Frederick Eaton

Frederick Eaton (1856 – March 11, 1934) was a major individual in the transformation and expansion of Los Angeles in the latter 19th century through early 20th century, in California. Eaton was the political mastermind behind the early 20th century Los Angeles Aqueduct project, designed by William Mulholland.

Introduction Frederick Eaton was born in Los Angeles in 1856, into a prominent family who were among those that founded what has become the city of Pasadena.

In 1886 Eaton redesigned and renovated Los Angeles Park, present day Pershing Square, with an 'official park plan,' and it was renamed 6th Street Park.

Los Angeles Aqueduct Eaton was the Los Angeles mayor from 1898 to 1900. For the office, he ran on the platform of establishing a new municipal water system for the city of Los Angeles. One year later in 1899, a 2.09 million US dollar bond measure was approved by city voters for the purchase of Los Angeles City Water Company's system. (the private water company that leased the city's waterworks and provided water to the city) A few years later, Los Angeles was faced with a problem: a burgeoning population that threatened the city's water supply. Desperate to find a new water source for the city, Eaton recalled a camping trip in the Sierras where he "gazed down upon the Owens Lake and thought about all the freshwater flowing into it and going to waste. Yes, Los Angeles was some 200 miles away, but it was all downhill. All one would have to do to move it to the city was dig some canals, lay some pipe and let gravity do the rest." Many local farmers willingly gave up their land to make this project possible.

The underhanded process of Los Angeles gaining the water rights for Owens Valley angered many residents. They turned to violence and dynamited the aqueduct's concrete canal. A portion of the land owned by Eaton was originally planned by Mulholland and Los Angeles to be used to build a storage reservoir. The Round Valley, Eaton's "mountain pasture land," was strategically located on the Owens River in Inyo County upstream of the Owens River Gorge and Owens Valley, and an excellent site to purchase. Eventually, Eaton's demands for a million dollars to sell it became so entrenched that they ruptured his relationship with Mulholland.

William Mulholland refused to authorize the purchase and explored other areas to build the reservoir. Eventually he settled on an area which he had considered for a potential dam site during the process of designing and building the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a section of San Francisquito Canyon located north of the present day Santa Clarita Valley, and built the St. Francis Dam. In March 1928, the dam catastrophically failed due to unknown weak bedrock formations. The flood caused much destruction and many deaths downstream along the Santa Clara River. Eaton's finances crumbled, also in 1928, and his ranch was acquired by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, where Crowley Lake was created for the aqueduct system's new storage.

Fred Eaton died in Los Angeles in 1934.