What Mulholland Gave to LaAuthor(s): Neil JohnstonSource: North Irish Roots, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1997), p. 9Published by: North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27697102 .

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What Mulholland gave to LA

Permission has been given for the re-print of this article, by Neil Johnston, which appeared in the Belfast

Telegraph in 1991.

Life magazine recently carried a very readable article on what it called The 100 Most Important Americans

Of The 20th Century. The criterion for inclusion in this select list was not necessarily what would commonly be regarded as "greatness". Rather, the "importance" of the 100 nominees, as they point out in the

introduction to the feature, was measured by their influence. Or, to put it another way: "How would our

lives have been different had these people not lived?"

They were astounded, they said, by the number of immigrants who ended up on the list (I can't understand

their astonishment at that), and - I'm finally getting round to the point of this story -

they include an

Ulsterman. No, not a

president with Ulster roots - an engineer. I wonder how

many readers have heard

of William Mulholland. Well, he emigrated to California from Belfast and worked his

way up from being a foreman to becoming chief

engineer of the city's

"desperately inadequate

municipal water system".

Up to 1913, Life observes, LA was just a "dusty

whistle-stop". I'll let them

take up the story of

Mulholland's contribution to

the American dream by

bringing water to Los

Angeles.

"He set off in a mule-driven

wagon to see if it was feasible to tap into the

Owens River, 238

mountainous miles away.

Returning from his journey, he convinced Angel?nos to vote the 24 million dollar bond issues for one of the most difficult hydraulic feats ever undertaken in the US.

Supervising a crew of

5,000, he finished the

aquaducton time, six years later and under budget by

40,000 dollars. At the

opening ceremony, Mulholland said simply:

'There it is; take it"'.

Spoken like a true, laconic son of Belfast. He must have been quite a character, this man who "moved a

river and made the desert bloom". One of the city's best known thoroughfares, Mulholland Drive, is

named after him. And quite right, too. They should drink his health every time they add water to their

bourbon. 9

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