Northern Ireland

Blue plaque to William Mulholland, Belfast-born designer of the famous Los Angeles Aqueduct

William Mulholland had a vision for a Los Angeles far bigger than at the start of the 20th century
William Mulholland had a vision for a Los Angeles far bigger than at the start of the 20th century William Mulholland had a vision for a Los Angeles far bigger than at the start of the 20th century

THE designer of the famous, if controversial, Los Angeles Aqueduct will be commemorated with a Blue Plaque on his former parish church in Belfast.

Civil engineer William Mulholland was born in St Patrick's parish and baptised in 1855 in the Donegall Street church of the same name.

Today, in a city of four million inhabitants, he is still remembered in Los Angeles with the names of Mulholland Drive, Mulholland Dam in the Hollywood Hills, Mulholland Highway and Mulholland Middle School.

Councillor Tom LaBonge, retired communications director of Los Angeles Water and Power is travelling over for the unveiling of the plaque today.

His parents were Dubliners Hugh Mulholland and Ellen Dakers, but his father's work with the railway brought the family to Belfast where they lived for a short time before moving to Derry before finally returning to Dublin.

The rest of Mulholland's childhood was spent in Dublin, before he left home at 15 he became a sailor, eventually arriving in New York in early 1870.

An eclectic career in Michigan lumber camps and mining in Arizona finally saw him arrive on the west coast 1877 and his date with destiny in Los Angeles.

A self-educated engineer, he started as a ditch cleaner for the city's private water company, but when the municipality took over the water system, he became head of the Department of Water and Power, a position he would hold for 42 years until 1928.

As the city boomed and prospered, Mulholland had a vision for a Los Angeles far bigger than at the start of the 20th century and together with his friend, ex-mayor Fred Eaton who became the City Engineer, oversaw its population increased from 100,000 in 1900 to 320,000 in 2910.

It was in dire need of more water to sustain its growth, creating an engineering challenge of epic proportions.

He turned his attention 230 miles away to the Owens River which irrigated the crops of the ranchers of the valleys, saying: "We either take Los Angeles to the Owens River or we bring the Owens River to Los Angeles".

To the dissatisfaction and opposition of the ranchers, between 1905-1913, Mulholland directed an army of workers across desert and mountains to blast tunnels, carve out sluiceways, clear roads, lay railroad tracks and run power lines - creating one of the engineering marvels of the age.

More than 4,000 men worked on the project at the height of the aqueduct's construction, with the complexity of the project compared to the building of the Panama Canal.

His pioneering engineering methods became widely adopted.

However, there was unrest in the Owens Valley which had been turned into a desert.

Chairman of the Ulster History Circle, Chris Spurr said it is "pleased to commemorate this leading civil engineer with a blue plaque on Donegall Street in the city of his birth".