman. Photo by author.
Figure 2.31: The Arneson River Theatre was designed by Hugman and
constructed in 1941. Photo by author.

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Figure 2.33: Locks cover every inch of the Kallison Love Lock Bridge. Photo by author.
Figure 2.32: The cypress trees look to be over a century old and provide a historic feel
to the River Walk. Photo by author.

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DAY THREE: THE GREAT BEND TO THE ESPADA MISSION
We started our day observing an orange and pink swirling mural painted on the
river’s vertical walls by artist Joseph Ramey, as part of the city-wide “Art Everywhere”
project (Figure 2.34). At this juncture, where the limestone walkway transitions back to
concrete, the feel of the river shifts. This segment of the San Antonio River Walk was
completed in the 2011, marking the most recent extension to the existing sixteen-mile
river path. While still well-used, the pathway south of the historic Great Bend is
noticeably more uniform. The walkway could be likened to any well-maintained sidewalk
bordered by grassy lawns on both sides (Figure 2.35); occasional signs warn of
potential flooding. In some areas, the lawn has been paved over but is permeated with
small circular openings, allowing small plants to grow (Figure 2.36). Early in the
morning, we passed by an empty river passenger boat with a single driver and another
Lock & Dam, allowing the passenger boat to travel upstream toward downtown.
Informational signage continues to be numerous, and evergreen trees line both sides of
the river, offering pedestrians plenty of shade. As we walked, the shadows on the
concrete vertical walls were soft and continually shifting. Ramps and handrails are
placed strategically for enhanced accessibility. Similar to the day before, I felt drawn to
the moments when the river’s infrastructure design directed visitors toward the water’s
edge (Figure 2.37).

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Figure 2.34: A colorful mural adorns the channel wall. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

86
Figure 2.35: The River Walk just south of the Great Bend. Photo by author.
Figure 2.36: The concrete barrier is permeated with small openings, allowing
plants to grow. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 2.37: Stairs bring visitors directly to the water’s edge. Photo by author.

88
King William
Known for its original Greek Revival, Victorian and Italianate style homes, King
William was listed as a National Register Historic District in 1972. 224 One sign along the
San Antonio River titled “King William Neighborhood” read “Residents gathered at the
usually tranquil waterway to swim, boat, and picnic and fled its high waters in times of
devastating floods. The area thrived for over fifty years but fell into disrepair by the mid1900s. Preservation efforts begun in the 1940s gained momentum in the 1970s and
today King William is once again a premier riverside neighborhood.” 225 Many of the
two-storied colorful home’s backyards, complete with fire pits and outdoor dining tables,
face the river, separated by chain-link fences.
By 9:30 a.m., we had already sauntered past several walkers and joggers and
another dam at South Alamo Street. I wrote down in my notebook, “It’s all very pleasant.
Not too hot, but I can feel the humidity creeping in. The river still feels very connected to
the city above.” Most of the time, south of the Great Bend, the concrete walkway runs
adjacent to the river, but in rare stints, the pathway floats above the river supported by
concrete beams (Figure 2.38). While jotting down some notes, a man asked us what we
were doing, mentioning that we were clearly not from there. We told him we were
walking to the Espada Mission and that it was our first time in San Antonio. He pulled
out his phone to show us a picture of sunflowers he had taken earlier that morning. “The
river keeps changing. It gets more wild south of here,” he assured us, “Keep walking.”
This individual had moved to the city just two months before.
224 City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation, “King William,” accessed November 6, 2023,
https://www.sanantonio.gov/historic/scoutsa/HistoricDistricts/KingWilliam.
225 Sign along the San Antonio River.

89
Figure 2.38: In certain segments, the walkway hovers over the river, upheld by concrete
beams. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

90
Unlike the previous day, after a couple of miles, primarily crossing through
residential neighborhoods, there are no longer any places along the river to purchase
food or water. Planning ahead, we carried our lunches and stopped at Blue Star
Provisions in the Blue Star Arts Complex, roughly two miles south of downtown for a
cold drink and a bathroom break. As we proceeded along our route to the Espada
Mission, we would still encounter numerous benches (Figure 2.39), informative signs
(Figure 2.40), River Walk maps and landscaping (Figure 2.41), as well as several shade
structures, bathrooms and water fountains, but the river’s infrastructure starts to
change, adopting a less planned and more untamed character. After the Blue Star Arts
Complex, the concrete vertical walls encasing the river gradually melt away and the only
concrete remaining in the riverbed is the concrete walkway. With small rapids,
overgrown plants including the sunflowers the man we met earlier that morning had
taken pictures of, and river rocks in abundance, the San Antonio River begins to
resemble what I typically envision when I think of a bucolic or natural river (Figure
2.42).
Figure 2.39: A decorated bench neighboring the River Walk. Photo by author.

91
Figure 2.40: Numerous signs about the history of the San Antonio River line the
waterway. Photo by author.
Figure 2.41: The river is abundantly landscaped and well-maintained. Source: Photo by
author.

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Figure 2.42: The concrete barriers fade away and the river has a more bucolic feel. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

93
South Town
We spoke to several people near South Town. We met Lynn, an older woman
wearing all blue except for hot pink plastic Birkenstocks while crossing the river along
large alternating rectangular stones the size of toaster ovens (Figure 2.43). She has
since moved to Houston but lived in San Antonio for over thirty years. She expressed a
deep love for the River Walk, sharing that she and her husband, John, used to walk
here all the time. She told us, “What I love most about [the river] is that it’s truly for
everyone. You see all of San Antonio down here… It’s a treasure.” We briefly discussed
another flood control project ongoing in Houston. Lynn stated while pointing to the
water, “It’s a lot like this but worse.” I asked what this part of the river used to look like.
“Not accessible,” she said, “a lot of social pathways, but it was hard to get down here.
No walk or bike trails…” And “No condos,” John added. In every direction from where
we stood, recent development, condos and apartments with orange and gray facades,
loom in the distance. Still, I wrote in my notes, “I am astounded by all the trees and
native planting. And the butterflies and the birds.” 226
226 Journal Entry, September 30, 2023.

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Figure 2.43: Lynn, an individual we met along the way, crosses the San Antonio River.
Photo by author.

95
Almost immediately, now walking along the east side of the river, we stumbled
upon an individual listening to pop music blaring from a small speaker while fishing
beneath a towering cypress tree. Holding up a small green sunfish still attached to the
line (Figure 2.44), he shared, “I just come here to fish for the little ones. You can catch a
whole bunch of them and just throw them back in. People fish right in downtown too.
You wouldn’t think [the fish] would be there because of all the noise, but they’re there.
Big ones too. I come here all the time, just for fun.” He told us he uses a light rod so
even catching the little fish feels like “something.” We watched him cast his next line in
the shade, a brief break from the increasingly hot sun. During this portion of our walk,
we experienced a glimpse of how access to the river used to look and feel before the
completion of the Mission Reach. The official River Walk trail continues only on the east
side in this particular stretch of the river. The fisherman instructed us to follow the
clearly defined dirt social trail (Figure 2.45), which would eventually meet up with the
River Walk entrance on East Guenther Street.
After reuniting with the River Walk Path, we passed G. W. Brackenridge High
School, named after the former president of the San Antonio Water Works Company,
with baseball fields and tennis courts within eyesight of the river (Figure 2.46). Just
south of the high school, noticing a resurgence of concrete paving and stonework, we
rounded a bend and encountered the San Antonio River Flood Control Tunnel Outlet, a
gray, round, armored structure with several gates oriented towards the water (Figure
2.47). An informational sign explains, “In times of flooding, river water flows to the inlet
at the upper end, drops one hundred fifty feet though a shaft into the twenty-four-foot
diameter tunnel, and travels three miles to the outlet here at Lone Star Boulevard. The
$110 million tunnel project was completed only ten months before the devastating flood
of October 1998, and it is credited with saving downtown from extensive damage.” 227
The concrete outlet structure is quite large and almost military-like. It stands out in the
river, protruding from the water (Figure 2.48). From this point forward, we noticed an
influx of bikers on the path, which now accommodates both pedestrians and cyclists.
227 Sign along the San Antonio River, “San Antonio River Flood Control Tunnel.”

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Figure 2.44: A small green sunfish caught in the San Antonio River. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

97
Figure 2.45: An informal social trail along a short segment on the west side of the river.
Photo by author.
Figure 2.46: G. W. Brackenridge High School with tennis courts neighboring the river.
Photo by author.

98
Figure 2.47: The San Antonio River Flood Control Tunnel Outlet was completed in 1997. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

99
Figure 2.48: The San Antonio River Flood Control Tunnel Outlet features a gatehouse for tunnel
water recirculation. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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South of Lone Star Boulevard
For a couple hundred feet, we followed behind two women carrying buckets and
nets, wearing rubber boots curiously. They stopped at a set of wide stairs descending
directly into the river and began poking around the water (Figure 2.49). They scooped
what looked like pink eggs into a trash bag lining a white bucket. Their names are Rita
and Alyssha and are volunteers for the San Antonio River Authority. One of them wore
a blue hat with the embroidered words “River Warrior” across the front. They explained
that they are searching for apple snails, which are snails the size of apples or softballs
and without any known predators, have become highly invasive in the region. The snails
lay bright pink eggs, sometimes in batches of a thousand or more (Figure 2.50). Alyssha
and Rita along with a team of other River Authority River Warriors remove the snails
and snail eggs in hopes to curb growing populations. 228 They have a ten-day window to
find the egg cases as it takes just under two weeks for the eggs to mature and hatch. I
asked them why they volunteer for the River Authority. Rita shared, “I hope people can
swim in [the river] again one day, if we can get it cleaned up.” We explain we are
walking both the San Antonio River and the Los Angeles River and comparing the two
pedestrian experiences. Alyssha responded, “I didn’t even know Los Angeles had a
river, what’s it called?” At the same moment, two kayakers mounted their boats and
took off downstream, and Rio pointed out a turtle wading in the water.
228San Antonio River Authority, “Invasive Species: Apple Snails: Big Snail, Even Bigger Problem,”
accessed November 6, 2023, https://www.sariverauthority.org/parks-trails/invasive-species.

101
Figure 2.49: River Authority River Warriors search for snails and snail eggs to remove
from the river. Photo by author.
Figure 2.50: Apple snails and snail eggs, removed by the River Authority River Warriors.
Photo by author.

102
Confluence Park
Just before the confluence of San Pedro Creek and the San Antonio River on a
former construction storage site, the San Antonio River Foundation opened a three-acre
park in 2018 to commemorate the merging of these two natural water features. 229
Materials for the park design include concrete, natural rust finish steel, and sandcolored interlocking pavers. The large wave-line shade pavilion in the middle of the park
reminded me of animal bones left out in the sun. The nearly thirty-foot high structure is
engineered to funnel rainwater into a catchment system (Figure 2.51). We sat and
enjoyed a snack under one of the concrete segments in the shade. We noticed only
three other people in the park. Designed with a primary focus on environmental
education, the entire San Antonio River Watershed protrudes from a board-form
concrete wall. Across the terrace, there are multiple signs to help identify the various
native grass species planted all around the park.
Just a bit downstream along the River Walk, we came across the confluence of
San Pedro Creek to the east and the San Antonio River to the west (Figure 2.52). We
observed a man in an orange vest letting his chocolate lab wade in the shallow water,
while he waited on nearby wide stone and concrete steps. A red and white notice sign
reminded visitors in English, Spanish, and visual symbols that swimming was not
allowed. In this area, a riprap slope composed of concrete embedded with stone, serves
to both control flooding and to protect adjacent soils from erosion. Check dams are also
employed to maintain water levels upstream.230 Some of the stone pavers feature an
assortment of leaves engraved into their surface.
229 San Antonio River Authority, “Confluence Park,” accessed November 6, 2021,
https://www.sariverauthority.org/be-river-proud/parks-trails/confluence-park.
230 A check dam is a small structure built across a creek or a river to slow the velocity of water flow.

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Figure 2.51: The thirty-foot high shade structure at Confluence Park. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

104
Figure 2.52: The confluence of the San Antonio River and the San Pedro Creek. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

105
The Mission Reach
Nearly four miles into our day, signs point us east towards Concepción Park and
the Concepción Mission. We were tempted to explore the first of the remaining four
missions, but we stayed near the river due to the persistently rising heat. In this portion
of the River Walk, the pathway is now highly exposed to the sun. The heat emanates
from the concrete, lingering around our ankles (Figure 2.53). We passed by a
prescribed burn area. A posted sign about the technique reads, “Since 2018, San
Antonio River Authority have been conducting prescribed burns along the Mission
Reach section of the San Antonio River Walk as part of our adaptive management
techniques for ecosystem restoration and to increase native plant species.” 231 While
one area we walk past appears recently scorched and rather dry, the area directly
adjacent is a vibrant green and overflowing with native vegetation (Figure 2.54).
231 Sign along the San Antonio River.
Figure 2.53: Aside from shade structures, the Mission Reach was highly exposed to the sun.
Photo by author.

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Figure 2.54: The River Authority conducts controlled burns to support plant rejuvenation. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

107
Far from being overlooked, the highway underpasses are used as gathering
spaces, each featuring benches or picnic tables (Figure 2.55). The simple design takes
advantage of the shade and offers visitors at least a ten-degree temperature drop
compared to the surrounding area. Under one of the underpasses, we met Chris and his
son Julius who were fishing by the river. They told us that they live in apartments just
across the way, but they do not normally come to this location to fish. Instead, they
usually fish by the bridge just downstream from where we were standing, but on this
particularly hot day, the shade was appealing. Chris shared that Julius had caught “a
little dink, just a bit ago.” He continued, “We go to the river all the time.”
As the day progressed into the afternoon, the temperature and humidity
continued to rise. We encountered two more young boys fishing under the sun near the
bridge Chris mentioned to us (Figure 2.56). The river widens as we proceed further
south along the walk. A family with two sons and a daughter enjoyed a shaded wooden
fishing dock suspended over the water. One of the boys held up a dead fish he had
caught earlier and pointed out its tail and fins. The theme song of “Fairly Odd Parents”
blared out of a cell phone positioned upright on the dock.
At this point, we were desperate for anything cold to drink. In the San Antonio
Missions Historical Park parking lot, we saw three individuals purchase snow cones
from the back of a white pick-up truck. We were elated as we rummaged through our
backpacks in search of any cash. Rio ordered a grape snow cone, and I ordered “sal y
limon.” We handed the man three dollars; his hands were dyed cherry red. We carried
our snow cones across the Mission Parkway and sat alongside the Espada Dam in the
shade. I wrote in my notebook, “The Espada Dam is massive. I am so sweaty and hot at
3 pm in San Antonio eating a snow cone.” Constructed in 1745, the Espada Dam is part
of the UNESCO World Heritage site and is the only surviving dam built by the Spanish
remaining in San Antonio (Figure 2.57). The purpose of the dam was to raise the river’s
water level to support the acequia system. 232
232 National Park Service, “Espada Dam,” accessed November 8, 2023,
https://www.nps.gov/places/espada-dam.htm.

108
Figure 2.55: Highway underpasses double as shade structures. Photo by author.

109
Figure 2.56: Two young boys use small rods to fish from the San Antonio River in the sun. Source:
Rio Asch Phoenix.

110
With two miles remaining before we reached the Espada Mission, after some
debate, we decided to try out the B Cycle bicycles available to rent along this portion of
the River Walk. We stopped at the Espada Acequia, a concrete-lined canal filled with
water and still in active use (Figure 2.58). We noticed several hoses drawing up water,
placed in the acequia by neighboring residents, to water their gardens. Slightly uphill
from the river, we explored the historic Espada Aqueduct, built in 1740 and recognized
as the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the entire country (Figure 2.59). 233 The canal is
stone lined and carries water from the river southward toward the Espada Mission. This
site is designated as a National Park, a National Historic Landmark, and is part of the
UNESCO World Heritage Site. Following the Espada Aqueduct, we rejoined the River
Walk and made our way south toward the Espada Mission, the last stop of our day. The
vegetation in this portion of the river is so dense that the water was completely out of
view.
233 National Park Service, “Espada Aqueduct,” accessed November 8, 2023,
https://www.nps.gov/places/espada-aqueduct.htm.
Figure 2.57: Constructed in 1747, the Espada Dam is the only dam left in San Antonio
that was built by the Spanish. Photo by author.

111
Figure 2.58: The Espada Acequia, which diverts water from the San Antonio River into the
surrounding areas. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

112
Figure 2.59: The stone-lined Espada Aqueduct. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

113
Espada Mission
The Espada Mission is the most southern of the five remaining missions in San
Antonio. Established in 1690 as San Francisco de los Tejas near Weches, Texas, it was
the first mission founded in the entire state. In 1731, the mission was relocated to its
current site, situated directly next to the San Antonio River and renamed Mission San
Francisco de la Espada. 234 Just before reaching the mission, we came across The
Arbol de La Vida: Memorias Y Voces de la Tierra sculpture (Figure 2.60). Designed by
Margarita Cabrera and commissioned by the San Antonio River Foundation, the public
art piece, a forty-foot-tall steel tree with over seven-hundred clay sculptures hanging
from its branches, was unveiled in 2019.
Just before closing time, the vicinity surrounding the Espada Mission was quiet.
We admired the church’s stone façade. One of its three bells lay on its side. We peeked
inside briefly; several people sat in the pews and looked forward. From the mission, we
could not see the river, yet its dependence on it was obvious. In the center of the
church’s courtyard, we noticed a stone-lined well, and several oak trees shade the
mission (Figure 2.61). Having completed our walk for the day, we returned to our hotel.
234 National Park Service, “Mission Espada,” accessed November 8, 2023,
https://www.nps.gov/saan/planyourvisit/espada.htm.

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Figure 2.60: The Arbol de La Vida: Memorias Y Voces de la Tierra sculpture, designed
by Margarita Cabrera. Photo by author.

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Figure 2.61: The Espada Mission in the background and its well in the foreground. Photo
by author.

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IMPRESSIONS
San Antonio is host to a dynamic, colorful, and accessible urbanized river,
centered around its city’s rich heritage and the river’s aesthetic charm. The connected
pedestrian pathway is shaded by tall cypress trees and adorned with flowers. The
underpasses are well-lit and full of community art exhibitions. Entrances to the River
Walk are easily reached from both street and river levels throughout the city. In the
foreword of historian Lewis F. Fischer’s book, Saving San Antonio: The Precarious
Preservation of Heritage, T.R. Fehrenbach writes, “San Antonio is a unique city in many
senses. Perhaps the most important of these is that it is a city where much of the past
still seems alive.”235 The River Walk features narratives of San Antonio's history
portrayed through mosaic collages and abundant signage. Other measures include
historical markers providing visitors with information about the location and construction
date of significant structures, as well as guided walking and boat tours with a focus on
history, prevalent both up and downstream. Numerous benches, shade structures,
trashcans, and ramps also contribute to a comfortable and informative excursion along
the San Antonio River. The scenic river that civic groups in the early twentieth century
advocated for maintains a distinct connection to its present picturesque state.
Walking along the San Antonio River, in a single word, is pleasant. Seated on a
wooden bench beneath the shade of a cypress tree, I remember discussing how the
River Walk resembled Disneyland, carefully arranged with perfectly placed stones and
trail markers. I relished my experience, slept soundly at night, and returned home to Los
Angeles feeling as if I had just enjoyed a brief vacation. However, in its pleasantness,
the river allows its visitors to overlook the scale of its transformation from a natural river
to a carefully crafted, at times industrial, landscape that was designed to maintain a
certain nostalgic ambiance. Despite its tangled history, decades of inaction, and the
extensive infrastructure necessary to maintain the river’s tamed condition, the
landscape is rather resolved. Visitors receive the context to comprehend the river’s
significance to its city, but are not forced to reckon with its past or imagine what else
could have been.
235 Fisher, Saving San Antonio, vii.

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CHAPTER THREE: HISTORY OF THE LOS ANGELES RIVER
Chapter Three turns its attention toward another waterway, the Los Angeles
River. The history of the Los Angeles River is a twisted and nuanced tale, one that
renders a river that bears its city’s name, almost unrecognizable. 236 Today, encased in
concrete and adjacent to several freeways, the industrial waterway is easy for most of
the city’s residents to ignore. Nonetheless, the fifty-one-mile river serves as the
hydrological bedrock upon which Los Angeles itself was built (Figure 3.1). This history
has been retold numerous times, with each retelling digging a little deeper into not only
the events that shaped the Los Angeles River, but also the underlying reasons behind
what happened. What led to such a distinct transformation to one of Los Angeles’ most
crucial natural elements? Was a total transformation of the river and 3.5 million barrels
of concrete necessary for residents’ safety? How did the river once serve the city? How
does the river currently function? What does the river’s infrastructure prioritize? What
and who was left out of the planning process?
Similar to how Chapter One provided insights into the historical narrative of the
San Antonio River, this chapter will offer an overview of the Los Angeles River’s history,
spanning from eleven thousand years ago through the mid-twentieth century. Mirroring
the approach in Chapter One, the primary focus of this chapter is on the 1920s and
1930s leading up to river’s channelization and complete transformation from a natural
feature to a flood control channel. The discussion delves into the motivations and
prioritizations that shaped the Los Angeles River during this crucial period.
236 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 136.

118
Figure 3.1: A wild Los Angeles River near Griffith Park in 1920.
Source: University of Southern California Libraries and California Historical Society.

119
PAAYME PAXAAYT
Like the San Antonio River, eleven thousand years ago, the river looked very
different than it does today. Known to the local Gabrieliño-Tongva Tribe as Paayme
Paxaayt, which translates to “West River,” the river provided water and fertile alluvial
soils for the Indigenous People living in the basin.237 During this period, the river did not
carve a deep channel as it does today; instead, it meandered across a vast, mostly level
floodplain spanning over five-hundred square miles.238 What is now known as the Los
Angeles Basin was largely shaped by its three rivers, the Los Angeles, the San Gabriel,
and the Santa Ana, which all flowed freely and often overlapped with one another
(Figure 3.2).
239 Throughout most of the region and for the majority of the year, these
rivers comprised multiple faint and shallow streams running both above and below
ground.240 Author and geographer, Blake Gumpretch refers to Los Angeles River in its
pre-channelization state as “an upside-down river” because most of its flow did not
originate from the mountains, but instead surfaced from a substantial underground
reservoir beneath the San Fernando Valley.241
The Los Angeles River did not always empty in the San Pedro Bay; sometimes
the river would alter its course and flow into the Santa Monica Bay following the present
path of Ballona Creek.242 At times, the water did not even make it from the mountains to
the ocean; instead, it saturated the soils in the basin, overflowing into marshes and
shallow lakes, replenishing the groundwater system.243 At this time, the surrounding
region was densely covered with willows, cottonwoods, and oaks, supporting one of the
largest populations of Indigenous People in North America.244
237 John Arroyo, “Culture in Concrete: Art and the Re-imagination of the Los Angeles River as Civic
Space” (Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002).
238 Vittoria Di Palma and Alexander Robinson, “Willful Waters,” Places Journal, May 2018,
https://placesjournal.org/article/willful-waters-los-angeles-river/.
239 Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth (John Hopkins
University Press, 2001), 10.
240 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
241 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 13.
242 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 10; Arroyo, “Culture in Concrete,” 39; Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear
(Metropolitan Books, 1998), 69.
243 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 10.
244 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 10.

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Figure 3.2: A historical map from 1854 depicts the confluence of the Los Angeles River and
the San Gabriel River. In the present day, both rivers have been channelized to separately
flow into the Pacific Ocean. Source: Custer, H, Jefferson Davis, John G Parke, and United
States War Department. From San Francisco Bay to the Plains of Los Angeles: from
explorations and surveys. [Washington, D.C, 1854] Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/98688426/.

121
Without a clearly defined course, occasionally, the Los Angeles River would
flood, carrying large amounts of sediments across its floodplain.245 Intense winter
storms in the mountains resulted in enormous torrents of water surging throughout the
basin.246 It was only during these significant rain events that Los Angeles witnessed
substantial above-ground surface water flow.247 There are clues all over Los Angeles
that remind residents of the city’s once swampier past; La Cienega, for example,
translated from Spanish to English means “the swamp.”248
Despite its destructive potential, the flooding enriched the neighboring soils,
rendering the region appealing for people to live there.249 At one time, there were over
forty-five Tongva Villages situated along the Los Angeles River.250 The Siutcanga, for
example, was a Tataviam and Tongva Village located close to a natural spring within
the present-day Los Encinos State Historic Park, adjacent to the Los Angeles River.251
The Maungna Village overlooked the Glendale Narrows.252 The largest Gabrielino
Village, the Suangna, was situated near the present-day Los Angeles River estuary in
the San Pedro Bay.253 The Tongva Village of Yangna was originally located near
downtown Los Angeles, but was intentionally mobile in case of flooding.254 Provided
with year-round sustenance from an abundance of edible plants and animals, the
villages were not known to practice agriculture.255
Apart from food and water, the river also supplied the Tongva with essential raw
materials, serving various purposes.256 For example, the Tongva constructed thatched
houses using tule, a plant that thrives along the riverbanks, and utilized willows or
245 Gumprecht, “The Los Angeles River.” 11.
246 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
247 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 11.
248 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
249 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
250 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018; Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 30; Arroyo,
"Culture in Concrete," 39.
251 Fernandeno Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, “Los Angeles River – Encino,” accessed October 30,
2023, https://www.tataviam-nsn.us/community/lariver-encino/.
252 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 31.
253 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 31.
254 Nathan Masters, “El Aliso: Ancient Sycamore Was Silent Witness to Four Centuries of L.A. History,”
KCET, 2012, https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/el-aliso-ancient-sycamore-was-silent-witness-to-fourcenturies-of-l-a-history; Arroyo, “Culture in Concrete,” 39.
255 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 32.
256 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 33.

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sycamore wood for structural framing.257 The doorways and floors of these houses were
frequently woven from tule mats.258 Large bundles of tule and rushes, bound together,
were also used to build rafts and canoes.259 Tule and willows proved versatile in crafting
items as well, such as baskets and particular items of clothing like skirts and aprons.
Additionally, some plants growing in the riverbed held medicinal properties.260 Marsh
nettle plants, for example, were utilized in treating rheumatism. The lives of the Tongva
people were closely intertwined with the river.
SPANISH SETTLEMENT AND THE MISSIONS
On September 28, 1542, the Spanish first arrived in the San Diego Bay, about
one-hundred-twenty miles south of Los Angeles, during an expedition led by Rodriguez
Cabrillo.261 Cabrillo and his crew ventured north along the coast, stopping at presentday Santa Monica, Catalina Island, and Point Magu in Malibu before continuing north on
their journey.262 Written accounts from this time, as well as a subsequent expedition in
1602, did not mention the river.263 Almost two centuries later, however, during an
expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá in 1769, the river was officially documented in
written records for the first time.264 Father Juan Crespí, a member of the Portolá’s crew,
kept a diary during the expedition and wrote extensively about what is now known as
the Los Angeles River. His notes read, “This river can be seen flowing down, its bed not
deeply sunken below the surrounding ground through a very green, lush, widespreading valley… it can truly be said to [be] a most handsome garden.”265 Crespí also
wrote of the Arroyo Seco, a tributary northeast of the Los Angeles River, “Towards the
north-northeast there is a large dry creek with a very large bed, so that it plainly must
carry heavy floods,” demonstrating an understanding of the connection between
257 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 33.
258 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 33.
259 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 34.
260 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 34.
261 Arroyo, “Culture in Concrete,” 39; Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 35.
262 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 35.
263 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 35.
264 Arroyo, “Culture in Concrete,” 39.
265 Raymund F. Wood, “Juan Crespí: The Man Who Named Los Angeles,” Southern California Quarterly
53, no. 3 (1971): 212, https://doi.org/10.2307/41170368.

123
flooding and the ground plain.266 The following day, on August 3, 1769, Crespí
recorded, “After crossing the river we came into a great vineyard of wild grapevines, and
countless rose-patches with a great many open flowers, the soil being all dark and
friable. We took a westernly course, over the flat ground all covered with tall grasses;
we had a clear view of the course of the river, with the trees and plain drawing toward
the south.”267 His diary entries describe a very different landscape than the present-day
Los Angeles basin.268
Crespí considered the Los Angeles River to be superior to the other two rivers
his crew had recently passed (the Rio Hondo and the San Gabriel) and an ideal site for
settlement.269 He predicted this area, “[a] pleasing spot among the trees on this
pleasant river” would be well-suited for “a very large plenteous mission.”270 His diary
reads, “The plains where the river runs is very extensive. It had good land for planting
all kinds of grain and seeds, and is the most suitable site for a large settlement.”271 Just
a short period later, El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Ángeles was established not far from
this spot in 1781.272 The river provided the new Spanish settlers with drinking water
and supported the rise of agriculture in the region.273
“LITTLE INFRASTRUCTURE”
The City of Los Angeles relied on the Los Angeles River for its water supply from
the establishment of El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Ángeles in 1781 until the completion
of the California Aqueduct in 1913.274 The initial pueblo occupied an area of
approximately twenty-eight square miles, and the settlers’ first houses were believed to
be constructed from willows and mud harvested from the river’s bottom.275 Two miles
266Wood, “Juan Crespí,” 212; Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
267 Wood, “Juan Crespí,” 213.
268 Davis, Mike. Ecology of Fear. 1998. Pg. 12.
269 Wood, “Juan Crespí,” 212; Di Palma and Robinson. “Willful Waters.” 2018.
270 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
271 Juan Crespí, A Description of Distant Roads: Original Journals of the First Spanish Expedition into
California, 1769-1770, August 2, 1769, as cited in Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 38.
272 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 39.
273 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 39.
274 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
275 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 44.

124
upstream from the pueblo, the settlers built a dam made from sand and willows near the
Elysian Hills. Following its creation, the pool that formed behind the dam was a popular
swimming hole for years.276
Accustomed to a Mediterranean climate with a sporadic rainfall pattern, the
Spanish settlers recognized the inconsistency of rain in the region early on and
established an irrigation system in the late 1700s. Most of the new pueblo's water at this
time was distributed through channels called zanjas, which translates to “ditches” in
Spanish (Figure 3.3, 3.4, 3.5).
277 The main irrigation ditch, called Zanja Madre (“mother
ditch”) transported water from the river to the pueblo’s main plaza and fields laid out for
agriculture.278 As the pueblo grew, so did the extensive network of zanjas, similar to the
extensive network of acequias seen in San Antonio. In his article, “Water Qualities and
Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles, 1781-1904,” Michael Holleran refers to the ditch
systems as the city’s “little infrastructure” compared to the “big infrastructure” that would
eventually transform Los Angeles and its river.
276 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 44.
277 Michael Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles, 1781-1904” (University of
Texas at Austin, May 26, 2022), 491; Jared Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in
Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2004), 159.
278 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 44; Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los
Angeles,” 491.
Figure 3.3: The Los Angeles River near Griffith park, circa 1895 to 1898. Source:
University of Southern California Libraries and California Historical Society.

125
Figure 3.5: A concrete zanja runs along Figueroa Street, circa 1890. Source: C.C. Pierce
Collection, Huntington Digital Library, Los Angeles CA.
Figure 3.4: The Los Angeles River near Griffith park, circa 1895 to 1898. A man
maintains a zanja (right, center). Source: University of Southern California Libraries
and California Historical Society.

126
During the mid-1800s, many different water systems in Los Angeles coevolved,
and residents could choose between utilizing zanjas, mains (an underground pipeline
system introduced by engineer William Mulholland), wells, or vendors.279 Multiple
systems of water infrastructure provided residents with agency and flexibility.280
Holleran writes, “The range of agency here was broad—not only the freedom to choose
from zanjas, mains, wells, and vendors but also the freedom to choose how to use the
water from each source, for a variety of purposes.”281 Holleran compared the process of
choosing the appropriate water system for residents to picking a beverage from a menu
of options, each to their own preference.
As the city expanded and continued to build on previously undeveloped land, the
ground grew increasingly impermeable.
282 As a result, despite their original design not
being intended for drainage, redirecting storm water into the zanjas became common
practice.283 Holleran writes, “the drainage role of zanjas became explicit, in an ad hoc
fashion.”284 He points to an example from 1869, when the city council officially
instructed one street to be intentionally graded to drain into Zanja No. 5.285 This ad hoc
approach reflects much of Los Angeles' water management over the next century,
addressing issues retroactively rather than any significant pre-planning.
Repeatedly, early engineers underestimated the rise of urbanization’s impact on
flooding within the city.286 To illustrate, in 1870, Frank Lecouvrear, the engineer
responsible for the city’s first comprehensive drainage plan recommended installing
large street gutters instead of storm drains. He reasoned that oversized street gutters
would be able to effectively manage Los Angeles' rare yet intense storms. His report
reads “street gutters of a somewhat unusually large size…[are] amply sufficient to take
charge of all such extraordinary currents, until the nearest irrigation ditch receives and
finally disposes of them.”287 This quote also sheds light on the city’s perspective on
279 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 495.
280 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 495.
281 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 494.
282 Blake Gumprecht, “51 Miles of Concrete: The Exploitation and Transformation of the Los Angeles
River," Southern California Quarterly 79, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 455.
283 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 496.
284 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 497.
285 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 497.
286 Gumprecht, “51 Miles of Concrete,” 457.
287 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 498.

127
water at the time; it was seen as a resource that could be discarded rather than
conserved. The possibility that water could one day become scarce was not a prevailing
consideration of these early city planners and engineers. Gumprecht confirms, “there
seems to have been little concern at the time about whether [the river] carried enough
water to satisfy the future needs of Los Angeles.”288 As long as the river flowed, it
appeared as if there would always be water.
In the mid-1800s, as a consequence of receiving storm water runoff, zanjas
experienced contamination from oil and gas (Figure 3.6).
289 Residents consistently
complained that the water in the zanjas was unsuitable for both drinking and agricultural
use. Holleran reported that “a city council member who used the zanja called its water
‘unfit’ for any purpose.”290 Despite residents’ grievances, the oil and gas companies,
however, exhibited a laissez faire attitude toward the contaminated water. They
proposed that if the existing water system was polluted, the city could easily establish a
second one, insinuating that there was (and always would be) enough water left in the
river.291
288 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 57.
289 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 502.
290 Los Angeles Gas Company, “Affidavit of Andre Briswalter”; February 11, 1871, 261, as cited in
Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 501.
291 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 503.
Figure 3.6: An oil field off Toluca St, circa 1895. Source: C.C. Pierce
Collection, Huntington Digital Library, Los Angeles CA.

128
In addition to oil and gas, Los Angeles needed to manage human sewage and
waste. Gumprecht writes in his book The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and
Possible Rebirth, “The zanjas were… unsanitary and posed a health hazard. There
were no bridges over the ditches, so livestock, wagons, and pedestrians regularly
splashed through the public water supply. Dead animals were frequently removed from
the ditches. Human bodies were occasionally found.”292 At one time, the city council
narrowly deliberated if public sewer infrastructure was even necessary for the growing
city, once again highlighting the lack of foresight in city planning.293 In the 1860s and
’70s, some zanjas were converted into sewers—“carrying cesspool overflows,
household drainage, and some sanitary waste from early water closets.”294 Around the
same time, a city health officer recommended that efforts be “made to cut off the many
foul drains that now do and have for years connected with the various zanjas.”295 This
quote serves as yet another example that illustrates how the management and
sanitation of water in Los Angeles were evidently afterthoughts.
In 1877, for the first time in its history, Los Angeles initiated a comprehensive
plan to develop and improve its water infrastructure.296 The original dirt zanjas were
lined with bricks and concrete, resulting in a network of more than seventy-five miles of
canals. While the city owned some of the zanjas, others were owned privately.297 A
local newspaper predicted for Los Angeles, “the plains below the city would be turned
into orange orchards and vineyards, and from here to the sea would be a stretch of
country as beautiful as the Vale of Cashmere seems from Moore’s description.”298 By
1880, over eight thousand acres of land were being irrigated with water sourced from
the Los Angeles River.299 Vittoria Di Palma and Alexander Robinson in their article titled
“Willful Waters,” wrote that, “In this way, the wild and unpredictable Los Angeles River
was remade into a tractable urban water source…”300 While the Los Angeles River was
292 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 61. 293 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 504.
294 Holleran, “Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles,” 506.
295 The Los Angeles Star, June 10, 1855, as cited in Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 62.
296 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 70.
297 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 71.
298 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 70. Thomas Moore, an Irish poet, is known for his 1817 poem
“Lalla Rookh,” where he depicts the Vale of Cashmere as a lush paradise surrounded by mountains.
299 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 71.
300 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.

129
largely unpredictable, the zanja system “supplied water calmly and consistently, and in
all the right places.”301 Yet, due to extensive and widespread use, Di Palma and
Robinson also report that “this modern water distribution system came close to draining
the river dry.”302
WHOSE WATER IS IT… ANYWAY?
In 1850, Los Angeles was still considered a small town with fewer than two
thousand residents. Outside of the main pueblo, the land was used mostly for
agriculture and subdivided into ranchos.303 However, Gumprecht reports that after the
Gold Rush in 1848 and California's establishment as a state in 1850, the “demand for
water increased and, for the first time, there was competition for the river’s supply,
stirring division and provoking crime, even murder.”304 During this pivotal period of
expansion, the river played an enormous role in the development of Los Angeles with
land bordering the river and the zanjas holding significantly more value than nonirrigated land.305
Due to increased demand, the Los Angeles Water Works Company was founded
in 1858 to oversee the management of the city's water.306 A decade later, the Los
Angeles Water Works Company was succeeded by the Los Angeles City Water
Company, and city officials began to implement water fees for usage. 307 As the city
continued to grow, many open zanjas in denser areas were replaced with closed
cement conduits and iron pipes.308 By 1886, over eleven thousand acres of land were
irrigated using water from the Los Angeles River.
309
In the late 1800s, as Los Angeles continued to expand following the arrival of the
transcontinental railroads, the river could no longer fulfill the city’s increasing water
301 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
302 Di Palma and Robinson, “Willful Waters,” 2018.
303 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 57.
304 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 56.
305 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 78.
306 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 63.
307 Di Palma and Robinson. “Willful Waters,” 2018.
308 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 71.
309 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 71.

130
demands.310 Between 1870 and 1880, the city’s population doubled.311 Similar to San
Antonio at this time, the demand for water was so high that the Los Angeles City Water
Company began extracting water from the river before it even reached the surface
through artesian wells, which caused significant alterations to the landscape. The first
well was drilled roughly two and a half miles west of Compton. By 1892, Los Angeles
County was drawing up water from the underground aquifer through 627 different
artesian wells. 312 Gumprecht writes, “the once-beautiful stream, its flow plentiful near
downtown Los Angeles even in summer, would soon become a dry wash for most of the
year there as well.”313
Less water led to additional jurisdiction. In the Annual Publication of the Historical
Society of Southern California, published in 1893, author C. P. Dorland writes, “the City
of Los Angeles has exercised and enjoyed exclusive control of all the water and all of
the bed of the river within its limits so long the memory of no living man runs to the
contrary; hence the right and title of the water by prescription is fully established.”314 In
1894, a State Supreme Court decision affirmed the City’s rights to all the water in Los
Angeles.315 Dorland continues, “Thus it is established, not only by grant from the
Spanish government, by continued use, but by acknowledged right by parties in interest,
and also by the Supreme Court, that the city is the unqualified owner of all the water
flowing in the Los Angeles River, necessary for all purposes of irrigation and domestic
use within the city.”316 On February 13, 1902, the City of Los Angeles officially assumed
its authority over its domestic water system.317 To gain popularity with residents, the
newly-formed Department of Water first slashed water rates by fifty percent, and then to
avoid any further disputes, enacted an amendment to prevent any future leasing or
selling of the water in the Los Angeles River.318
310 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 79.
311 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 83.
312 Nathan Masters, “CityDig: When Gushers Sprang from the Los Angeles Basin,” Los Angeles
Magazine, August 27, 2013, https://lamag.com/news/citydig-when-gushers-sprang-from-the-los-angelesbasin.
313 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 80.
314 Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, Los Angeles 3, no. 1 (1892): 31.
315 Annual Publication of the Historical Society, 3, no. 1 (1892): 31.
316 Annual Publication of the Historical Society, 3, no. 1 (1892): 35.
317 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 136.
318 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 95.

131
“BIG INFRASTRUCTURE”
Due to the city’s swelling demand for water, the Los Angeles City Water
Company started searching for water resources beyond the Los Angeles River. In 1883,
the company had only ten employees, but in the twenty years that followed, the
workforce would multiply many times over.319 During this time, the company constructed
and expanded reservoirs to increase water storage, lined these reservoirs with concrete
to reduce percolation, and installed new pipelines to harness the river’s subsurface flow.
This resulted in parts of the river being so dry that construction crews began utilizing the
riverbed as a source for sand and gravel.320 The surge in domestic water use led to a
tightened supply for irrigation. In the midst of a multi-year drought in 1897, the water
overseer informed the city council, “I wish to call your attention to the fact that there is
an apparent shortage of water in the river. Irrigators are clamoring for water and it
seems impossible for me to furnish the same to them.”321 Around the same time, the
majority of the zanjas were either filled in or abandoned.322 The last zanja was closed in
1904.323
By 1910, Los Angeles was home to a population exceeding 300,000 people, and
an impending water shortage was becoming increasingly certain.324 Newspapers made
light of the river, now reduced to a mere trickle, aside from the occasional massive
flooding event. One columnist joked that the river was “so dry eight months out of the
year that a pollywog would have to stand on his head to get enough moisture to soothe
a headache.”325 Astoundingly, despite its then-current water crisis, water consumption
per capita in Los Angeles was thought to be the highest in the entire country. An
engineering consultant reported that “there are few, if any, cities in the United States,
consuming and wasting as much water per capita as the city of Los Angeles.”326
319 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 87.
320 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 87-88.
321 “Report of the Water Overseer, 1899,” Los Angeles City Archives, as cited in Gumprecht, The Los
Angeles River, 88.
322 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 89; Di Palma and Robinson. “Willful Waters,” 2018.
323 Gandy, "Riparian Anomie," 137.
324 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 96.
325 Harry Carr, Los Angeles: City of Dreams (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1935), 145, as cited in
Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 96.
326 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 95; Di Palma and Robinson. “Willful Waters,” 2018.

132
Consequently, the city made intense efforts to both conserve water and expand its
available water supply. 327 The water department built four new reservoirs in the span of
five years. However, despite their commitment, the demand for water continued to rise
and the amount of available water was still insufficient. Engineer William Mulholland,
who became the superintendent of the Water Company in 1886, warned, “there is a
narrow margin… between us and a water famine.”328
In 1904, recognizing the inadequacy of the reservoirs to meet the city’s demand
for water, Mulholland urged the city to capture water elsewhere.329 City officials had
already considered alternative options, such as Lake Hemet in the San Jacinto
Mountains. In addition, in 1892, former Mayor Fred Eaton and Mulholland’s former
superior explored a plan to build a channel from the Owens Valley, two-hundred miles
away, to Los Angeles.330 With a city teetering on the brink of a water crisis, Eaton
persuaded Mulholland that water from the Owens Valley could support a population of
over two million people. On July 29, 1905, the Los Angeles Times proclaimed, “Titanic
Project to Give City A River,” almost ignoring the fact that Los Angeles already has a
river, one that Mulholland described in 1877 as a “beautiful, limpid little stream with
willows on its banks.”331 Nonetheless, with strong voter support, the construction of the
233-mile-long Los Angeles-Owens River Aqueduct began in 1907 and was completed in
1913 (Figure 3.7).
332 With the city no longer depending on the Los Angeles River as its
main water source, the river’s increasing risk of flood was becoming a more significant
and inexcusable problem.333 Di Palma and Robinson state, “No longer valued as a
natural resource, the ever-wilder river was now feared as a “predator,” able to roam and
strike wherever it wished.”334
327 Survey LA, “Los Angeles Citywide Historic Context Statement: Public and Private Institutional
Development, 1850-1980” (August 2017), prepared for the City of Los Angeles, 8; Dept. of Water and
Power, “From Pueblo to Metropolis: Water Power in the Story of Los Angeles” (January 1, 1986).
328 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 99.
329 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 103.
330 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 104.
331 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 137.
332 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 105. The aqueduct was eventually extended 105 more miles to
reach Mono Lake in 1940.
333 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 137.
334 Di Palma and Robinson. “Willful Waters,” 2018.

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FLOODING AND THE LOS ANGELES RIVER
The topography of Los Angeles, characterized by its broad basin and steep
mountains, rendered the city susceptible to flooding.335 Recounted by Gumprecht,
Emma H. Adams described one such event in a series of letters to an Ohio newspaper
in 1884,
During the rainy season it enlarges to a broad river, with a powerful
current and a dangerous shifting bottom. Widely overflowing its banks, it
sweeps away real estate and personal property in a merciless fashion.
Scarcely a season passes in which adventurous men do not lose their
lives in attempting to cross it with teams when at its flood. Both driver and
horses soon disappear beneath its restless quicksand. But let the early
335 Stephen Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area” (1991), 56.
Figure 3.7: Opening of the Owensmouth Cascades, the terminus of the Los
Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. Source: Library of Congress.

134
Autumn come! Then the once raging torrent purls along, a narrow,
shallow, garrulous brook, with bare-footed children may easily ford.336
As the population increased and the ground grew even more impervious, the city’s risk
of flooding intensified. In his journal article, “A History of Flood Control in the Los
Angeles County Drainage Area,” Stephen R. Wormer reported, “Prior to installation of
flood control works, the coastal plain of Los Angeles County was probably subject to
greater potential flood hazard than any area in the United States of comparable size.”337
The first recorded instance of flooding from the Los Angeles River dates back to
1811. A notable flood in 1815 actually changed the course of the river, destroying the
Los Angeles Pueblo plaza and damaging agricultural fields in the process.338 A decade
later, the river altered its course again during another major flood. Additional notable
flooding events occurred in 1832, 1842, 1849, 1861, and 1867.339 Before the turn of the
century, while these floods did cause some damage, comprehensive flood control was
not yet a county-wide concern.340 In 1889, J. M. Guinn, a Los Angeles County historian,
stated that, “While floods in other lands are wholly evil in their effects, ours, although
causing temporary damage, are greatly beneficial to the country. They fill up the springs
and mountain lakes and supply water for irrigation. A flood year is always followed by a
fruitful year.”341 In the same year, despite Guinn’s positive outlook, the floods in 1889
prompted the city’s first widespread proposal for flood control. In 1894, the Board of
Engineers published their proposal, which recommended widening the Los Angeles
River channel as much as three-hundred-feet. However, during the subsequent drier
decades that followed, general interest in larger flood control projects lessened and the
report was set aside. One official during this period noted, “the effort to enlist the whole
336 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 13; Emma H. Adams, To and Fro in Southern California with
Sketches in Arizona and New Mexico (Cincinnati, 1887), 67-68.
337 “History, Functions, and Plans: Los Angeles County Flood Control District,” manuscript, Los Angeles
County Flood Control District Library, 1955, as cited in Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los
Angeles County Drainage Area,” 56.
338 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 56. This study was
funded by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
339 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 58.
340 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 58.
341 J. M. Guinn, “Exceptional Years: A History of California Floods and Drought,” Annual Publication of the
Historical Society of Southern California 1 (1891): 33, as cited in Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in
the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 58.

135
population in a common scheme for the betterment of these flood conditions resulted in
failure.”342
As development and urbanization of the landscape expanded, Los Angeles
became increasingly vulnerable to destruction from flooding (Figure 3.8). In 1913,
County Flood Control Engineer Frank Olmsted recommended first to retain flood waters
in reservoirs; second, to create artificial spreading grounds to recharge the water table;
and third, to straighten and reinforce the river channel “so a maximum volume of water
could be discharged to the ocean as quickly as possible, with the least amount of
destruction.”343 He warned that “year by year the annual waste occasioned by not
controlling the river will be more and more inexcusable and expensive.”344
342 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 176.
343 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 175; Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles
County Drainage Area,” 60.
344 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 175.
Figure 3.8: The Los Angeles River prechannelization near Union Station. Source: United
States Army Corps of Engineers.

136
The floods during the winter of 1914 instigated the formation of the Los Angeles
County Flood Control District.345 While the flood was not the most severe Los Angeles
had experienced, the level of devastation far surpassed any previous event due to the
city’s steep population growth and development in the floodplain (Figure 3.9). The
disaster cost the city over ten million dollars. The newly established Flood Control
District covered 2,760 square miles, encompassing nearly the entire area of Los
Angeles County.346 According to its charter, the district’s primary purpose was to “…
provide for the control and conservation of flood, storm, and other waste waters and to
conserve such waters for beneficial and useful purposes.”347 To meet its charter, the
district was given authority to exercise eminent domain, take on debt, and build
infrastructure wherever they deemed necessary. Gandy states in his journal article,
“Riparian Anomie: Reflections on the Los Angeles River,” “In the wake of the 1914
flood, there was growing momentum for a radical soultion to the flooding problem.”348
The first significant flood control project along the Los Angeles River was completed in
1923, near the river’s estuary in Long Beach.349 The work was completed by the Los
Angeles District of the United States Army Corps of Engineers who built barrier dikes
and realigned a five-mile stretch of the channel from the Dominguez Hills to the estuary,
where the fresh river water meets the ocean water.350
Over the next decade, while the Flood Control District continued to construct
dams, spreading grounds, and reservoirs on other water bodies across the county,
including Thompson Creek, Pacoima Wash, San Antonio Wash, and the San Gabriel
River, minimal development was completed on the Los Angeles River.351 In fact, at this
time, residents rejected bond issues to continue to support flood control efforts, and
appeals for federal funds by the Flood Control District were also turned down.
352
Gumprecht writes, “Many… who had witnessed the great floods of decades past…
345 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 60.
346 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 61.
347 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 61.
348 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 137.
349 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 63.
350 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 63.
351 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 83.
352 Los Angeles Times, January 5, 1934, as cited in Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los
Angeles County Drainage Area,” 83.

137
expressed skepticism that such floods could be prevented and that river could be
controlled.”353
However, everything would change on New Year's Day in 1934.354 As residents
gathered in Pasadena for its annual Rose Parade, floodwaters laden with debris and
sediment poured through the streets of Glendale, Montrose, and La Crescenta.355 Fortyone people lost their lives and many more lost their homes. A Los Angeles Times
reporter who visited the site three days after the disaster described the scene; “For
hours I clambered over huge boulders, hundreds of which weighed not less than ten
tons and were as large as automobiles. I saw sections of pavement ending over gorges
ten feet deep, houses buried to their eaves, homes through which great rocks had
passed, cleaning out the interiors…”356 The Flood Control District and Chief Engineer
Eaton blamed the flood disaster on the rejected bonds to support further flood control.
He noted that “in no case where permanent types of protection works were installed
was serious damage experienced.”357
353 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 179.
354 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 83.
355 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 83.
356 Los Angeles Times, January 5, 1934, as cited in Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los
Angeles County Drainage Area,” 83.
357 Los Angeles Times, January 5, 1934, as cited in Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los
Angeles County Drainage Area,” 83.
Figure 3.9: The aftermath of the 1914 Los Angeles River Flood. Source:
University of Southern California Libraries and California Historical Society.

138
After the deadly flood of 1934, the Flood Control District sought assistance from
the War Department, resulting in the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of April 8,
1935.358 Two months later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved almost $14 million
in WPA funds to support the fourteen most urgent flood projects.359 The relief would
fund the building of storm drains, permanent channel enhancements, and debris
basins.360 The next year, Congress approved the Flood Control Act of 1936, which
effectively reshaped the United States Army Corps of Engineers' role in Los Angeles
from providing emergency relief for flooding to overseeing the development and
implementation of permanent flood control plans for the Los Angeles River, as well as
the Rio Hondo and the San Gabriel rivers. This law established the foundation for the
Los Angeles County Drainage Area District (LACDA), which was overseen solely by the
Army Corps of Engineers and resulted in the Los Angeles River losing its designation as
a “river.” Theodore Wyman Jr., appointed as the District Engineer responsible for the
project, presented plans for additional debris basins and further permanent channel
improvements.361 At a public hearing in 1936, business leaders, government officials,
and residents were reportedly supportive of the Army Corps’ extensive flood control
endeavors. An engineer from Monrovia at the hearing stated, “I am pleased that, at
present time, the army has moved into Southern California. I am not so sure that I don’t
wish they had arrived about twenty years ago.” His comments were met with both
laughter and applause.362
The Los Angeles River floods of 1938 prompted even more extensive action.363
The January and February floods caused over a hundred deaths and $35 million in
damages across the entire city, leading Congress to pass further legislation, the Flood
Control Act of 1938 and the additional Flood Control Act of 1941 (Figure 3.10, 3.11,
3.12). Colonel Edward C. Kelton, who replaced Major Wyman as Los Angeles District
Engineer, presented a comprehensive proposal for LACDA, requesting a budget of
358 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 83.
359 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 138.
360 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 86.
361 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 86.
362 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 208.
363 Di Palma and Robinson. “Willful Waters,” 2018.

139
nearly $300 million.364 The plans included the building of “Hansen, Sepulveda, and
Lopez flood control basins; construction of debris basins at the mouth of seventeen
tributary canyons; improvements of 49.07 miles of main channel and 53.42 miles of
tributary channels; and reconstruction of 109 bridges.”365 Immediately, work began near
Elysian Park and Vernon. By May of 1939, five miles near Griffith Park were
straightened and lined with concrete.366 The Sepulveda Flood Control Basin, with a
capacity of 16,700 cubic acre-feet of water, was completed in October of 1941 and cost
$6.7 million. 367
364 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 87.
365 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 87.
366 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 221.
367 Southwest Builder and Contractor, October 2, 1941, 14-15, 20, as cited in Wormer, “A History of Flood
Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 88; Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 221. This is
roughly equivalent to almost a quarter million average-size swimming pools.
Figure 3.10: A flooded Los Angeles River and an eroded bank in 1938. Source: University of
Southern California Libraries and California Historical Society.

140
Figure 3.11: Bank erosion following the 1938 flood. Source: United States Army
Corps of Engineers.
Figure 3.12: A house carried by the great flood of 1938. Source: United States
Army Corps of Engineers.

141
Over the next three decades, flood control work was planned for 278 miles of
rivers and tributaries throughout Los Angeles County. As the third largest city in the
United States at the time, Los Angeles received national attention and extensive
funding.368 Author Gumprecht writes,
Soon, construction crews were transforming the river from Canoga
Park all the way to the sea. The last trees were removed from its
banks, and vegetation was cleared from its channel. Fortress-like
walls rose where willows had once stood. Stream shovels lowered the
river’s bed and straightened its course. A smooth layer of concrete
was applied atop its sandy bottom. Powerful floodlights enabled
construction to continue twenty-four hours a day, five days a week
(Figure 3.13, 3.14).
369
An official at the United States Army Corps of Engineers commented that the early
Spanish explorers “would never recognize the Los Angeles River as it is at this
writing.”370 The entire project amounted to $116.7 million, created ten thousand jobs,
and took twenty years to finish.371 Only three segments of the complete fifty-one-mile
channel—the Sepulveda Basin, the Glendale Narrows, and the Long Beach estuary—
retain a soft, muddy bottom instead of a concrete floor. In 1969, as the Los Angeles
County Drainage Area Project was nearing completion, the flood control system tested
during a period of continuous rainfall over nine days, with the amount of rain only
exceeded by the rainfall in 1938. The flood caused minimal damage throughout the city,
and no damage was reported near the channels constructed by the United States Army
Corps of Engineers.372
368 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 224.
369 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 224.
370 Lee R. Henning, “Concrete Lining for a River Channel,” Western Construction, February 1958, 31, as
cited in Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 224.
371 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 138; Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 27.
372 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 89; Gumprecht, The
Los Angeles River, 223.

142
Figure 3.13: Construction crews work on the Los Angeles River between Lankershim Boulevard
and Tujunga Wash in 1948. Source: United States Army Corps of Engineers.
Figure 3.14: Building the Sepulveda Dam, completed in 1941. Source: United States Army Corps
of Engineers.

143
Wormer concludes his journal article funded by the United States Army Corps of
Engineers, with the assertion that “Los Angeles, after 60 years of construction, involving
millions of dollars and a significant quantity of trial and error, has controlled the flood
menace.”373 Referring to the river as a “flood menace” demonstrates the strong
animosity directed toward the Los Angeles River, and Wormer celebrates the engineers’
success in “taming” it. However Jared Orsi, in his book Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding
and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles paints a different picture, describing that the river
“resembled nothing so much as an empty freeway… there were no plants, no rocks, no
mud, no dust, no curves, just sun glinting off white pavement as far as the eye could
see.”374 In his book, Orsi challenges what defines a victory, raising questions about
what extensive flood control geared toward a single purpose may have cost the city.
Nathan Holste, a hydraulic engineer at the United States Bureau of Reclamation,
reiterates the sole intention of the 3.5 million tons of concrete, 147 million pounds of
reinforced steel, and 460,000 tons of stone that currently encases the river.375 He
states, “The L.A. River channel was designed exclusively to flush water to the ocean as
quickly as possible and keep people dry.”376 However, was there a different path the
engineers could have taken?
Historically in Los Angeles, urban expansion often conflicted with nature. In his
book Ecology of Fear, Mike Davis highlights that engineers such as Mulholland seemed
to believe that through their own manipulation of the land, they “fixed” nature, and that
nature on its own was far less than anything that humans could design (Figure 3.15,
3.16, 3.17). In reference to super-engineers rescuing Los Angeles, the author writes, “A
corollary of this promethean claim is the idea that beneath the artificial landscape is
something sinister and barren, incapable on its own of sustaining even a tiny fraction of
the current multitudes.”377 In inventing Eden, Davis argued that super-engineers thought
of themselves almost like gods, if not outright gods, and the magnitude of their power
was monumental; the modern-day Los Angeles River serves as an example. Davis
373 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 80.
374 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 102.
375 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 226.
376 Louis Sahagún, “Steelhead Trout in the L.A. River? These Experts Envision a Fish Passage Through
Downtown,” Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2020.
377 Davis, Ecology of Fear, 12.

144
states, “we think ourselves gods upon the land but are still really just tourists.”378 The
Los Angeles River was designed solely for flood control purposes and this substantial
effort to control nature enabled developers to continue to build as close to the confined
river as possible. Author Gumprecht affirms, “Flood control project made much of the
new development possible, but by doing so they assured that the work already done
would never be enough.”379
378 Davis, Ecology of Fear, 39.
379 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 223.
Figure 3.15: Constructing channel walls within the upper stretch of the Los Angeles
River. Source: United States Army Corps of Engineers.

145
Figure 3.16: Upper stretch of the Los Angeles River prechannelization in 1952. Source: United States Army Corps of
Engineers.
Figure 3.17: The same upper stretch of the Los Angeles River following
channelization in 1955. Source: United States Army Corps of Engineers.

146
ALTERNATIVE PROPOSALS
Not everyone supported the complete transformation of the Los Angeles River.
Conservationists in the 1930s and ’40s advocated for more comprehensive upstream
interventions such as reforestation, fire prevention, and building a series of smaller
dams.380 Some people proposed restricting development within the floodplain and
designating specific zones as hazardous.381 Due to politics and high real estate costs,
neither of these alternatives reached the public eye and came to fruition. During this
period, one formal proposal did challenge the river’s rigid channel design. Funded by
the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the Olmsted Brothers published a report with
Bartholomew & Associates that proposed a network of parks connecting Los Angeles in
1930.382 Their 178-page report, Parks, Playgrounds and Beaches for the Los Angeles
Region, focused on meeting the county’s parks and recreation needs, outlining a $124
million proposal.383 In the last chapter of the proposal, the planners suggested
integrating recreational parks and flood control, doubling as spreading grounds.384 They
argued, “Such land would have to be acquired only once, yet would serve a double
purpose—flood-control use and park use—not conflicting but positively benefiting each
other.”385 Like the other alternative proposals, however, after presumably only a day of
newspaper coverage, the alternative was buried and never received significant public
recognition. Orsi writes, “To the distress of many chamber leaders… the planners…
proposed to create a new governmental authority that would have sweeping power to
raise money and purchase and develop property for parks, roads, flood control, and
other infrastructure.”386 As this new government entity would operate outside of the
Chamber’s influence, Chamber members expressed concerns that it might encroach
upon their authority. As a result, the Chamber’s directors scaled back the plan’s print
380 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 103.
381 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 103.
382 Greg Hise and William Deverell, Eden by Design (University of California Press, 2000), 1.
383 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 105; Hise and Deverell, Eden by Design, 1.
384 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 103.
385 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 137; Olmsted Brothers & Bartholomew and Associates, Parks,
Playgrounds and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region (1930), 16, as published within Hise and Deverell,
Eden by Design, 1.
386 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 105.

147
run from 7,500 copies to just two hundred. In their book Eden by Design, William
Deverell and Greg Hise state, “… the report garnered almost no public attention. The
response, in truth, was a resounding silence.”387 Orsi writes of the Depression Era,
The structure and culture of flood control politics in 1930s Los Angeles
rendered these alternatives virtually invisible. Consequently, this
crossroads decade ended with Southern Californians reembarking with
renewed determination on the same technocratic path they had been on
since the 1914 flood. Only this time, they had a powerful federal
companion in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.388
Orsi points out that the most impactful alternative would have been changing zoning
laws closest to the river, especially considering that areas that are now under threat
from flooding were largely undeveloped at this time.389 A 1942 State Planning Board
report even stated that restricting future development in the floodplain would be more
cost effective in the long run than constructing a concrete channel and building
additional dams.390
Orsi highlights that during the 1930s, it was widely understood that development
increased the risk of flooding. As Gumprecht also noted, Orsi discusses the perpetual
feedback loop in which “flood control works often created a sense of security that
induced more development, which in turn necessitated more flood-control works.”391
Even still, little action was taken. Los Angeles County only initiated amending its zoning
ordinance to limit further development in one small area south of downtown in 1940.392
Orsi discusses that “the engineers, to whom flood control has been entrusted, were
builders, not planners, and they designated the nontechnical aspects of flood control as
outside the scope of their work.”393 The nontechnical aspects of the river, such as
ecological, social, historical, recreational elements, and more, were, by this logic, left
out of the engineer’s design, resulting in a unrelenting concrete drainage channel.
387 Hise and Deverell, Eden by Design, 4.
388 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 103.
389 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 104; Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 223.
390 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 104.
391 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 104.
392 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 104.
393 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 104.

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BURYING THEIR RIVER IN CONCRETE
The initial design for the Los Angeles River, which lacked multi-functionality and
neglected to incorporate any elements of heritage, set a precedent for subsequent
plans.394 In the foreword of Patt Morrison’s book, published in 2001, Río L.A.: Tales
from the Los Angeles River, Kevin Starr states, “Ever since it was buried under tons of
concrete in the late 1930s, the Los Angeles River has all but lost its identity,” and in the
process, regained a new one, if dystopic.395 Morrison writes, “In [the river’s] later days,
its banks and beds have been plastered over with cement. It has been befouled by oil
and DDT and cyanide and human sewage. It has had more market value as a movie
set, more usefulness as a punch line, more potential as a freeway, than regard as a
waterway.”396 Jared Orsi republished one writer from 1961 who describes the Los
Angeles River as flowing “in a disciplined line bordered by miles of cemented beds,
guarded by flood dikes, caged in wire fencing.” 397 And another writer who discussed the
construction of the Los Angeles River channel and its tributaries in 1966, “Gradually,
and unnoticed, they have disappeared one by one with hardly a protest from the city
dwellers.”398
For several decades following the channels completion in 1960, the majority of
the river was completely fenced off, and all access to the water was restricted with
heavy fines.
399 The floods of 1978 and 1980, which killed a combined fifty-five people
and caused $500 million in damages, resulted in only more concrete.400 The occurrence
of these two floods raised significant alarm as the amount of rainfall was well within the
supposed capacity of the LACDA system. Scientists classified both storms between
twenty-five to forty-year flood events—the concrete channel was designed to withstand
a minimum of a fifty-year flood event.401 After evaluating the extent of the damages,
394 Charles Steve Dwyer, interview, November 10, 2023.
395 Patt Morrison, Río L.A.: Tales from the Los Angeles River (Angel City Press, 2001), 16.
396 Morrison, Río L.A., 19.
397 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 134.
398 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 134. In the early 1970s, there was one exception: the final segment of
LACDA was not constructed in Sierra Madre, influenced by the growing environmental movement.
399 In 1977, the Los Angeles River/Rio Hondo Channel (LARIO) trail opened and twenty-one miles of bike
and equestrian trails are built.
400 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 141.
401 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 141.

149
California Institute of Technology’s Norman Brooks concluded that the LACDA system
was “necessary but not sufficient.”402 To manage the newly identified flood risk in the
lower Los Angeles River, the United States Army Corps of Engineers proposed to widen
the channel and construct two to eight feet high walls atop of the levee along twentyone-miles of the drainage channel, further separating people from their river.403 The
$364 million twenty-year plan was approved by Congress in 1990 and completed in
2001, five years ahead of schedule.404
Although the project ultimately succeeded, it caused considerable opposition
throughout Los Angeles, signaling a notable shift in attitude toward the river compared
to the initial reception of the LACDA system. Orsi writes of Los Angeles mayor Tom
Bradley’s Los Angeles River Task Force in 1990, “For the first time ever, the task force
gathered engineers, environmentalists, city planners, politicians, artists, business
leaders, recreation enthusiasts, and other concerned citizens to discuss issues affecting
river management.”405 In an unprecedented turn of events in Los Angeles history,
alternative possibilities were under consideration for the Los Angeles River, extending
its role far beyond being solely a flood control channel as well as paving the way for
more integrated endeavors in the future.
Over the past several decades, despite the river’s brutalist and unforgiving
design, there have been numerous grassroots initiatives aimed at reintegrating the Los
Angeles River and its surrounding communities. Artist Judith Baca and four-hundred
students, for instance, painted the Great Wall of Los Angeles on the vertical concrete
walls of the Tujunga Wash, a tributary of the Los Angeles River over the span of seven
summers in the 1970s.406 The 2,754 feet-long mural was listed on the National Register
of Historic Places in 2017. In another instance, for over forty years, artist and activist
Leo Limón has painted cat faces on several Los Angeles River storm drains covers—he
calls them Gatitas.407 In 1986, poet Lewis MacAdams, writer and founder of Friends of
the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), cut a hole through a fence and declared the river “open
402 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 146.
403 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 151.
404 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 151.
405 Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 152; Morrison, Río L.A., 118.
406 Morrison, Río L.A., 114. 407 Morrison, Río L.A., 113.

150
for the people.”408 In 1993, Morrison documents that on Rosh Hashanah, “dozens of
members of the Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf … linked arms and walked to the
riverbank, leaning over the railings to drop bread crumbs and watch them carried away
in the crawling September waters, symbolic of the casting-off of sins” as well as a
spiritual acknowledge of the river as a river.409 In 1995, Ernie LaMere adopted a
maintenance road parallel to the river in Sherman Oaks, planting geraniums and
marigolds, and installing benches. Today, the area is known as Ernie’s Walk. In 1997,
Saber, a graffiti artist painted what is still known as “the largest graffiti painting ever”
along the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River near the 5 Freeway.410 Among many
other grassroots efforts, after the United States Army Corps of Engineers announced
the channel was unsafe for recreation in 2008, George Wolfe and Heather Wylie
kayaked down the river over three days and released a documentary called “Rock the
Boat—Saving America's Wildest River.” Because of their project, the Environmental
Protection Agency declared the river as “traditional, navigable waters” and protected it
under the Clean Water Act in 2010.411
In 1996, the Los Angeles County published the first Los Angeles River Master
Plan, which prioritized aesthetics, economic development, environmental quality, flood
management, public involvement, and recreation. A decade later, the city published the
Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan with four primary principles: river
revitalization, neighborhood greening, fostering community connections, and creating
value.412 In 2015, the United States Army Corps of Engineers published the Los
Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study (also known as the ARBOR
study), which evaluated an eleven-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River running from
Griffith Park through downtown. Objectives in the study included the “creation and re-

408 Beth Rose Middleton, “Where the River Meets the City: Tracing Los Angeles' Social and
Environmental Movements,” City 13, no. 1 (2009): 150-152, doi:10.1080/13604810902726384; LAist
Staff, "Lewis MacAdams, Who Worked To Fix The 'Tragedy' Of The LA River, Has Died At 75," LAist,
April 21, 2020, https://laist.com/news/lewis-mcadams-died-los-angeles-river.
409 Morrison, Río L.A., 123.
410 “Saber.” Branded Artists. https://brandedarts.com/portfolio_page/saber/. The artwork, the size of a
football field, was painted over by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 2009.
411 Hector Tobar, “A Gamble on the River Pays Off,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2010,
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jul-16-la-me-tobar-20100716-story.html.
412 LA River Master Plan, “Literature Review,” 2022, accessed January 16, 2024.
https://larivermasterplan.org/about/master-plan-2022/literature-review/.

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establishment of historic riparian and freshwater marsh habitat,” the reconnection of “the
river to historic floodplains and tributaries,” and “opportunities for passive recreation.”413
The Los Angeles City Council adopted the study in the summer of 2016 and
subsequently purchased a forty-two-acre brownfield site at Taylor Yard, one of the
largest identified areas for restoration along the river in 2017.414 In 2022, Geosyntec,
OLIN, and Gehry Partners, LLP published the most recent Los Angeles River Master
Plan, an extensive 500-page document that outlines a framework for potential
development in and around the riverbed. The authors use an extensive indexing system
to understand the current conditions of the river—creating over two-hundred ‘river
rulers’ from hundreds of Los Angeles based datasets ranging from flood conditions to
demographics to neighborhood park needs. The authors states, “the LA River Master
Plan seeks to build on prior planning efforts to continue to reimagine the LA River from
a single-use corridor to a tangible, multi-benefit resource for the communities of LA
County.”415
Today, a river trail runs along a disjointed thirty miles of the channel, with the
Department of Transportation, Bureau of Engineering, and Metro currently investigating
measures to bridge the twenty-mile gap. Despite numerous vision plans and schematic
designs for specific areas of opportunity along the channel, ninety-five percent of the
river is still buried in concrete.
416

413 United States Army Corps of Engineers, “Los Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration Project,”
accessed December 18, 2023, https://www.spl.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/ProjectsStudies/Los-Angeles-River-Ecosystem-Restoration/.
414 City of Los Angeles, “LA River Ecosystem Restoration,” May 13, 2021, accessed December 18, 2023,
https://lariver.org/blog/la-river-ecosystem-restoration.
415 LA River Master Plan, “About,” 2022, accessed December 18, 2023, https://larivermasterplan.org/.
416 Pablo Unzueta, “Concrete River: Water, Life Pollution, and the Future of the Los Angeles River,” Circle
of Blue: Where Water Speaks, 2022, https://www.circleofblue.org/2022/world/concrete-river-pollutionwater-life-and-the-future-of-the-los-angeles-river/.

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CHAPTER FOUR: WALKING THE LOS ANGELES RIVER
During the first week of August 2023, I walked the entire length of the Los
Angeles River over six days with photographer Rio Asch Phoenix, documentarian
Camille Shooshani, and two classmates also pursuing a master’s degree in landscape
architecture, Hannah Flynn and Nina Weithorn (Figure 4.1). Curious by the prospect of
experiencing a landscape typically observed only in pieces, we documented our fiftyone-mile trek starting from the headwaters in Canoga Park, passing through Encino,
Studio City, Glendale, Atwater Village, Frogtown, Arts District, Vernon, Maywood,
Compton, and Paramount, and concluding at the estuary in Long Beach. While walking
along the San Antonio River was simple and straightforward, walking along the Los
Angeles River was far more challenging. Originally called “Lario”, the Los Angeles River
Trail, initially built in 1977, and the Los Angeles River Bike Path, first constructed in
1996, together span about thirty-miles parallel to the river.417 However, the path is not
continuous, and the remaining twenty-miles are either in the planning stages or lack a
trail altogether. As a result, the trip required extensive scouting, gathering insights from
river experts, and studying Google Earth meticulously to identify a safe and navigable
route along the entire river on foot. At times, to simply walk close to the water, we had to
jump over fences, trespass on County and City land, and disguise ourselves as
engineers in construction vests.
OUR ROUTE
• August 1: We walked 10.26 miles from the Los Angeles River’s
headwaters through the Sepulveda Basin. We began our day on the Los
Angeles River Trail, and then transitioned to walking within the channel
when the trail ended about three miles into our day.
417 “History of the Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles River Master Plan, Appendix A, 1996. The Los
Angeles River Trail is composed of dirt or decomposed granite, ideal for walking or jogging. In contrast,
the Los Angeles River Bike Path is paved with asphalt, making it suitable for biking as well.

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• August 2: We walked 12.74 miles from the east side of the 405 Freeway to
the Mariposa Bridge in Burbank. In Sherman Oaks and Studio City, the
trail is extensively fragmented, requiring several detours.
• August 3: We walked 10.48 miles from Mariposa Bridge to the southern
edge of Frogtown. We started our day on the Los Angeles River Trail
which transitions into the Los Angeles River Bike Path.
• August 4: We walked 11.45 miles from the southern edge of Frogtown to
South Atlantic Boulevard in Maywood, where the southern segment of the
Los Angeles River Bike Path begins. This particular day required walking
for several miles within the channel, where no path was available.
• August 5: We walked 10.33 miles from South Atlantic Boulevard to the
southern edge of DeForest Park in North Long Beach. Our route followed
the southern segment of the Los Angeles River Bike Path, stretching
twenty miles from Maywood to the Pacific Ocean.
• August 6: We walked 8.16 miles from DeForest Park to the Los Angeles
River estuary, where the river meets the Pacific Ocean. Similar to the day
before, we strolled along the southern segment of the Los Angeles River
Bike Path.
Averaging roughly ten miles a day, Nina recorded our exact route using a GPS tracking
device (Figure 4.2). While the river is fifty-one miles long, our group meandered in and
out of the drainage channel and sometimes needed to take long detours when the bike
path or river trail came to an end. In total, we walked 63.32 miles from Canoga Park to
Long Beach.
Figure 4.1: Hannah Flynn (left), Nina
Weithorn (center-left), myself (center-right),
and Camille Shooshani (right) on our last
day, August 6, 2023, walking toward the
Pacific Ocean. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.2: Our walking route following the Los Angeles River from August 1-6, 2023.
Source: Nina Weithorn.

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DAY ONE: CANOGA PARK THROUGH SHERMAN OAKS
The Headwaters
We began our walk in Canoga Park, just east of the Canoga Park High School’s
football field, at the confluence of Bell Creek and the Arroyo Calabasas, marking the
designated headwaters of the Los Angeles River (Figure 4.3). Historically, as discussed
in Chapter Three, a significant portion of the Los Angeles River’s flow surfaced from a
substantial underground reservoir beneath the San Fernando Valley, and its original
course did not reach this far west. This segment of the channel, located west of
Havenhurst Avenue, was excavated in the 1930s and added seven miles to the river’s
length.418 At six in the morning, the sky was fortunately still cloudy. Aware of the
impending heat that would intensify later that morning, I appreciated the opportunity to
slow down after a nervous drive in the dark and ground myself. Burning sage into an
abalone shell, Tongva Elder and cultural keeper Tina Orduno Calderon met our group at
the headwaters. She told us to notice the second river flowing beneath the concrete, the
subsurface flow, urging us to pay attention to plant life and bubbling water emerging
from the cracks. She explained that the river was sick, but still powerful and connected
to her ancestors across time—past, present, and future. She gifted us with tobacco and
encouraged the group to make an offering to the river whenever we felt inclined to. We
each grabbed a small pinch of dried leaves, reached a hand over the black wire fence,
and watched the wind carry away our offerings. To me, the headwaters of the Los
Angeles River resemble a concrete funnel. With no major alterations since it was
constructed in 1935, the confluence of Bell Creek and the Arroyo Calabasas was
recognized as a historic resource in 2013.419 At twenty-feet tall, the channel’s vertical
walls guide the river’s gentle flow. Facing west toward the confluence, I spied three
palm trees mirrored in the pooling waters of Bell Creek and a Dodger blue Los Angeles
River Sign pointing us downstream (Figure 4.4).
418 Gumprecht, “51 Miles of Concrete,” 470.
419 Historic Places Los Angeles, “Historic Resource - Confluence of the Arroyo Calabasas and Bell
Creeks, forming the start of the Los Angeles River,” accessed December 22, 2023,
https://historicplacesla.lacity.org/report/8d91eb20-2063-48d7-b684-237c34c2657.

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Figure 4.3: The headwaters of the Los Angeles River with the floodlights from the Canoga Park High
School’s football field visible in the distance, facing west. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.5: A Los Angeles River sign at
the entrance of the Los Angeles River
Trail in Canoga Park. Photo by author.
Figure 4.4: The headwaters
of the Los Angeles River
facing south. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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After we said our goodbyes to Tina, we walked along the Los Angeles River Trail,
a decomposed granite pathway running parallel to the river. We passed a couple of
individuals with their dogs, until the black wire fence disappears about a half mile into
our walk, allowing us to enter the channel. At this juncture, the channel walls are
trapezoidal instead of vertical, making it easy to walk down and approach the water.
Confined to a ten-foot-wide crevice at the center of the channel, the water moves rapidly
(Figure 4.6).420 The heightened flow within the “low flow zone” is designed to prevent
plant growth. Any vegetation in the channel poses a risk of impeding and slowing down
water flow during significant rain events, increasing the possibility of the water
surpassing the levee and flooding nearby neighborhoods. 421 However, without any
trees in this portion of the channel, shade is scarce with only vehicular and pedestrian
bridges overhead offering some relief from the rising sun. Each bridge casts dark
shadows with harsh edges, providing us with a welcome blanket of shade (Figure 4.7).
As we walked, we began counting the orange and silver shopping carts we found
concealed behind the structural supports of the bridge (Figure 4.8). Already by 8:00
a.m., there was a noticeable ten-degree difference between walking in the highly
exposed channel or briefly standing within the shelter of a shadow.
420 The term “low-flow zone” refers to the crevice or depression in the middle of the channel of the Los
Angeles River. During dry periods, water runs through this part of the river to maintain a fast flow,
preventing algae growth.
421 “Questions about the LA River and Watershed.” Los Angeles River Master Plan. Accessed January 1,
2024. https://larivermasterplan.org/about/background/questions-about-the-la-river-and-watershed/.

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Figure 4.6: A very exposed Los Angeles River. In the distance, Vanalden Avenue Pedestrian Bridge
is visible, constructed in 1939 and recognized by SurveyLA as a historic resource, possibly
significant as a pedestrian- oriented transportation feature. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.7: Passing beneath the Canoga Avenue bridge, constructed in 1956. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

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Figure 4.8: One of many shopping carts found behind the structural supports of the bridges.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Almost immediately upon stepping off the Los Angeles River Trail and
descending twenty feet onto the channel floor, the concrete felt relentless, stretching as
far as the eye could see (Figure 4.9). Under the overcast morning light, the concrete is
multiple shades of gray, with various sections painted and repainted to cover graffiti
(Figure 4.10). In the absence of numerous visitors, the paint and the concealed graffiti
serves as a reminder of all the hands continuously at work in the riverbed. Walking
along the channel floor, seemingly recent rectangular complexes, decorated in blue,
salmon, and brown facades, loomed above us (Figure 4.11). Twenty feet beneath the
city, it was strangely difficult to discern what neighborhood we were walking through.
Bridges spray-painted with street names assisted with our orientation; otherwise, there
were no signs or maps to guide us, except for the phones and maps we carried and the
downward flow of the river (Figure 4.12). Looking up toward the southern edge of a
Winnetka neighborhood, I could see palm and cypress trees, wooden and chain-link
fences, and telephone wires.
Figure 4.9: At times, it was
challenging to tell which
neighborhood we were in.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.10: White paint conceals years of graffiti along the concrete channel walls. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.11: New development along the Los Angeles River. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.12: Canoga Avenue spray painted beneath the Canoga Avenue Bridge, one of our only
navigational markers. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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As we continued walking, we noticed fissures in the concrete, bursting with plant
life. Despite the efforts to inhibit the growth of vegetation, riparian grasses emerge from
every crack in the riverbed and thick bright green layers of algae swim along the bottom
of the channel (Figure 4.13). We spotted small pink flowers of oleander and golden tails
of crimson fountain grass (Figure 4.14). A young western sycamore grew in the direct
path of a storm drain, and the drain water left behind an evident stain on the riprap
barrier, concrete embedded with stone (Figure 4.15). Nina, the ecologist of the group,
collected a small sampling of umbrella sedge and carefully pressed it into her notebook
(Figure 4.16). A round and green tumbleweed sprouting out of the concrete excited the
entire group. We paused beside it to reapply sunscreen and readjust layers. Together,
we reflected on the harsh conditions the plants of the Los Angeles River endure—
millions of barrels of concrete, sparse rain, and eighty years of maintenance and weed
whacking. Seated against the slanted walls of the channel, we discussed the nearly
impossible challenge for any plant to survive in such intentionally harsh conditions. Yet,
surprisingly they do.
Figure 4.13: Algae marbles the
concrete flood. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

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Figure 4:14: Crimson fountain grass, among other riparian grasses and algae, grows in the cracks
on the concrete channel. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.15: A young western sycamore grows in the direct path of a storm drain. Water from the
drain has stained the concrete. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.16: Nina places a sampling of umbrella sedge into her notebook. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Every so often, as Tina had mentioned to us earlier that morning, we observed
water bubbling up from several cracks in the concrete (Figure 4.16). Rising from the
groundwater below, the newly surfaced water created gentle ripples in the river’s
current. I leaned down to listen to the bubbles and caught a subtle popping sound. As
we walked, we noticed puddles formed along the channel floor, reflecting the clouds and
nearby trees overhead (Figure 4.17). We spotted several seagulls grazing among the
various patches of algae. At one point in the morning, I crossed the low-flow zone using
an improvised bridge assembled from a series of flat rocks. We took a short break at a
Starbucks on Tampa Avenue between Winnetka and Reseda to go to the bathroom and
refill our water bottles. Only three miles into our day, it already felt strange to leave the
river and find ourselves amidst six-lanes of traffic rushing by us in both directions. Inside
the Starbucks, a large painted mural depicted a pastoral landscape featuring pink and
green agricultural fields, perhaps a portrayal of what this portion of Los Angeles might
have looked like in the past. Stepping back outside with our iced coffees and teas in
hand, we were immediately slapped in the face by the relentless Southern California
August heat wave. The clouds had dissipated, and the brief pause in air conditioning
erased any temporary acclimatization we had made for the heat just fifteen minutes
earlier. Somewhat reluctantly and without a crosswalk in sight, we crossed the street
and reentered the river channel, now on the south side of the low-flow zone (Figure
4.18). I wrote in my journal, “The concrete is hard beneath my feet. Already my legs can
feel it. Flat rock walking. New type of walking. I am not used to it.” 422
422 Journal Entry, August 1, 2023.

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Figure 4.17: Water bubbles up from the cracks in the channel floor. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.18: The puddles along the channel floor reflect the clouds in the sky. Two members of the
group can be seen walking far ahead. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.19: Several seagulls feed on the algae growing along the Los Angeles River. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Sepulveda Basin
There are no informational signs marking the entrance of the Sepulveda Basin,
but a flock of ducks, several piles of dirt atop the concrete and most notably, a thirty-foot
tall wave of vegetation signaled its proximity (Figure 4.20). Like a tsunami, the wave
swallows anything in its path—we found indiscernible trash and debris wrapped around
fountain palms and willows (Figure 4.21). In these transition moments from concrete to
a muddy soft bottom, the Los Angeles River’s unique ecology reveals itself. An ecology
in which shopping carts are eaten by the plants and river around them, soaked and
hardened mattresses resemble rocks, and plastic bags look like spider webs (Figure
4.22).
The United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed the Sepulveda Basin, a
flood control basin spanning over two thousand acres, in 1941. 423 It was one the
earliest LACDA project built following the Flood Control Acts in the late 1930s. In the
1950’s, the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department allocated 1,060 acres
of land for recreational purposes. Designed to experience periodic flooding to replenish
the groundwater system, this two-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River remains
unconcreted, swelling in size with abundant vegetation. Consequently, hindered by
dense vegetation, we could barely see further than five feet in front of us. We decided to
split up and explore the maze of informal social trails near the entrance of the basin,
formed by individuals consistently treading the same unofficial path. Thick foliage
surrounded Rio, our team’s photographer, and me, and we could hear loud music
playing. We noticed a clothesline stretched across the water with several t-shirts and
towels hanging to dry (Figure 4.23). We immediately retraced our steps in the same
direction from which we had come. Even though we were walking on City-owned land, it
felt like we were trespassing onto someone else’s property.
We opted instead to walk along the top of the levee between the riparian forest to
our left and the fenced off baseball field to our right. Various pieces of furniture,
including a bedside table and a desk chair, were scattered around the dirt, slowly
decomposing in the hot sun. As we reached Balboa Boulevard around 11 a.m., I could
feel the energy in the group draining. I suggested completing the final two miles of our
423 Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan. Prepared for the City of Los Angeles. 2023, 39.

175
day through the rest of Sepulveda Basin later that afternoon when the heat subsided.
Everyone agreed, and we all enjoyed a long lunch break.
Figure 4.20: A green wave of vegetation signals the entrance of the Sepulveda Basin. At this juncture,
the channel shifts from a concrete floor to a soft, muddy bottom. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.21: Trash and debris wraps around trees and plants in the Sepulveda Basin. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.22: A shopping cart decomposes among riparian grasses in the sun. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

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Figure 4.23: Clothes hang to dry along a clothesline near the entrance of the Sepulveda Basin.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Around five-thirty the same afternoon, we reunited underneath Balboa
Boulevard, twin bridges constructed in 1941 and 1964.
424 The grates overhead cast
geometric shadows onto the sand beneath the bridge (Figure 4.24). In this unique
stretch of the Los Angeles River, the neighboring sycamores, pampas grasses, river
rocks, and broken concrete (which, after years of exposure, now resemble river rocks)
matched the bucolic imagery I typically associate with rivers (Figure 4.25). The water
flows around the rocks, forming small, white ripples (Figure 4.26). We headed north,
walking towards the concrete-lined Lake Balboa to cross Bull Creek, one of the many
tributaries of the Los Angeles River. Each team member dipped a hand into Bull Creek
and described the water in a single word. The unanimous choice was “viscous.” The
water was thick and filmy; even though we were all hot and sweaty, I did not want to
jump in. As ducks circled Lake Balboa (Figure 4.27), children and their parents
picnicked around the park. Completed in 1992, Lake Balboa, spanning 27.5 acres, is
filled with 72 million gallons of water from the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, which
began its operations in the San Fernando Valley in 1985.
425 We followed the Lake
Balboa Hiking Trail and watched a man cast his fishing line into the water with his two
children. He told us they had caught a bunch of little fish but were hoping to catch
something bigger. For a little while, joyful screams and resounding laughter replaced the
constant rush of cars we had heard all morning.
424 Federal Highway Administration, National Bridge Inventory, accessed December 12, 2023.
425 Myron Levin, “Lake Balboa to Be Filled and Ready for Use Next Week,” Los Angeles Times, August 1,
1992, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-08-01-me-4247-story.html.

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Figure 4.24: The twin bridges of Balboa Boulevard cast geometric shadows onto the Los Angeles
River below. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.25: Without a concrete bottom, vegetation thrives in this stretch of the Los Angeles River.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

182
Figure 4.26: With river rocks and riparian grasses, the Los Angeles River in this section more closely
resembles a conventional river. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.27: Several ducks swim across Lake Balboa. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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During the final mile of our day, we followed an informal social trail along the
river. We passed the Woodley Lakes Golf Course, which opened in 1975 and is
separated by a broken chain-link fence from the river (Figure 4.28), as well as Woodley
Creek, which is overflowing with sunflowers (Figure 4.29). While we walked by the
Apollo 11 Model Aircraft Field towards Burbank Boulevard, model airplanes and drones
flew overhead. Beneath Burbank Boulevard, another set of twin bridges constructed in
1974, we could see the Sepulveda Dam in the distance (Figure 4.30).426 As the sun set,
we strolled toward the looming concrete barrier, our final destination for the day. The
gently flowing river mirrored the light pink sky. To reach the base of the dam, we
crossed over the Haskell Creek Bridge and walked along a narrow dirt path with riparian
grasses on either side of us until we reached the large concrete structure.
426 Federal Highway Administration, National Bridge Inventory, accessed December 12, 2023.
Figure 4.28: Broken fences allow access from the Woodley Lakes Golf Course to the social trail
running along this stretch of the Los Angeles River. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.29: Sun flowers grow in abundance along Woodley Creek. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

186
Figure 4.30: The Sepulveda Dam can be seen underneath Burbank Boulevard. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

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Composed of steep and smooth concrete and spray painted with graffiti, the
Sepulveda Dam is fifty-seven-feet tall and prominent (Figure 4.31). 427 Completed in
December 1941 and recognized as historic resource for its association with flood
control, the dam was constructed to enhance flood protection for Los Angeles in
response to the 1938 destructive flood.428 While the smooth concrete was rather
challenging to climb over, we found that ascending the riprap levee just northeast of the
dam was much easier. On the other side of the dam, two motorcyclists performed
wheelies on the large and flat concrete platform, drawing a crowd of people who
cheered them on. From the top of the dam, the entire group sat next to each other and
watched as the sun set dipped behind the mountains. Darkness fell over us quickly.
427 Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan, 2023.
428 Historic Places Los Angeles, “Historic Resource – Sepulveda Dam,” accessed December 22, 2023,
https://historicplacesla.lacity.org/report/87f409a9-7a68-45a0-be5b-08f324a25199.
Figure 4.31: The Sepulveda Dam at sunset. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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DAY TWO: SHERMAN OAKS THROUGH GLENDALE
On the second day of our journey, we walked about eight miles from the
Sepulveda Dam to the Mariposa Bridge, just north of Travel Town in Griffith Park. We
met a little earlier than we had the morning before to beat the incoming heat. The sun
was just rising, and the sky was pink and orange as we gathered and stretched on the
east side of the 405 Freeway, a significant obstacle to walking the entire Los Angeles
River. The only way around the freeway is a mile-long detour north-east on Burbank
Boulevard and then south on Sepulveda Boulevard, a six-lane roadway, to reunite with
the river. Our second day navigating the Los Angeles River on foot is characterized by
obstacles hindering access like this.
The Los Angeles River Bike Path begins at Valleyheart Drive in Van Nuys and
Sherman Oaks. We all sat, slightly fatigued but still eager, on a wooden bench as
Camille, our documentarian, led us through a short meditation before we each offered
the river more tobacco and began our day-long river walk. I was surprised by how sore
my legs were from the previous ten miles. I recalled my journal entry from the day
before, “The concrete is hard beneath my feet.” 429 The paved bike path would be
equally hard on my body, specifically my knees. The day also included frequent fencehopping and encounters with numerous no-trespassing signs warning of $1,000 fines
(Figure 4.32). One woman who was walking her dog told us we looked like very nicely
dressed trespassers. At many points throughout the morning, we were confused and
uncertain about whether or not we were permitted to be where we were walking. An
opened gate would often lead to a locked gate only a few blocks downstream. While
well maintained, the Los Angeles River Bike Path is highly fragmented on this stretch of
the river.
After the Sepulveda Dam, the river transforms back into a box channel with tall
vertical walls and a blue undulating iron fence, restricting any direct access to the water
(Figure 4.33). We never successfully entered the river channel on our second day.
Instead, we primarily walked alongside it, following bike paths and maintenance roads,
documenting less than a foot of water lazily flowing down the box channel. I loved the
429 Journal Entry, August 1, 2023.

189
hand-painted river depth markers on the channel walls, evidence of the mysterious
hands continuously at work in the river (Figure 4.34). The bike path guided our group to
Kester Avenue, where we switched sides of the river and walked along Ernie’s Walk, a
decomposed granite pathway underneath a row of Canary Island pines. In 1995, as
previously noted, Ernie Lamere tended to this short stretch of the river, planting
marigolds and geraniums. Following his passing, the pathway was named after him in
his honor. For a couple of miles, we strolled next to the 101 Freeway. The pine trees,
neighboring the river, shaded the group and hid the towering freeway barrier (Figure
4.35). The abundance of trees surprised the group. We could hear the cars rushing by
us on the other side of the wall.
Figure 4.32: Trespassing signs are a common sight on this stretch of the river.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.33: The river is confined to a narrow box channel with the Los Angeles River Bike Path
running alongside it. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.34: Rulers on the channel walls indicate the water's depth. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Similar to the day before, in the morning light, the concrete takes on several
different shades of gray. I wrote in my journal, “The shadows from the trees are
beautiful, they walk along the concrete walls, the gray is rich in the sunlight.” 430 I
continued in the same entry, “The day is a lot of the same… Everyone is feeling very
hot. We’ve been taking a lot of short breaks under large oak trees and sycamores.” 431
We took a longer break at the Sportsmen’s Lodge Erewhon, a high-end grocery market,
in Studio City. In the early 1880s, the site was a popular natural fishing area,
supplemented by man-made lakes in the 1920s. In 1938, the Sportsmen’s Lodge was
known as ‘Trout Lakes and Lodge,’ where guests could catch their own fish for dinner.
Almost a century later, the shopping complex features a small lake, several stores, and
a hotel.
432 The Sportsmen’s Lodge was identified by SurveyLA as a historic district in
2013.433 I was relieved to finally find a restroom after two miles of searching for one.
During the break, one of the group members, Hannah, decided to go home and rest for
the remainder of the day. Feeling ill, she wanted to make sure she maintained her
stamina for the second half of the journey. We joked that we were not running a sprint
but a marathon. I wrote about the break, “It felt funny to eat lunch outside Erewhon after
walking for miles. Re-emerging from the river into Studio City is bizarre. I felt like a
wetland creature escaping from a million tons of concrete, now waiting for the crosswalk
signal to change so I can safely traverse six lanes of traffic.” 434 Hungry and tired, we ate
an early lunch and tasted several different types of organic gummies.
Around eleven in the morning, we continued walking along the box channel, reentering the Los Angeles River Trail through an iron gate shaped like a frog (Figure
4.35). 435 At Whitsett Avenue, we needed to leave the channel, cross the street, reenter
the channel and keep walking—a recurring pattern throughout the day. Across the river,
we could just see the tennis floodlights from Weddington Golf and Tennis club, a historic

430 Journal Entry, August 2, 2023.
431 Journal Entry, August 2, 2023.
432 Historic Places Los Angeles, “Historic District - Sportsmen's Lodge,” accessed December 22, 2023,
https://historicplacesla.lacity.org/report/c36ebc9b-25b9-4a7a-9d01-4e1b791a579e.
433 Chris Nichols, “A Look Back at the Sportsmen's Lodge in Its Heyday,” Los Angeles Magazine, March
30, 2015, https://lamag.com/news/slide-show-a-look-back-at-the-sportsmens-lodge-before-it-is-torn-downfor-a-new-gym, accessed December 22, 2023.
434 Journal Entry, August 2, 2023.
435 “Earth Iron Work: Michael Amescua.” Accessed October 30, 2023. https://earthiron.net/index. Michael
Amescua is responsible for several of the earth iron gates along the Los Angeles River.

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district, designated in 2021 and a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 1240.
The tennis club is recognized as “an excellent example of a 1950s private recreation
facility,” however, it is challenging to see from the public right-of-way. 436 We did,
however, see a surfboard, miles away from the ocean (Figure 4.36), spotted several
ducks floating in the water, and noticed an older apartment complex with several pieces
of indigo clothing hanging out to dry on one of the balconies (Figure 4.37). The
vegetation bordering the bike path looks somewhat wild and overgrown but offers
minimal to no shade. Billboards along the river advertise various movies and streaming
shows including Hulu’s “What We Do in the Shadows” (Figure 4.38). The sight of the
billboard made me think of Gandy’s reflection on the Los Angeles River: “Buildings face
away, billboards obscure its location, and its channel is mostly inaccessible behind of
concrete levees.”437 This observation felt fitting to characterize the day.
436 Historic Places Los Angeles, “Historic District - Weddington Golf and Tennis,” accessed December 22,
2023, https://historicplacesla.lacity.org/report/695d935a-bad1-4768-b1de-7dfc8bc0fb7a.
437 Gandy, “Riparian Anomie,” 136.
Figure 4.35: Rio passed through a gate
designed like a frog, crafted by earth iron
artist, Michael Amescua. Photo by author.

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Figure 4.36: We found a surfboard on the Los Angeles River Trail several miles from the ocean.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.37: On a balcony that overlooked the river, garments dyed in indigo were laid out to dry.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.38: A large billboard towers above the Los Angeles River. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Studio City
Just outside of CBS Studio Center, a historic district designated in 2012 and one
of the earliest studios in the San Fernando Valley, writers and actors marched along
Radford Avenue in protest for better working conditions including increased wages and
stricter rules for artificial intelligence.438 Our journey also led us north on Radford
Avenue, along the Radford Art Walk. There is no river access through the CBS Studio
Center, so instead, we walked along the Tujunga Wash, a tributary of the Los Angeles
River until it flowed into the Los Angeles River just a couple hundred feet downstream
(Figure 4.39).439 To the west of Gilligan’s Island Road, the start of a narrow two-footwide section is carved into the river channel’s floor. From this point on for several
subsequent miles, the river water is funneled and confined within this low-flow zone. In
this section, the Los Angeles River is transformed into a mere trickle inside a large and
flat gray vat of concrete (Figure 4.40).
438 Historic Places Los Angeles, “Historic District - CBS Studio Center,” accessed December 22, 2023,
https://historicplacesla.lacity.org/report/459b39b8-9a35-4194-97df-b3f46cfcde0e.
439 As mentioned in Chapter Three, the Tujunga Wash is home to Judith Baca’s renowned mural, “The
Great Wall of Los Angeles.” Spanning between Burbank Boulevard and Oxnard Street, about two miles
north of the Los Angeles River, Baca’s mural is one of the longest in the world.
Figure 4.39: The confluence of the Los
Angeles River (left) and the Tujunga
Wash (right). Photo by author.

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Figure 4.40: Looking east on Vineland Avenue, toward the 101 Freeway in the distance. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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For the remainder of the day, our primary challenge involved figuring out ways to
walk as close to the river as possible, as river access was highly fragmented and
continuously obstructed (Figure 4.41). At Colfax Avenue, for example, we walked
around to Kelsey Street, proceeding along a decomposed granite pathway until our
route was blocked again at Tujunga Avenue. In this instance, we strolled along the busy
Ventura Boulevard for a couple blocks. We then returned to the box channel through a
hole in a fence at the back of the Studio Village Strip Mall and walked along a
maintenance road. Makeshift or improvised access, such as holes in fences, is a
common occurrence along the Los Angeles River.
Figure 4.41: The trail is blocked by Tujunga Avenue. We leave the channel, cross
the bridge, and reenter on the opposite river bank. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Much like the 405 Freeway, the 101 Freeway proved to be another impassable
obstacle. Universal Studios, the Lakeside Golf Club, a historic district, and Warner
Brothers Studio, situated on both sides of the river, also prohibited access to the
waterway. A two-and-a-half-mile stretch of the river was entirely inaccessible to us.
Consequently, we drove around the area and resumed walking at West Valley Heart
Drive. At this juncture, the low-flow section carved into the box channel ends, and the
river water once again flows along the entire floor of the box channel (Figure 4.42).
Walking along the wide dirt equestrian trail, we passed Buena Vista Park, a grassy lawn
with some picnic tables, and we could see the ABC Television headquarters on the Walt
Disney Company studio lot in the distance. A man with two dogs asked us what we
were doing. We told him we were trying to navigate the entire Los Angeles River on
foot. He responded, “When the world ends, this river will be all we have left.” A massive
gray concrete monument. During the hottest part of the afternoon, several sprinklers
irrigated the grass (Figure 4.43). In May 1939, this five-mile stretch of the river bending
around Griffith Park was among the initial sections to be straightened and lined with
concrete.440
Burbank
The last mile of the day was by far the hottest. I wrote in my journal, “We are
walking in August in ninety-degree heat. We felt it as soon as the sun was up. My eyes
burn. My skin burns. I am sun-fried.” We quickly passed by some horses in residential
stalls and ventured through the tunnel underneath the 134 Freeway, leading to the
Disney Animation Building (Figure 4.44). We walked through a field of dried grass and
ran around a dirt horse turnout with a lone woven chair, positioned for someone to
watch. Finally, we reached Mariposa Bridge, relieved, hot, and tired (Figure 4.45).
440 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 221.

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Figure 4.42: A wide equestrian trail runs parallel to the Los Angeles River near Burbank. Photo by
author.

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Figure 4.43: During the peak heat of the day, sprinklers water a grassy lawn while the Los Angeles
River flows nearby. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.44: Looking through the tunnel underneath the 134 Freeway, approaching the Disney
Animation Building. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.45: Mariposa Bridge accommodates both pedestrians and equestrians across the Los
Angeles River. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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DAY THREE: GLENDALE THROUGH FROGTOWN
On August 3rd, the third day of our journey, we walked just over eight miles from
the Mariposa Bridge through Glendale, Atwater Village and Frogtown to the southern
end of Egret Park on Riverside Drive. Following along the Los Angeles River Bike Path,
our third day walking the Los Angeles River was much simpler than the day before.
Early in the morning, we offered the river a pinch of tobacco and crossed the Mariposa
Bridge, littered with wood chips, often used for horseback riding. Like the previous two
mornings, the sky was pink and purple, and the sun was just rising (Figure 4.46). I had
walked this section of the Los Angeles River many times before—we joked as a group
that while we were all tired, at least our walk would be entirely legal.
Situated in the interstitial space between the box channel and the 134 Freeway,
the first stretch of the river trail consists of dirt mixed with horse hay. The rushing
sounds of cars emanating from the freeway overpowered the gentle flow of the water. In
some stretches, the 134 Freeway is hidden by a thin wall of trees. In others, the cars
sped right past us. A dark chain link fence divides the vertical descent into the river from
the pathway. Having grown through the chain link, in certain segments, remnants of cut
tree branches and tree trunks are still present. Tall telephone structures tower above us,
and strings of telephone wires dangle in the air. In the golden light, the concrete again
took on many shades of gray, painted and repainted in reachable areas from the bottom
of the river floor (Figure 4.47). We noticed equally spaced horizontal lines running along
the vertical walls, left behind from the wooden boards used during the channel’s
construction. Several tiny birds foraged for food in the shallow water. Across the river,
we observed a man walking his dog (Figure 4.48) and a tractor carrying around mounds
of dirt with the Verdugo Mountains towering in the background. As the dirt trail abruptly
turned into a concrete path designed for cyclists, familiar with our route, we walked a bit
faster than we had the day before.

206
Figure 4.46: Early in the morning, the sky is pink and purple as we cross the Mariposa Bridge to the
opposite riverbank. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.47: Subtle horizontal lines along the vertical channel walls are remnants from the cast-inplace concrete method employed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers during the
construction process. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.48: On the opposite bank of the river, a man strolls with his dog, and a tractor carrying dirt is
visible in the distance. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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About a mile down river, the solid concrete floor transforms into a soft, muddy
bottom, allowing for the growth of trees and vegetation in the middle of the river. This
stretch, known as the Glendale Narrows, features a soft, muddy bottom because the
water table was too high for the United States Army Corps of Engineers to bury it in
concrete like the rest of the channel. The transition begins with an assortment of
scattered rocks along the channel floor, followed by the emergence of riparian grasses
and then willow trees (Figure 4.49). The channel walls also shift from vertical to
trapezoidal, enabling us to walk much closer to the water than the day before. The
chain-link fence along the channel’s edge was informally cut open in a number of
places. Several suitcases, a wheelchair, and an umbrella were perfectly lined up around
one of the openings (Figure 4.50). Through another opening, our group entered and
descended into the channel. Right by the water, it felt windier, and the sounds from the
freeway softened. As algae snaked along the river’s surface, we watched small fish and
other vertebrates swimming around in the pooling water. The riparian grasses were as
tall as my body. Near an improvised tent on one of the numerous dirt islands in the
middle of the channel, we noticed a man fishing with a net.

210
Figure 4.49: The transition between a concrete floor and a muddy, soft bottom can be seen in the
distance. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.50: Suitcases line one of the informal openings in the Glendale Narrows. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

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We crossed under the Riverside-Zoo Drive Bridge, a Historical-Cultural
Monument #910 constructed in 1938, and took a short water break underneath the 5
Freeway and discussed the changes we noticed in the river (Figure 4.51).441 We had
already seen significantly more people compared to the day before. Rio switched his
camera film, while Nina captured images of the light streaming in underneath the
freeway. Just down the way, on the opposite bank, we could see the ABC7 and
DreamWorks Animation studios (Figure 4.52). For a short stretch around Griffith Park,
the river floor is covered in concrete again as it alters its course from a west-to-east flow
to a north-south direction—a trajectory it maintains until it reaches the ocean. Near the
end of the bend, the Verdugo Wash converges with the Los Angeles River as the 134
Freeway traverses the channel. For a few hundred feet, we walked directly alongside
the 5 Freeway without much of a buffer at all (Figure 4.53). Camille told me, “It is loud.
Shockingly loud.” Several bikers rode past us. The river was separated from Griffith
Park by the 5 Freeway in 1960 and was one of the last segments of the channel to be
completed. The bike path is isolated, situated between the 5 Freeway on one side and
the Los Angeles River on the other. During this stretch, the concrete bottom gives way
again to a soft bottom, and the riparian vegetation reappears (4.54). The entire group
was eager to venture farther into the channel.
441 “Spanning History: The Bridges of Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles Conservancy, 2008, 6.

213
Figure 4.51: The shade is heavy and welcome underneath the 5 Freeway. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.52. An ABC7 sign towers over the neighboring trees and riparian grasses growing in
the Los Angeles Riverbed. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.53: As we continue walking along the Los Angeles River Bike Path, the 134 Freeway
looms ahead. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

216
Figure 4.54: The second transition to a muddy, soft bottom in the Glendale Narrows. Source:
Rio Asch Phoenix.

217
Atwater
Around 9:30 a.m., we could feel the heat pick up. Exploring the river islands,
accessible from the edge of the concrete channel, we observed moths and butterflies
fluttering about and lingered underneath the trees (Figure 4.55). Covered in green
moss, the river rocks are slippery—we wandered slowly, noticing the spider webs of
trash bags and bed sheets that are wrapped around some of the branches deep in the
riverbed. I wrote in my journal, “Curiosity is contiguous today. There is a lot of laughing,
pointing, and exploring.” 442 Passing underneath the North Atwater pedestrian bridge
(Figure 4.56), we witnessed a maintenance truck driving along the edge of the channel
floor. A man in a straw hat and orange long-sleeved shirt stepped out of the vehicle and
began picking up trash trapped among the vegetation. He told us he worked for the
Army Corps of Engineers and if we wanted more information, we could call the number
on the truck.
Complete with ironwork, the bike path climbs over Los Feliz Boulevard. The
Baum Bicycle Bridge opened in 2002 and was funded by Metro and the City to connect
the Los Angeles River Bike Path. 443 It is named for Alex Baum who founded the Los
Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee in 1973 (Figure 4.57). The Los Angeles River Bike
Path then took us under the Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct, which was completed in 1929
and is designated as Historic-Cultural Monument #164. Former Chief Engineer of
Bridges, Merrill Butler designed the structure with the intention to “preserve forever the
unusual beauty of this viaduct by means of a park which will extend under and all
around the bridge, making it an architectural jewel in a landscaped setting.”444 The
construction of the 5 Freeway in the 1960s, however, isolated Butler’s bridge. Just south
of the Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct, the Red Car pedestrian bridge, connecting Atwater
442 Journal Entry, August 3, 2023
443 Baum Bicycle Bridge. Accessed October 30, 2023.
https://libraryarchives.metro.net/dpgtl/employeenews/mymetro/20020510-alex-baum-bicycle-bridgeopens.pdf.
444 “History of the Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles River Master Plan, Appendix A, 1996, 11; “Spanning
History: The Bridges of Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles Conservancy, 2008, 8.

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Village and Silver Lake, opened in 2020. Adorned with a red handrail, it was named
after the Red Car trolley that used to be prevalent all over Los Angeles.445
445 Jesus Sanchez, “The Car-Free Red Car Bridge Opens Between Atwater Village and Silver Lake,” The
Eastsider, January 26, 2020, https://www.theeastsiderla.com/neighborhoods/atwater_village/the-carfree-red-car-bridge-opens-between-atwater-village-and-silver-lake/article\.
Figure 4.55: Exploring the river islands in the middle of the Glendale Narrows. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.56: Staring up at the North Atwater Pedestrian Bridge, which opened in 2020, from the
channel below. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.57: Crossing Los Feliz Boulevard using the Baum Bicycle Bridge, which opened in 2002.
Many other people were also out walking. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

221
Frogtown
Following along the bike path, we crossed under the Fletcher Drive Bridge,
constructed in 1927 and designated as Historic-Cultural Monument #323. Distinctive
features include elaborate lanterns to light the bridge at night. The bridge was originally
built as part of the “Great Fletcher Drive Improvement” plan, with the goals of
establishing a grand boulevard.446 Walking beneath the 2 Freeway, I hurried to a public
restroom within the four-acre Lewis MacAdams’ Riverfront Park, formerly known as
Marsh Park, named after the founder of the Friends of the Los Angeles River
(FoLAR).447 In 1986, as previously noted, MacAdams’ cut a hole in the fence near this
spot, leading to the establishment of FoLAR, a non-profit organization dedicated to the
revitalization of the Los Angeles River and fostering connections between people and
the river. 448 We walked by Spoke, a colorful bicycle cafe, and took a long break at La
Colombe, a coffee shop neighboring the river. While seated at a table in the shade, we
sipped on iced tea and closed our eyes for a couple of minutes. Just outside of La
Colombe, three individuals lay on the concrete under a tree. We asked them why they
chose this spot to rest. One of them, holding a guitar, told us, “It’s peaceful. We just
listen to the water. It drowns out all the freeways. We just go to the river to hang out.
And we think and drink coffee.” I have seen this group of three by the river before. He
continues, “It’s meditative. We all live in neighboring places and get here in ten or fifteen
minutes. I feel like we're pretty privileged because some people don’t got no shade, and
I like that we have free shade.” On one of the river islands, we found a solitary wooden
and fabric-lined chair. I imagined someone sitting there and just listening to the river for
a while (Figure 4.58).
Across from the Taylor Yard parcel, we spoke to another individual named
Manny, who was lounging on a blue mattress underneath the Orange Bridge (Figure
446 “Spanning History: The Bridges of Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles Conservancy, 2008, 10.
447 Lewis MacAdams Riverfront Park. Accessed: December 12, 2023. https://mrca.ca.gov/parks/parklisting/marsh-park/.
448 Beth Rose Middleton, “Where the River Meets the City: Tracing Los Angeles’ Social and
Environmental Movements,” City 13, no. 1 (2009): 150-152, doi:10.1080/13604810902726384; LAist
Staff, “Lewis MacAdams, Who Worked to Fix The 'Tragedy' Of The LA River, Has Died At 75,” LAist, April
21, 2020, https://laist.com/news/lewis-mcadams-died-los-angeles-river.

222
4.59), waiting for his friend. 449 He shared with us, “[My friend] is still working so I
thought, I am just going to lay under here. The river is going to keep me fresh. This
bridge is going to give me shade. What else do I need? So, I’m chilling. That’s all we are
supposed to do right now. It’s super hot…” He continued,
[The river] changes all of a sudden. You will find parts of it very full of
nature. Birds and fish. Then all of the sudden, it’s super dry and no one is
here. It changes all of the time. I am hoping things change for the better…
There are new reasons for people to come and actually visit the river… I
rode my bike here once or twice, but not the whole LA River. I would never
do that. That’s torturous.”
Feeling sweaty and hot, we walked along the bike path during the final mile of our day
(Figure 4.60), concluding at Egret Park. Looking downstream, we paused to see what
tomorrow would bring—the concrete once again encases the channel floor and the 5
Freeway and Arroyo Seco Parkway cross the river just ahead (Figure 4.61).
449 Identified in The Los Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study by the United States
Army Corps of Engineers, the Taylor Yard parcel, a former railyard, is one of the largest opportunities
along the river for restoration.
Figure 4.58: A long chair
sitting on of the river
islands in the middle of the
channel. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

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Figure 4.59: The Taylor Yard Bridge opened in 2022 and is opened to pedestrians with two viewing
platforms. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.XX: The Orange Bridge and its viewing deck overlooking the Glendale Narrows.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix
Figure 4.60: The Los Angeles River Bike Path running along the Glendale Narrows. Kayaking is
permitted in this portion of the river during the summer months, as well as swimming “at your own
risk.” Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.61: The Los Angeles River Bike Path ends at the southern edge of Frogtown, and the 5
Freeway and the Arroyo Seco Parkway loom just ahead. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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DAY FOUR: FROGTOWN THROUGH VERNON
On our fourth day, we walked from the southern edge of Frogtown through the
Arts District and Vernon to the South Atlantic Boulevard Bridge in Maywood. I was
nervous in the early morning. In this section of the river, with railroads running in both
directions on either side of the channel, there is no designated pathway. The only way
to walk near the water is to walk along the channel floor for multiple miles without a
clear way out. While the channel is mostly trapezoidal in this segment, five-foot vertical
walls and fences adorned with barbed wire at the top of the levee complicated our route
(Figure 4.62). Ultimately, after scouting certain sections, studying Google Maps
meticulously, and confirming a midway point to rest and refill our water bottles, we
decided to walk within the channel.
Arts District
Despite a sunnier forecast, the morning on August 4 was fortunately cloudy. I felt
relieved and grateful for the sun cover as we climbed through the metal guard rail and
descended down the channel wall at the southern end of the Los Angeles River Bike
Trail. As a precaution, we wore construction vests and waterproof booties to cover our
running shoes (Figure 4.63). Water drips from the circular drainage pipes along the
channel wall, and riparian grasses grow in the droplets’ path. During our visit, several
ducks and ducklings floated in the various small pools of water. Approaching where the
5 Freeway crossed the river, the concrete floor is carpeted with a layer of bright green
algae (Figure 4.64). As hundreds of cars rushed along the freeways above us, walking
through this part of the channel felt like we were underground (Figure 4.65). The 5
Freeway is followed by the Riverside-Figueroa Street Bridge and then the Arroyo Seco
Parkway. The Riverside-Figueroa Street Bridge was originally constructed in 1927 and
is designated at Historic-Cultural Monument #908. It was demolished during the 1938
flood and rebuilt in 1939 to connect Cypress Park and the Elysian Valley.450 In the early
hours of the morning, we passed the Arroyo Seco Confluence, where the two box
channels merge (Figure 4.66). I thought we would be alone in the riverbed for a while,
450 “Spanning History: The Bridges of Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles Conservancy, 2008, 12.

227
but I was mistaken—a man rode his bicycle down an access road beside the confluence
and continued riding downstream. We followed far behind him until he eventually
disappeared from our view. Moments later, a silver truck drove by us, and a man inside
waved. Then another truck passed by and another car. I wrote in my journal, “I am
surprised by the number of people down here. Not what I was expecting.” 451 Avoiding
the water in the middle of the channel, we walked almost grazing the trapezoidal walls.
We were careful to sidestep any signs of oil (Figure 4.67). A Metrolink train crossed
overhead, prompting the birds to fly away.
451 Journal Entry, August 4, 2023.
Figure 4.62: Five foot vertical walls and barbed wire blocks access in and out of the channel.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.63: We wore orange construction vests and waterproof booties as precautions navigating
this section of the river. The 5 Freeway is just behind us. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

229
Figure 4.64: A carpet of bright green algae covered the concrete floor. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.65: Historic-Cultural Monument, Riverside-Figueroa Street bridge as seen from below.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.66: Looking north-east up the Arroyo Seco, a tributary of the Los Angeles River. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

232
Figure 4.67: The presence of oil in the river water. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

233
The trucks led us to Metabolic Studio’s construction site in the middle of the river
channel just north of the North Broadway Bridge. Constructed in 1911, this monumental
Beaux-Arts bridge, the first in Los Angeles, is designated as Historic-Cultural Monument
#907. (Figure 4.68). Lauren Bon, an artist, activist, and director of Metabolic Studio, is
currently involved in diverting a portion of river water to irrigate Los Angeles State
Historic Park. After several years of litigation and obtaining over seventy-five permits,
she became the first private entity to hold a water right to the Los Angeles River since
before the river was channelized.452 To cross the low flow channel, we utilized the
temporary bridge established by Metabolic Studio. The water raced underneath the
bridge through the low flow zone. We watched as several tractor trucks transported
mounds of dirt. Just like the days before, we noticed openings cut into fences and
several layers of paint hiding words and drawings from years before (Figure 4.69). The
Arts District was surprisingly quiet when there were no cargo trains running by.
As we continued walking, we crossed under several historic bridges, pausing to
observe each one. The concrete bridges look enormous from down below. Rio changed
his film under the North Spring Street Viaduct, completed in 1929 and listed as HistoricCultural Monument #900. Designed by John C. Shaw to alleviate heavy traffic in the
area, it was constructed seventeen years after the construction of the North Broadway
Bridge. We then walked under the North Main Street Bridge, constructed in 1910 and
listed at Historic-Cultural Monument #901, followed by the Cesar Chavez Bridge,
completed in 1926 and listed as Historic-Cultural Monument #224 (Figure 4.70). Right
before the First Street Viaduct, completed in 1929 and listed as Historical-Cultural
Monument #909, maintenance work in the channel forced us to walk along the
trapezoidal wall (Figure 4.71). As we walked with one foot above the other, several
individuals in yellow long-sleeved shirts swept the low-flow channel with large brooms.
They informed us that they were cleaning out the algae before an upcoming inspection.
452 Carolina A. Miranda, “Engineering Buried L.A.’s River. Artist Lauren Bon Is Engineering a Plan to Free
It,” Los Angeles Times, October 11, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-10-
11/artist-lauren-bon-and-metabolic-studio-bending-the-river-will-clean-polluted-water.

234
Figure 4.68: The Metabolic Studio “Bending the River” Project is in the foreground. The North
Broadway Bridge in the background. The historic bridge, designed by Homer Hamlin and Alfred P.
Rosenheim, was originally named the “Buena Vista Viaduct.” Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.69: We noticed several openings cut into fences and several layers of paint concealing
graffiti. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

236
Figure 4.70: As a component of the historic El Camino Real, the César Chavez Bridge is embellished
with features inspired by the Spanish Baroque style. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

237
Figure 4.71: To clean the low-flow zone of algae, water was diverted away from the middle and
toward the edge of the river channel. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Boyle Heights
Midway into our day, at the edge of Boyle Heights, we ascended the trapezoidal
channel, exited through an opening in the fence, crossed the train tracks, and took a
short break at Studio MLA, a landscape architecture firm who authored the 2007 Los
Angeles River Master Plan. After our break, we reentered the channel and continued on
our way underneath the Fourth Street Viaduct, built in 1931 and listed as Historic
Cultural Monument #906.453 Two trees sprout out of the concrete structure, and
telephone towers line the channel. We then walked under the recently opened Sixth
Street Viaduct (Figure 4.72). The new design is reminiscent of the original bridge it
replaced. As the heat started to rise, we walked quickly along the channel floor
underneath the Seventh Street Viaduct and the Olympic Boulevard Viaduct.
454
Constructed atop an pre-existing streetcar bridge dating back to 1910, the Seventh
Street Viaduct was finished in 1927 and is listed as Historic Cultural Monument #904.455
Historical-Cultural Monument #902, the Olympic Boulevard Viaduct, built in 1925, was
originally named the Ninth Street Viaduct but was renamed in commemoration of the
1932 Olympics, hosted in Los Angeles.456 Just before the Washington Boulevard
Bridge, built in 1931 and listed as Historic Cultural Monument #903 (Figure 4.73), the
trapezoidal channel walls shift vertically and the low-flow zone is diverted from the
middle of the channel to the channel edges.457 There were thousands of seagulls ahead
of us, sitting along the channel floor (Figure 4.74). The green and brown algae covered
almost every inch of the concrete (Figure 4.75). As we passed through the Industrial
City of Vernon, we heard loud noises from adjacent trucks and large machinery.
453 “Spanning History: The Bridges of Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles Conservancy, 2008, 24.
454 7th street bridge: built in 1927/1910 and listed as a Historical-Cultural Monument #904. Olympic
boulevard bridge: built in 1925 and listed as a Historical-Cultural Monument #902.
455 “Spanning History: The Bridges of Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles Conservancy, 2008, 28.
456 “Spanning History: The Bridges of Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles Conservancy, 2008, 30.
457 “Spanning History: The Bridges of Los Angeles River.” Los Angeles Conservancy, 2008, 32.

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Figure 4.72: Resembling the original Sixth Street Viaduct, the new Sixth Street Viaduct opened in
2022. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.73: Birds fly past the Washington Boulevard Bridge. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.74: Hundreds of seagulls sit along the channel floor. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.75: Green algae grows all along the stretch of the river near the Industrial City of Vernon.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Vernon
The last two miles of our day were particularly hot (Figure 4.76). We did not see
any other individuals walking, only trains and telephone wires. In the southern section of
Vernon, the channel widens with extensive stretches of flat concrete (Figure 4.77).
Without any trees in sight, the channel is fully exposed. We could feel the heat simmer
around our ankles as the water flowed swiftly by, confined to the low flow channel. The
air almost seemed like it was vibrating. Perhaps a little delirious, the entire group was
excited by a peculiar buffalo gourd growing on the levee. The leaves grew vertically
towards the sky and looked geometric (Figure 4.78). As our day ended, we saw piles of
broken concrete forming small islands in the middle of the channel with grass growing
through the cracks (Figure 4.79). We noticed several ducks feeding on the algae. To
exit the channel, we proceeded towards South Atlantic Boulevard. Several Fedex
Trucks were parked in the Fedex Freight parking lot. Crossing over the South Atlantic
Boulevard bridge, we stood in the middle and looked back towards downtown.
Figure 4.76: Walking
along asphalt, we could
feel the heat rising from
the ground. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.77: The concrete bed in this stretch of the river is flat and unyielding. Source: Rio Asch
Phoenix.

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Figure 4.78: A buffalo gourd growing off the river levee surprised and excited the group.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.79: Broken bits of concrete form small river islands in the center of the channel, creating
habitat for riparian vegetation and ducks. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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DAY FIVE: VERNON THROUGH NORTH LONG BEACH
On our fifth day, we walked from the South Atlantic Boulevard Bridge to the
southern edge of DeForest Park in North Long Beach, passing through Maywood, Bell,
Cudahy, Lynwood, Compton, and Paramount. As the sun rose, we began our walk at
the start of the southern segment of Los Angeles River Bike Path, which extends all the
way from Maywood to the ocean, roughly twenty miles downstream. Immediately, we
passed several unhoused people living in the channel in informal structures. Two
people gathered around a small fire, and a German shepherd barked loudly. Within
minutes of walking on asphalt and sensing a hint of humidity, we could tell it was going
to be a particularly hot day. We stopped briefly to find a public bathroom at the
Riverfront Park just south of East Slauson Avenue (Figure 4.80). We entered through a
blue iron gate that read, “Los Angeles River.”
A silver chain-link fence separates the wide concrete river channel from the bike
path. We waited for a gap in the fence to enter the trapezoidal channel. We noticed
some grass and flowers growing out of the cracks and holes in the concrete (Figure
4.81). Otherwise, there are no trees and absolutely no shade apart from the bridges. I
noticed a layer of cracked mud on the concrete—it reminded me of a desert (Figure
4.82). Walking past a series of warehouses adjacent to the river, only the tops of the
unmarked buildings are visible (Figure 4.83). Within the channel, at times, it was
challenging to tell what neighborhood we were walking through.

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Figure 4.80: Looking south into Riverfront Park in Maywood. The river is on the other side of the
fence. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.81: Grass grows within the cracks in the channel. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.82: Cracked mud atop the concrete floor reminded of the desert. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.83: Walking in the channel, we could just barely see the tops of buildings. Sometimes it was
challenging to discern which neighborhood we were in. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Lynwood
After several miles, the concrete stated to feel endless. We heard trucks and
trains in the distance, and watched people cycle up and down the bike path. We walked
underneath several freeways (Figure 4.84). One individual used the flat concrete
expanse as an outdoor gym, running sprints and doing pushups (Figure 4.85). Seeking
respite from the sun, we took numerous breaks underneath the bridges. Halfway
through our fifth day, despite carrying sun umbrellas, it was exceedingly hot (Figure
4.86). The river water is confined to a low flow channel, providing little to no breeze. I
wrote in my journal, “The sun is powerful. All we see is concrete in every direction. It is
rather homogenous.” 458 During a longer lunch break beneath the shelter of a bridge, a
man on a red bike leisurely pedaled around the expansive concrete floor. We stretched
our calves on the trapezoidal channel wall.
458 Journal entry, August 5, 2023
Figure 4.84: Walking beneath the 105 freeway. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.85: An individual sprints back and forth along the concrete floor, alternating with sets of
push-ups. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.86: Walking in the Los Angeles River Channel near Lynwood. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Paramount
Once the water spread across the riverbed, we crossed the Imperial Highway
and returned to the bike path on the east side of the river. Cargo shipping containers
are stacked up on the opposite side (Figure 4.87). From the asphalt pathway, we
spotted an informational sign, one of the first we had seen all week.459 It read in both
Spanish and English, “While more than one million people live within one mile of the LA
River, less than ten miles of the river waterfront is dedicated to public space.” 460 We
also found a brown Los Angeles River Trail marker noting mile 9.75 (Figure 4.88). We
used the public restroom just outside of Hollydale Regional Park. In the last mile of our
day, we stumbled upon stables and rings for horses just south of Atlantic Avenue
(Figure 4.89). A couple of riders rode past us on an adjacent dirt path. A long shopping
cart stood upright in the middle of the channel (Figure 4.90).
In the evening, I reflected,
I love what become suitable lunch or snack spots… literally anywhere in
the shade. Even putting sunscreen on or switching camera batteries is
much better done in the shade… At times, the sun feels violent. The
concrete feels like looking at snow— reflecting the sun rays right back at
you. It’s weird being in-channel. You almost miss everything above.
Following water. Concrete is stagnant. The only movement is water. The
neighborhoods flow by. They are easy to miss down there. I like sitting on
the concrete. I hate walking on the concrete. The undersides of the
freeways and bridges amaze me.461
459 While frequently walking in the channel away from the Los Angeles River Trail and Bike Path, I
imagine we overlooked some informative signs along the route.
460 Sign along the Los Angeles River.
461 Journal entry, August 5, 2023.

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Figure 4.87: Cargo containers are piled atop each other on the opposite bank of the river. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.88: An L.A. County Trail Marker for the Los Angeles River Trail. Source: Photo by author.

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Figure 4.89: Horse stables and riding rings run parallel along the Los Angeles River. We observed
several riders riding the adjacent dirt pathways. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.90: A long shopping carts stands in the middle of the riverbed. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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DAY SIX: NORTH LONG BEACH TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN
On our final day, we decided to walk from North Long Beach to the Pacific Ocean
in the afternoon, hoping to finish our six-day journey at sunset. Having just eight miles
remaining of our journey, we gathered at the southern end of DeForest Park, applied
sunscreen, and searched briefly for an entrance to the channel. From park level, visitors
cannot see or hear the river (Figure 4.91). Through an opened gate, we ascended a dirt
mound to the top of the levee and began our last walk of the week. Without any
towering trees, the bike path on the levee is highly exposed (Figure 4.92). Similar to the
day before, by two in the afternoon, the dark asphalt radiated heat. In this segment of
the Los Angeles River, the channel is roughly eight hundred feet wide, and the
trapezoidal walls are steep, almost prohibitive (Figure 4.93). There is no chain-link fence
separating the levee from the river. We shuffled down into the channel early into our
day, but it was steeper and more challenging than the days before. I slipped in some
mud during our descent.
Figure 4.91: From DeForest Park, visitors
cannot see or hear the river. Photo by author.
Figure 4.92: The bike path atop the levee is
highly exposed to the sun with minimal shade.
Photo by author.

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Figure 4.93: While trapezoidal, the channel walls are fairly steep in this segment of the river. The
vertical walls visible in the photo were added to supplement flood capacity in the 1990s. Source:
Rio Asch Phoenix.

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For the first four miles of our day, most of the river’s water is confined to a lowflow area, but some of the water overflows and pools on the concrete floor. Basking in
direct sunlight, algae flourishes within the shallow water, creating an unexpected habitat
for birds (Figure 4.94). Hues of orange and green stain the concrete. Running parallel to
the Los Angeles River, the Dominguez Gap Wetland is planted with California native
vegetation and offers trails for hiking and horseback riding. The forty-acre wetlands and
spreading grounds project opened in 2008, one of five main demonstration projects
proposed in the 2007 Los Angeles River Master Plan. The Virginia Country Club’s golf
course is just east of the Dominguez Gap Wetlands. Walking along the levee, it was an
interesting contrast to observe abundant greenery on our left (Figure 4.95) and a vast
expanse of concrete on our right (Figure 4.96). We noticed benches, trash cans, and
plaques (painted over) positioned every mile along the levee, but these rest stops
provided no shade for visitors. South of the Dominguez Gap Wetland, the Wrigley
Greenbelt, another linear park with picnic tables and a decomposed granite walking
path, opened in June 2023 (Figure 4.97). With the young trees and recently planted
vegetation, most of the tables are unshaded as well.

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Figure 4.94: Algae flourishes in the shallow water pooling along the concrete channel floor.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.95: Virginia Country Club is visible in the distance, while the Dominguez Gap Wetland is in
the foreground. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

265
Figure 4.96: In this stretch of the river, the riverbed is roughly eight-hundred feet wide. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.97: The Wrigley Greenbelt, a linear park just opened in June 2023. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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The Estuary
Crossing under the 405 Freeway felt like transitioning into a different
atmosphere. For the first time, we could smell the ocean and feel the ocean breeze.
Just ahead of us, we could see the very beginning of the Los Angeles River estuary—
after twenty miles of uninterrupted concrete, we were relieved and excited to see the
river once again shift from an impermeable concrete floor to a muddy, soft bottom. From
the bike path, we also spotted the distant red and blue cranes from the Port of Long
Beach (Figure 4.98). Immediately before the transition point, a series of concrete curbs
divert the water from the central low flow zone of the channel to its edges. As an early
initiative in flood control, this section of the river was shifted eastward by a mile to
protect the two ports.462
After passing under the West Willow Street Bridge, we descended the
trapezoidal channel wall onto a sandy island. Surrounded with sunflowers, river rocks,
and riparian grasses, the landscape changes abruptly (Figure 4.99). The concrete
trapezoidal wall transforms into a boulder field. Deep in the riverbed, amidst the willows,
I briefly forgot I was in the middle of a city. In certain spots, the telephone wires and the
freeways disappear almost completely, and I could hear the water trickling over
cascades of rocks. We explored several social trails, enjoyed the shade and the ocean
breeze, and scouted for a place to sit in the sand underneath the trees. After offering
the river a pinch of tobacco, we sat for a while, indulging in peaches as we reflected on
our journey. In the riverbed, we found a lot of river toys like a little plastic car (Figure
4.100). As we navigated through riparian grasses taller than our heads, we found a
stroller, a laundry bin, and a detergent bottle.
462 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 221.

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Figure 4.98: The concrete gives way to a soft, muddy bottom just past the West Willow Street bridge.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.99: Just three miles from the Pacific Ocean, this stretch of the river is abundantly green.
Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.100: A broken red toy car sits in the middle of the riverbed. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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The estuary is where the fresh water meets ocean water. Just south of the W
Anaheim Street Bridge, the river widens and the flow actually changes directions with
the influx of ocean water (Figure 4.101). After an hour of exploring, we climbed back up
to the levee and walked along the last stretch of the asphalt pathway. A hawk perched
in a tree flew away, while a man cast his fishing line into the river; fish literally jumped
out of the water. From atop of the levee, we could see the Port of Long Beach far more
clearly now (Figure 4.102). As the sun began to set, one group member asked if we
thought of our journey as more of a walk or a hike. Due to the extensive planning
involved in finding a navigable route, the experience felt more like a hike to me. Several
informal wooden housing structures line the river. One such structure was heavily
burned (Figure 4.103). Nearby, a solitary chair was positioned next to a fire pit with two
burning longs. Two people passed by us on Bird scooters.
Finally, we passed underneath the Ocean Boulevard bridge. At this juncture, both
the bike path and the river curve eastward. We followed the path around the Golden
Shore RV Resort and the Golden Shore Marine Biological Reserve (Figure 4.104). A
Catalina Express boat approached the shore. Listening to the ocean waves, we walked
toward Shoreline Park and the mini-pier. There were a lot of people enjoying Sunday
night picnics amidst bright colorful lights emanating from downtown Long Beach. We
saw the Queen Mary, a cruise ship that first launched in 1934 from England and docked
in Long Beach in 1967 (Figure 4.105) and a full view of the Port of Long Beach, the
second largest port in the United States (Figure 4.106). Just like the previous mornings,
the sky was pink and blue.

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Figure 4.101: The transition point from river water to ocean water. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.102: As we walked toward the ocean, the Port of Long Beach came into view. Source: Rio
Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.103: One informal structure along the Lower Los Angeles River was heavily burned. Source:
Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.104: The Golden Shore Marine Biological Reserve and downtown Long Beach in the
distance. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.105: As the sun was setting, we reach the Pacific Ocean and could see Queen Mary in the
distance. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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Figure 4.106: The Long Beach Port is just on the other side of the Golden Shore Marine Biological
Reserve. Source: Rio Asch Phoenix.

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IMPRESSIONS
In some stretches, the character of the Los Angeles River changes greatly from
one mile to the next. In other stretches, walking along the river feels like walking along a
concrete treadmill, interrupted only by other visitors or emergent vegetation in the
channel. The existing trail is mostly unshaded, and benches, trash cans, signage,
outdoor lighting, and public bathrooms are scarce. In certain areas, it is challenging to
tell if you are trespassing or not. An unlocked gate bearing a "No Trespassing" sign may
be opened, while another gate lacking any signage might be locked and inaccessible to
the public. Specific recreational activities are available in designated stretches.
Seasonal kayaking, for example, is offered in the Sepulveda Basin and Frogtown, while
horseback riding is popular in Burbank, Glendale, Compton, and Long Beach. Native
willows thrive in the sections of the channel with a soft bottom, and spontaneous
vegetation sprouts in almost every crevice in the concrete. Though steelhead trout have
not yet returned, the algae mats growing atop the flat riverbed serve as a vital food
source for the thousands of migratory birds that still take rest in the Los Angeles
River.463 While the bridges and emergent ecology offer clues, very few formal locations
along the fifty-one-mile concrete channel provide visitors with insight into the historical
significance of the Los Angeles River. Its crucial role in the native ecology of the region,
the initial establishment of Los Angeles, and its current function as a flood-control
channel can all easily be overlooked by visitors. Yet, people are drawn to the river.
On our walk, the endless concrete sparked discussions on climate change,
climate grief, and the spontaneous life that still thrives within the riverbed; the concrete
challenged us to ponder the past as well as contemplate the future. In its total
transformation, the Los Angeles River asks its visitors what constitutes a river. It asks
its visitors to consider how far they would be willing to go to inhabit certain spaces. It
also offers visitors an opportunity to discover and be amazed by both the power of the
human hand and the incredible resilience of nature. I return over and over.
463 Joa Carren,“The Los Angeles River, a Surprising Oasis for Birds,” PBS SoCal KCET, August 3, 2016,
https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/earth-focus/the-los-angeles-river-a-surprising-oasis-for-birds. Steelhead
trout are a crucial endangered species, native to the Los Angeles River (see Sahagún, “Steelhead Trout
in the L.A. River? These Experts Envision a Fish Passage Through Downtown,” 2020).

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CHAPTER FIVE: COMPARING TWO URBAN RIVERS
The following chapter begins by comparing the historical narratives of the San
Antonio River and the Los Angeles River, assessing the similarities and differences in
their public perception and subsequent flood control strategies. It then delves into
contrasting the present experiences of the two rivers, with a particular focus on
examining the impact of incorporating or neglecting specific heritage in river
infrastructure planning and management. Finally, the chapter shifts its attention toward
the future of the Los Angeles River, while considering the heritage that endures despite
the Los Angeles River’s hostile design.
COMPARING THE RIVERS’ HISTORIES
The histories of the San Antonio River and the Los Angeles River, both dating
back eleven thousand years, share similar trajectories until the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Prior to this pivotal junction, both rivers played a fundamental role
as the foundation for developing their respective cities. Indigenous Communities, such
as the Gabrieliño-Tongva People along the Los Angeles River and the Coahuiltecan
People along the San Antonio River, inhabited specific locations adjacent to these
waterways. Due to intermittent flooding and its positive impact on soil fertility, the
Indigenous Communities in both regions led nomadic lifestyles and relied on resources
provided by the land.
During the 1700s, Spanish-led expeditions resulted in the creation and
establishment of missions in both areas, introducing new diseases and subjecting
Indigenous People to enslavement. 464 As the Spanish presence in each region
continued to grow, the Spanish settlers founded new presidios in Los Angeles (El
Pueblo de la Reina de Los Ángeles) and San Antonio (San Fernando de Béxar), each
situated near, and dependent on, the water from their respective rivers. 465 During this
period, both the Los Angeles River and the San Antonio River were described as
landscapes of great beauty and supported several aspects of daily life. For example, to
464 Chavana, “Reclaiming Tribal Identity,” 24.
465 Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 39.

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support the rise of agriculture, both emerging cities built extensive networks of canals,
known as zanjas and acequias, to help transport water away from the river and irrigate
surrounding lands. Without substantial preplanning for wastewater management,
however, the canal systems eventually became polluted. This prompted both cities to
search for fresh drinking water from alternative sources, specifically tapping into their
underground aquifers.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Los Angeles County extracted water from
its underground aquifer through more than six hundred artesian wells, while Bexar
County had drilled more than seventy artesian wells into its own underground aquifer.
This extensive extraction of water contributed to diminished flows in both rivers. At this
particular juncture, the public perception of the two rivers played a crucial role in
influencing the management of both waterways in the aftermath of destructive flooding
during the early twentieth century and beyond. To illustrate, despite the reduced flow of
the San Antonio River, in 1904, the recently formed Civic Improvement Association
protested tree trimmers who were causing damage to the large trees along the San
Antonio River’s banks. As a result, city officials vowed “to beautify the stream and
protect it in every manner possible.”466 Just one year later in 1905, referring to the plans
for the Los Angeles-Owens River Aqueduct, the Los Angeles Times published an article
titled, "Titanic Project to Give City A River," seemingly dismissing the existing river in
Los Angeles. The aqueduct was completed in 1913, alleviating Los Angeles’
dependence on its river, and by 1919, the Los Angeles Times was publishing jokes
about the neglected waterway. These contrasting attitudes toward the two rivers laid the
foundation for what was to follow.
In 1914, both San Antonio and Los Angeles faced widespread and destructive
flooding from their rivers. Given the development within their respective floodplains, the
damage in both cities was substantial and deadly, leading to discussions about
comprehensive flood control. Initially hesitant due to its high cost, San Antonio
eventually hired the Boston firm Metcalf & Eddy in 1920 to develop a lasting flood
solution for the city. The firm proposed the construction of a dam at Olmos Creek, the
widening, deepening, and straightening of the downtown channel, and the removal of all
466 Fisher, American Venice, 21. Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio].”

281
vegetation and trees from the banks to prevent obstructions to swift-moving floodwaters.
In Los Angeles, city officials formed a Flood Control District covering almost the entire
area of Los Angeles County. This district was granted the authority to exercise eminent
domain and construct infrastructure wherever deemed necessary to control flooding and
was met with little objection. 467
In 1921, San Antonio experienced its most destructive flood to date, prompting
immediate action. By 1926, the city finished constructing the Olmos Dam and by 1930,
completed the bypass channel, cutting off the Great Bend from the main river.
468
However, the removal of trees and vegetation along the riverbanks triggered significant
protests among civic groups in San Antonio. The recently formed San Antonio
Conservation Society campaigned to preserve the river’s natural beauty. Then-Mayor
John W. Tobin assured the city, “The river is one of San Antonio’s real assets, and we
are to develop plans that will make it a thing of beauty and something visitors will
remember and comment on long after their leave.”469 Debates about exactly what to do
with the river ensued. While Harland Bartholomew and Associates proposed a plan to
transform the river into a linear tranquil park, Robert H. H. Hugman suggested creating
a bustling River Walk with shops and restaurants on both street level and river level. 470
An alternative plan under consideration involved turning the river into an underground
conduit through downtown and constructing real estate on top. Eventually, the city
decided to move forward with the construction of the River Walk. Then-Mayor Maury
Maverick secured funding through the WPA for “river beautification” in 1938, coinciding
with the great flood in Los Angeles that same year.
471
Following the devastating floods in 1938, Los Angeles District Engineer, Colonel
Edward C. Kelton, presented a comprehensive infrastructure proposal for the city.
Initially made possible with WPA funding, over the next two decades, the project
radically transformed the river, burying it under 3.5 million tons of concrete while
creating ten thousand jobs in the process. Alternative proposals were considered, such
467 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 61.
468 Fisher, “San Antonio River Walk [Paseo Del Rio].”
469 Fisher, American Venice, 80.
470 Fisher, American Venice, 97.
471 Harrison Price Company, “A Study of Historic Development of San Antonio’s River Walk” (1994), 1.

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as the 1930 Olmsted and Bartholomew plan suggesting a network of interconnected
parks serving as both flood control and recreational spaces. However, due to high real
estate costs, disagreements over the distribution of governmental power, and an overall
disregard for the river, these alternatives were largely ignored. By 1960, Los Angeles
had effectively turned its river into a storm drain, neglecting any acknowledgement of
the river’s historical and cultural significance to the city.
In the past two centuries, in order to safely reside within the historic floodplains of
the San Antonio River and the Los Angeles River, both cities extensively altered their
waterways. Since then, both San Antonio and Los Angeles have produced multiple
master plans that address shared objectives: hydrology and flood management, ecology
and water conservation, aesthetics and cultural significance, as well as recreation and
economic value. However, building within floodplains positioned both cities to forever
perpetuate their expansion of flood control measures. My two river walks, discussed in
the following section, closely examine the present condition of each waterway.
WALKING THE SAN ANTONIO RIVER AND THE LOS ANGELES RIVER
Walking nearly all fifty-one miles of the Los Angeles River in August 2023,
followed by the first sixteen miles of the San Antonio River in September of the same
year, proved to be vastly different experiences. The former required extensive planning,
scouting, and occasional trespassing, while the latter was easily navigable on foot with
maps and signage narrating the story of the San Antonio River along the entire way.
While the early-twentieth-century designs of the San Antonio River prioritized the river’s
aesthetic heritage, designs for the Los Angeles River differed from these goals, focusing
exclusively on flood control. As it was transformed from a wild, sprawling river to a
massive, industrial project, every single section of the Los Angeles River was altered.
Aesthetic qualities, ecological significance, social importance, and spiritual value—none
of these aspects were taken into account and chosen as part of Los Angeles’ heritage.
Fundamentally, Los Angeles and the United States Army Corps of Engineers ceased to
perceive the river as a natural watercourse and instead regarded it as a constructed

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drainage area. 472 As a result, the river was hidden from view, with freeways
constructed both above and beside it.
Reflecting on what caught my attention in each ethnography and along both
rivers offers an intriguing lens. In Chapter Two, I dedicated considerable time discussing
the trees, ground material, and art found along the San Antonio River Walk. In Chapter
Four, I spent more time writing about how I was feeling or how we navigated around
certain obstacles. As a pedestrian walking along the Los Angeles River, it was evident
that any provisions for recreation and human connection to the waterway were
incorporated as an afterthought to the original design. In contrast, San Antonio’s
commitment to preserving its scenic waterway was clearly the driving force behind its
river design. Uniquely, swimming is permitted in the Los Angeles River (“at your own
risk”) while it is not in the San Antonio River.473 Although both rivers are now filled yearround with reclaimed water and have undergone major changes from their original
states, the San Antonio River offers its visitors a predominantly shaded, colorful, and
informative environment reminiscent of its historic appearance. Conversely, the Los
Angeles River is challenging to navigate and bears almost no resemblance to what it
once looked like. As previously noted, upon the completion of the Los Angeles County
Drainage Area Project, a United States Army Corps of Engineers employee asserted
that the early Spanish explorers “would never recognize the Los Angeles River as it is”
today.474
Interestingly, my favorite day of either journey was the fourth day of the Los
Angeles River walk, navigating through the underbelly of downtown. On this particular
day, dressed in construction vests in case anybody questioned us, we were unsure if
we were going to make it. Through the Arts District, Boyle Heights, and Vernon, there
are no paths, no signs, no maps, no benches, no neighboring trash cans, and no public
restrooms, but it was by far the most exciting. Some of my feelings are in conflict with
my studies in landscape architecture and heritage conservation as well as other
portions of this paper, but on this day, I felt like an explorer stepping into a
472 Wormer, “A History of Flood Control in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area,” 89.
473 Signs along the Los Angeles River and the San Antonio River.
474 Lee R. Henning, “Concrete Lining for a River Channel,” Western Construction, February 1958, 31, as
cited in Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River, 224.

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contemporary wilderness. Apart from a brief scouting trip where we looked down into
the channel from the bridges above, the terrain was entirely new to us. In many ways,
walking through this specific portion of the channel evoked a similar sensation to how I
feel hiking at 14,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. At such high altitudes, far from the
trailhead, encounters with other people are rare, and everyone seems to share the
same bewilderment upon seeing another face. For me, the absence of other humans is
exciting—it always has been. Without a path, I was forced to concentrate on my feet,
careful not to trip much like I do during hikes. In this way, I looked at the water, and I
watched it wrap around river rocks and broken concrete. I noticed little bubbles popping
up from the ground and loved the way my waterproof booties squished into the algae
that envelops the concrete. I was surprised to discover such a calm and quiet space in
the middle of downtown Los Angeles. In this context, certain areas within the Los
Angeles River channel do bear a resemblance to the ambiance of being alongside a
natural river. On this particular day, I marveled at two birds flying out of a drainage hole,
surrounded by algae cascading down a concrete wall, and I listened to the gentle drip of
falling water (Figure 5.1). The drainage channel may not look like a river, but for brief
moments, it sometimes smells and sounds like one. Indeed, the Los Angeles River does
not accommodate the majority of people, but for some, it sparks a strange curiosity. I
appreciate that the challenging terrain confronts its visitors with the reality of how much
we have altered our natural landscape. Unlike the San Antonio River, this is impossible
to ignore.

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Figure 5.1: Two birds emerge from a drainage hole in downtown Los Angeles. Photo
by author.

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The upper stretch of San Antonio River is beautiful, but fabricated. Despite San
Antonio’s efforts to preserve its river’s aesthetic heritage, the urban waterway does not
function like a wild or natural river. Several beloved aspects of the river’s original state
are absent; for instance, the water is not suitable to drink or swim, and the majority of
the river is also channelized. To mitigate the risk of flooding, water levels are carefully
managed through dams, a bypass channel, and a tunnel that carries excess water away
from downtown, twenty-four-foot wide and dug one-hundred-fifty feet underground.
Counterintuitively, these major interventions preserve the ambiance and intimacy of the
historic river, and the River Walk is immensely enjoyable, informative, and
accommodating. I liked reading all of the signs and taking breaks on benches. I
appreciated the lights underneath the underpasses, the abundance of flowers, and the
overhanging vines. Our journey was easy. To plan our route, we simply downloaded a
map. My primary critique of the San Antonio River is that it does not challenge its
visitors to consider its significant transformation. Perhaps, that is the very point.
In contrast, I harbor many critiques of the Los Angeles River. Yet, those who
actually venture to explore it seem to share a curiosity similar to mine. I hate it, and I
love it. I despise the massive and violent scar we have inflicted upon the landscape. I
detest its ugliness and its inaccessibility. I hate how the concrete fragmented ecological
systems and divided neighborhoods. I hate that its majority looks nothing like its former
self. But I love that ecology emerges from the cracks in the gray riverbed and offer
glimpses of what the river once looked like and might look like again. I love that no
matter how much concrete we continue to add, plants still grow.
HERITAGE AND THE FUTURE OF THE LOS ANGELES RIVER
In the process of writing this thesis, I have come to realize that there is an
important distinction within the field of heritage conservation between historic
architecture and natural landscapes such as rivers. Unlike the historic Pennsylvania
Station for instance, which ceased to exist when it was torn down, a river retains its
memory in the ground—a river persists even if it is confined by concrete. Since the
enactment of the first Flood Control Act in the 1930s and the roughly ninety years of

287
construction and repairs that followed, the Los Angeles River has continued to flow both
below and above ground. Despite rigorous maintenance efforts, riparian vegetation
thrives in every crack and crevice of the concrete channel. And regardless of “no
trespassing” signs and limited accessibility, people are continuously drawn to it. A river
does not neatly conform within my initial definition of heritage as a selection process—
because even though Los Angeles leaders actively chose not to preserve their river as
part of their city’s heritage, the Los Angeles River inherently retains its own heritage—it
continues to flow.
The Los Angeles River might never resemble its former self, but all rivers are
continuously changing. The boundaries and lines established and enforced by cities and
engineers, as highlighted by landscape architect and planner Dilip Da Cunha, are
fundamentally “invented.”475 Within his book, The Inventions of Rivers, Da Cunha
explores his interpretation of Heraclitus’s famous lesson.
476 Da Cunha writes, “Change
is in the nature of things.”477 In the last sentence of his journal article, “51 Miles of
Concrete: The Exploitation and Transformation of the Los Angeles River,” Gumpretch
asks the question, “Is the river already dead?”478 With each flood, each thriving
cottonwood and willow, and each person who still finds connection within the river, I am
convinced the river is very much alive. In her dissertation, “A Field Guide to Love and
the Los Angeles River,” Tilly Hinton writes, “There is ample primary evidence of people
using the river for all kinds of purposes, of people thinking about the river in all kinds of
ways, of it being a place that has always mattered and continues to matter.”479 Whether
cared for or neglected, rivers are a powerful force. Da Cunha references the words of
Christof Mauch and Thomas Zeller in Rivers in History: “Sources of both abundance
and destruction, life and death, rivers have always had a powerful hold over humankind.
They run through every human landscape, whether mythical or actual.”480 Despite the
475 Dilip Da Cunha, The Invention of Rivers (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), ix.
476 Graham, “Heraclitus,” 2021. Referenced in the introduction: “No man ever steps in the same river
twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
477 Da Cunha, The Invention of Rivers, 2.
478 Gumprecht, “51 Miles of Concrete,” 480.
479 Tilly Hinton, A Field Guide to Love and the Los Angeles River (University of Technology, Sydney,
2017), 16.
480 Rivers in History: Perspectives on Waterways in Europe and North America, ed. by Christof Mauch
and Thomas G. Zeller (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), as cited in Da Cunha, The Invention of
Rivers, 4.

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concrete, people continue to visit the river, a tradition upheld in this region for thousands
of years.
HERITAGE PERSISTS
In the following section, my intention is not to romanticize the total transformation
of the Los Angeles River. Instead, my goal is to recognize the sheer power intrinsic to
the Los Angeles River, along with the seemingly natural human inclination towards it.
Even in a degraded state, whether celebrated or not, heritage within these landscapes
persists. Historian of the American West, William Deverell, writes,
Rivers are saturated with the past. They can tell stories as much as they
can be characters in stories if listened to and studied carefully. What is
especially significant is that rivers can reveal as much about cultural
transitions and cultural conflicts as about economic, landscape, or
political change. The puny Los Angeles River, so unlike the noble Seine,
is also a river in which human memory mingles with water. It is a river all
about memory, a place where nature and culture surely flow together.481
Although heritage was not prioritized in the design of the Los Angeles River channel,
there are numerous ways in which its heritage as a river emerges from the concrete—
through the pure act of people paying attention to it. Lino Jubilado, for instance, flyfishes in the concrete canyons of Long Beach every Sunday. Steve Appleton kayaks in
the riparian forests of Frogtown. Lalo Sanchez spent his childhood learning to swim,
building rafts with friends, and playing with guppies in the pooling waters of his own
backyard. 482 And Tina Calderon gifted us with tobacco to offer the river whenever we
felt inclined to do so. Hinton states,
In spite of there being many impediments to emotional (and indeed
physical) closeness, people have remained and grown to be deeply
connected to this hybrid riverscape, a ribbon of places that can prompt
explorations of nature, alteration, ecological responsibility, and the role of
historical research in environmental policy and advocacy. The Los
Angeles River is, and historically has been, meaningful to people against
481 William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past
(University of California Press, 2004), 94.
482 Los Angeles River Story Slam. Frogtown Brewery, March 15, 2023. My Los Angeles River team
hosted two Los Angeles River Story Slams in March and July 2023 with seventeen different storytellers.

289
apparent aesthetic and functional odds. It is a seemingly unlovable place,
which is in fact loved by many.483
While walking the entire Los Angeles River, I encountered people walking their dogs,
capturing moments with photos, lounging in the shade, and cycling along the water’s
edge. I observed a continuous presence of emergent vegetation, along with thousands
of birds, small fish, and various other vertebrates. During previous visits, I have
witnessed individuals playing guitar, kayaking, flying kites, horseback riding and dancing
along the riverbanks. Improvised benches for seating dot the trapezoidal channel,
allowing people to pause and read or listen to flowing water. While this list of firsthand
interactions is far from exhaustive, it provides a glimpse into how humans continue to
engage with the Los Angeles River. Hinton continues,
When I’m researching in Los Angeles, I talk about the river with almost
everyone. Again and again, I hear the same story, as if it’s a script
clipped out of the Los Angeles Times. People smile. They tell me nobody
in Los Angeles knows that the city has a river. Then they recount an
intimate, personal story about this supposedly unknown 80-something
kilometer watercourse. I am yet to meet someone in the know-nothing
category.484
Returning to Los Angeles in 2020 and directing most of my attention toward its
river, I have undoubtedly and repeatedly shared the same experience. In a
landscape designed to keep all life out, life seems to persist.
THE TURNING POINT
Today, the Los Angeles River’s fate is at a crucial crossroads with multiple
entities and stakeholders reconsidering its design. We could continue as we have,
treating the river as a regional-scale storm drain, fortifying it with yet more concrete to
cope with increasingly severe storms exacerbated by climate change. Or, the river could
become a city-wide corridor, reconnecting fractured communities and ecosystems while
also acknowledging its historical significance to the city. Hinton states of the river’s
483 Hinton, A Field Guide to Love and the Los Angeles River, 26.
484 Hinton, A Field Guide to Love and the Los Angeles River, 16.

290
present era, “This is a juncture as significant as that one in the late 1930s, which led to
the river’s entombment in concrete.”485
Through walking the San Antonio River, I have witnessed firsthand the impact
that recognizing and commemorating a river as a crucial part of a city’s heritage can
have on a city wide scale. Similar to the San Antonio River, I believe visitors to the Los
Angeles River should understand the historically significant and ongoing role the river
plays within their respective city. Indeed, without either river, neither city would have
existed. My hope is that acknowledging and recognizing the Los Angeles River as
heritage will change the prevailing perception of the Los Angeles River, which for over
the past century, has often been dismissed as nothing but a joke. 486 The values we
assign to the river today will without a doubt influence its design well into the future. To
be clear, I am not proposing the Los Angeles River should mimic the San Antonio River
in any way as they are very different cities and very different rivers. Instead, my thesis
intends to illustrate that paying attention to and celebrating heritage can yield markedly
distinct outcomes.
485 Hinton, A Field Guide to Love and the Los Angeles River, 11.
486 Gumprecht, “51 Miles of Concrete,” 431.

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CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH
In moving back to Los Angeles, I never expected to find myself so intertwined
with its river. Yet I am captivated by its dominating presence in the landscape. Though
often overlooked, the river played a pivotal role in the founding of Los Angeles. It is
intentionally hidden from view and simultaneously runs through forty-four different
municipalities across Los Angeles County. In contrast to when I was in high school, I
have noticed a shift in how individuals discuss the river—some still regard it as a joke,
while others are intrigued, and some know the landscape intimately.
During a week-long engagement at the river in April 2023, considering the future
design for the Taylor Yard parcel adjacent to the waterway in Frogtown, several people
asked me about the river and its history. They wanted to know why there was so much
concrete and why the city could not simply remove it. Over and over, I shared the story
of the Los Angeles River—I told them the history dates back eleven thousand years. It
was once a meandering river that never cut a deep channel like it does today. However,
due to flooding in the early twentieth century, the United States Army Corps of
Engineers concretized its entire length to mitigate the risk of flooding in the region.
Yet, I wish the river and its infrastructure could tell the story itself, ensuring that
every visitor to the Los Angeles River understands its historical and cultural significance
to the region.
Yes—I repeated along the riverbanks in Frogtown—it was once a wild river.
FUTURE RESEARCH
Several questions, extending beyond the scope of my thesis, linger about the Los
Angeles River and the San Antonio River. I am curious how each city might have looked
today if alternative facets of heritage such as ecological considerations or Indigenous
perspectives had been selected as driving forces behind the designs for each river.
Notably, neither city moved forward with its Bartholomew plan, prompting the question:
what if they had? William Deverell and Greg Hise closely examine this question for the
City of Los Angeles in their book Eden by Design, but what about San Antonio?

292
I am also interested in exploring the slightly divergent timelines of the two rivers.
The pivotal flood on 1921 in San Antonio coincided with the tail end of the City Beautiful
Movement, whereas the pivotal flood of 1938 in Los Angeles occurred right in the midst
of the active years of the WPA, in operation from 1935 to 1943. Does this fifteen-year
difference play a crucial role in steering Los Angeles toward a technocratic strategy for
flood control, in contrast to San Antonio’s multi-functional approach? In addition, within
this crucial timeframe, Los Angeles had a population five times larger than San Antonio,
and real estate costs were also much higher. How do these disparities also contribute to
the distinct designs of the two rivers?
I am eager to create or find a map that delineates the construction timeline of the
Los Angeles River, capturing its progress across various stretches of the river and
different neighborhoods. What transpired over the twenty years it took to construct the
channel? Aside from the protests in Sierra Madre in the early 1970s, did anyone voice
opposition to the channelization in their stretch of the river?
Finally, over the last century, the Los Angeles River has taken on new life as one
of the longest concrete channels in the entire world. Its cinematic legacy, featured in
films such as Chinatown (1974), Grease (1978), Terminator 2 (1991), and Drive (2011),
coupled with its emergence as an ideal setting for graffiti raises the question: in the sixty
years since its completion, has the Los Angeles Drainage Channel become a landmark
in its own right?
The management of urban waterways offers an intriguing lens into a city’s
relationship with its environment. Having walked almost a hundred miles along two
urban waterways, I am eager to walk a hundred more. I am curious—what lessons can
we learn from these two rivers that can be applied to other urban rivers? What will
unfold in the upcoming decades? How will Los Angeles and San Antonio navigate
increasing flood risk and worsening droughts? What heritage will we pass on?

293
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Creator Dinkin, Leslie (author)

Core Title Heritage in practice: a study of two urban rivers

School School of Architecture

Degree Master of Heritage Conservation / Master of Landscape Architecture

Degree Program Heritage Conservation / Landscape Architecture

Degree Conferral Date 2024-05

Publication Date 01/30/2024

Defense Date 01/29/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag heritage,Los Angeles,OAI-PMH Harvest,river,San Antonio,urban

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sandmeier, Trudi (committee chair), Olnick, Cindy (committee member), Robinson, Alexander (committee member)

Creator Email dinkin.leslie@gmail.com,dinkin@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113817106

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Legacy Identifier etd-DinkinLesl-12642

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Format theses (aat)

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