Overview

CALIFORNIA THIRSTCalifornia Thirst is historical fiction about the struggle for water between the Owens Valley and Los Angeles in the early 20th Century.In the early part of the century, Los Angeles lacked sufficient water for its rapidly growing population. It began acquiring water rights in the Owens Valley, over 200 miles north of the city, and built an aqueduct to carry the water to the thirsty city. Then, in the 1920s, as the city took ever more water from the valley, local residents resisted with numerous attacks on the aqueduct. California Thirst tells the story from the perspective of the ranchers who fought to keep their water and their way of life. Owens Valley ranchers, Alice and Fred, have water that Los Angeles wants. The LA water agent will go to any length to get it. When they refuse to sell their water, Alice is attacked, and their cattle are poisoned. Then, when the LA aqueduct carrying the water 200 miles to the city is dynamited, all eyes turn toward Fred. Did he fire the first shot in the years-long war between Owens Valley and Los Angeles during the 1920s?

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Reviews

Did you love Chinatown?!? California Thirst looks at those events, the quest of LA for WATER to support its growth, from the perspective of local ranchers, whose lives and livelihoods are being literally stolen by a political power that seems to operate beyond the law (hmmm, parallels to today?). What is the average citizen to do when confronted by ruthless and unchecked authority? The main characters, Fred and Alice, who enjoy a strong, supportive relationship, must answer those questions in real time. When logic and reason fail, when the adversary has all the power and legal authority, is resorting to violence a reasonable option? One of the things I especially enjoyed was the strong sense of community among the ranchers as they struggled to respond to an insurmountable challenge. Highly recommended! --- MW This is a wonderful novel with great characters, heroes, and terrific villains, and an excellent, page-turning plot! A great read! It also gives an excellent historical depiction of the water wars in California in the 1920s, and also the ranchers and their wives, and is lots of fun as well. Really relevant for today's water wars too! --- EC I don't read much history, so it was a lot of fun to learn about the California water wars of the 1920s through a fictional yet realistic account of some ranchers and their families who lived through it, told by an author with a background in history himself. --- RD I just finished reading California Thirst, and I enjoyed every minute of it! The author managed to describe a largely unknown historical setting (pre-depression, cattle ranching, rural area law enforcement, bank fraud, Ku Lux Klan, water law, viaducts, villains robbing good ranchers, etc. in largely historically accurate and believable terms. ... He did a particularly good job of vividly describing the terrible paralysis that would result when the Inyo Bank was going to be shut down, and how the economy would quickly grind to a halt once every one ran out of cash and credit was unavailable. It showed much more vividly how terrible the bank runs and bank failures of the period must have been and what a stroke of genius it was for FDR to declare a national bank holiday and then nationalize all U.S. banks to provide a more available source of cash and credit. For future reprints of the book, I would suggest a map of California showing the Owens Valley, the LA aqueduct, a few photographs of the aqueduct, and a few KKK gatherings would be good to help the reader visualize the area and events. From a delighted reader who is more than happy to give this book a ""wunnerful, wunnerful"" rating. --- JR

Author Information

Jim Morris was born and raised in the Owens Valley, with parents and grandparents I earned BS, MBA, and PhD degrees in finance from the University of California, Berkeley, and taught finance at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Houston, and the University of Colorado, Denver, where I retired as a Professor Emeritus. I live in Denver, but a part of me will always belong to the Owens Valley.Even though my academic training and career were in finance, I have an enduring interest in history, particularly the history of California. As a child, I listened to the stories of the people who experienced the events fictionally portrayed in this novel. I have enjoyed translating some of those accounts into what I hope is an interesting and fun-to-read story. I hope you, the reader, will forgive the liberties I have taken with reality to paint a picture of the conflict over water in the early 20th Century. ---- Jim Morris

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