Bringing Water To Escondido

By Wendy Barker

Director of the Escondido History Center


 



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Live, Work & Play in Escondido

Water is a necessity for every community. Escondido’s first water system was three brick-lined
cisterns placed in the creek at Elm Street in 1886. A steam engine pumped the water up to a reservoir on Park Hill, and from there gravity brought it back down to the townspeople. Of course, many homes and farms had their own wells.


Within three years, as the population crept over 500, it was clear that something had to be done to provide more water. The Escondido Irrigation District was formed, and almost immediately proposed a bond to construct a dam in Bear Valley, and a canal to carry water to it from the San Luis Rey River. The bond passed. But it wasn’t until autumn 1894 that construction actually started.


It was backbreaking work with pick and shovel, along with an occasional dynamite blast. Supplies were brought up the rough trails on pack animals. Workers lived in camps, far from home. There were seven small camps along the fifteen miles between the river and Bear Valley. At the dam site was a much larger camp for seventy-five workers. It included a dining tent and blacksmith shop.


The Bear Valley Dam was built with large rocks and faced with redwood. It initially stood 75 feet high and was designed to hold water up to the 49 foot contour. The water system was completed in less than a year, and water began to flow into the newly formed lake on July 5, 1895. It took five years to fill the lake, which was originally known as Lake Escondido.


Exposed to the elements and critters, the water system required repairs almost immediately. Only sixty percent of the river water ever reached the dam, and a much smaller percentage left the dam and made it all the way to the Park Hill reservoir. Animals tunneled into the earthen canals and the wooden flumes leaked. The canals were eventually cement lined, the wooden flumes replaced, thus improving the system. Finding the money to make the repairs was hard and the story of the water bond debt is complicated. All these difficulties notwithstanding, in 1905 the $350,000 bond to construct and repair the water system was paid off and the citizens rejoiced with a bond burning ceremony, a precursor to the Grape Day celebration.


In 1894, the year construction on the water system started, the chairman of the water district went to Washington D.C. to secure a contract from the federal government for right-of-way over Native American reservation lands. In the 1960s Indians from the Rincon Reservation, backed by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, and contending that the water district had no legal claim to San Luis Rey River water, sued the city and the water district. The court case is still active.


The lake’s name was changed in 1924 to honor A.W. Wohlford, a leader in Escondido’s water development. Lake Wohlford continues to be an important water resource for Escondido, as well as a wonderful recreational site.


Wendy Barker is Executive Director of the Escondido History Center. Their museum in Grape Day Park is open Tuesday-Saturday from 1-4pm. For more information call 760 743-8207, email Wendy at barker@escondidohistory.org or visit their website at www.escondidohistory.org EM


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