Fortnightly Club of Redlands. THE GREAT CALIFORNIA FLOOD OF 1. Wheel Chart Topper Index Battle Damaged Johnnies Check out the Johnny Lightning Master Checklistright click and Save As. St Georges Road residents watched in horror 18 months ago as a grand Toorak mansion was torn down. That horror has now turned to irritation the land is still empty. LEONARD TAYLOR M. D. AND ROBERT W. TAYLOR Ph. D. In 1860 California had been a state for 10 years. The state hired an excellent team of men from Yale. BYW. LEONARD TAYLOR M. D. ANDROBERT W. TAYLOR Ph. D. SUMMARYIn 1. 86. California had been a state for 1. The state hired an excellent team of men from Yale, including Josiah Whitney and William Brewer, for a long term in depth investigation of the states resources. They were just two years into their studies when the great flood of 1. A fourth of the states economy was destroyed. This flood transformed the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea, covering the tops of telegraph poles with steamboats passing over the farmlands to deliver goods and rescue survivors. The Santa Ana River formed two large lakes one in the Inland Empire and another in the flood plain of Orange County. Probably the only definite high water mark in Southern California is at the Aqua Mansa, just south of the present city of Colton. Hydrologic studies at Aqua Mansa, document a discharge in 1. Cant find the image your looking for Our partnership with the worlds biggest image libaries, including Getty and Alamy images, gives you access to more than 60. Bondi Rescue The Best Of Series 9' title='Bondi Rescue The Best Of Series 9' />In Northern California, a high water measurement on the American River in 1. Considering the massive encroachment of human habitation into the river basins and flood planes of California one can only hope that should such an event recur present remedial action will be adequate. Warnings, however, as recently as 2. Dr. Arndt Schimmelmann of Indiana University, and many investigators reporting at a February, 2. Super Buddies Online Putlocker here. American Association for the Advancement of Science, suggests otherwise. INTRODUCTIONWater has always been a key issue in California. Oscillating cycles of flood and drought have characterized its climate. Our paper today is about a momentous flood. Considering its magnitude, it is hard to believe that it has been largely forgotten. Chances are, if you ask most anyone what they know about the great California flood of 1. You may recall William Fawcetts 1. Fortnightly Club presentation, on the Seven Oaks Dam. He pointed out that the Santa Ana River is rated as the greatest potential for disastrous flood damage west of the Mississippi. The huge Seven Oaks Dam was designed to help tame the flood waters of floods like that of 1. The same is true for Prado Dam, and its current improvement. Otto; Or, Up With Dead People Full Movie Online Free. It remains to be seen to what extent such a wild animal can be domesticated. In any case let us examine the times and events of 1. California had been a state for just 1. The Gold Rush was 1. People were dreaming of constructing a railroad across the United States. The American Civil War was one year old, and the entire population of California, 5. Civil War. Telegraph poles marched from San Francisco to New York. Two years before, despite all the distractions, the State appointed a forward thinking Supreme Court justice by the name of Stephen J. He knew his state needed an official description of what its resources really were. He sought out the recommendations of major men of science in the east for a suitable director for such an enterprise. Josiah Dwight Whitney, a geology graduate from Yale was chosen. He was well known for his book, The Metallic Wealth of the United States. His appointment was in the form of a state Act dated April 2. State Geologist. His charge was. In remembrance of his efforts, the highest mountain in the continental United States located here in California was given his name. A second and most fortunate circumstance took place when he selected another Yale graduate to assist him. He was William H. Brewer, a botanist and an agriculturist. Brewer was also a compulsive diarist keeping detailed notes of his experience from 1. They were mostly letters to his brother, which were assembled into a book, Up and Down California. This book was printed by the Yale University Press in 1. In 1. 96. 6 this book, long out of print, was reprinted, and caught the eye of my brother, leading us eventually to this afternoon occasion. It was a well known community located just a little south of present day Colton. It was at the intersection of two main trails. One, the Santa Fe Trail from New Mexico to Los Angeles, and the other from Mission San Gabriel to its outpost, in what is now Redlands. The location. The Santa Ana flowed through it in a well defined channel, the lands on either side being forested with alders, sycamores, willows and cottonwoods. No serious flood had interfered with their growth for centuries, as the rich bottom land testified, and the seepage from the river encouraged the growth of lush grass. Where irrigation was needed, water from the river was easily available. The settlers had the privilege of cutting firewood and fence material. Additional evidence that Brewer was referring to Agua Mansa, is in a report from a San Bernardino correspondent which appeared in the Los Angeles Star. It is probably from this paper than Brewer obtained his information that a whole town in southern California was destroyed. Fortunately for us, the report was inaccurate in a very important detail as we will immediately discover. So making the logical assumption that Aqua Mansa was the town referred to in Up and Down California what do we know about the destruction of this town Actually, a fair amount is known. There is an important archeological site within the community that has been the focus of periodic excavations from 1. This site is a church, or more importantly a step in front of what was once a church. Also there are the bases of two marble pillars marking the exact height of the Santa Ana River at its maximum, on that dreadful night of January 2. This marks the only exact bench mark of high water in our area. This church which survived the flood, escaped the attention of the Los Angeles Star reporter. This is extremely important as the step has been the reference level of two major hydrological investigations used in computation of the volume of water that came through that village. These will be described later. But getting back to the flood story itself we have the following combined accounts from. William and Helen Beattie taken from the Heritage of the Valley 1. Crafts, Pioneer Days of the San Bernardino County 1. Hayes, B. I, Pioneer Notes from the Diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes. The accounts state that the fall of 1. Christmas day which proved to be a rainy day. All through the holidays there continued what we should call a nice, pleasant rain. It then rained continuously for fifteen days and nights. This was followed by a down pour for twenty four hours, or longer. From accounts in the Los Angeles Star this storm continued for some 2. All this was made worse by Lytle Creek rushing down D Street and crossing to Third. This corresponds to a water level higher than Barton road to the south of the Santa Ana River in the region of the Montecito Cemetery. Then on that night of January 2. Father Borgotta of the little church. He rang the church bell frantically and the inhabitants of Agua Mansa ran or swam to high ground. Peters of Colton states that when morning came there was a scene of desolation. The village of Aqua Mansa was completely washed away. Trees were uprooted, and carried along bodily, the land was cut and washed, and the fertile fields were buried under deposits of coarse sand and gravel. Only the church and a house near it remained. Sidler, 1. Referring to the Diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes, Engstrom states that even after the Aqua Mansa disaster there was particularly heavy precipitation from the 2. January Engstrom, 1. To what degree the Santa Ann River was at flood stage in the Inland Empire during this later period apparently is not recorded. Watch Videodrome HDQ. So, it is the step of this church which established the high water mark of this flood. Using this information, Mr. Ward, commissioned in 1. San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, along with a committee surveyed the cross section of the river bed and the slope of the river. He used established hydrological formulas Appendix 1 and computed the flow. It was an astonishing 3. He later recalculated it to be 3. The discussion raged for 3. Topic Galleries Chicago Tribune.