Month: October 2018

This photo of a relocated cemetery is included in the 1936 All-American Canal Project History. It can be found in Chapter 2, subsection “Construction.” While the chapter gives extensive information about the worker housing built in 1936, nothing is mentioned in this chapter about the photo of this mysterious cemetery. There is no indication of where it is specifically located, where it was previously located, or why the graves needed to be moved at all. The only information given to the location is in this photo: Potholes, California. 

Potholes was a small mining town located close to the Colorado River and Railway Lines. The small town thrived during the early 1900s. A 1981 Geological Survey indicates the Potholes Cemetery address as “County Route 24 south of Potholes & north of Bard”, however keep in mind that is likely the 1936 location, and not the original location. 

Geological Survey Information: https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=gnispq:3:0::NO::P3_FID:247731

NARA Series: All-American Canal Project Histories, 1948-1954. Record Group 48: Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior, 1826-2009. National Archives Identifier: 2292770

Recently, the United Nations published a report about climate change, warning the world of the potentially irreversible damage the phenomenon might cause if we don’t radically change our actions (http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/). That report has been on my mind for a few weeks because it feels like I am going to graduate college just as the world is ending. But, this week I was listening to an interview with Elizabeth A. Craig-Klusman. In the interview she was describing the disastrous floods in Upland in 1938. It must have seemed like the world was going to end! Maybe (and this is the most optimistic version of myself speaking) climate change will just be a momentary emergency in our lifetime and sometime in the near future we will have changed the way we interact with the world and the people on it. If it isn’t, we might look back at the time in our lives as a time characterized by endless and wasteful consumption.

This
week, I came across two library cards from the Honnold-Mudd Library dated back
to 1967! Considering the technological developments that have taken place
around us, it was fascinating to see an old library card, where the borrower
had to mention everything on paper, every time they borrowed a book. Looking
closely, one could see the mention of the Claremont Colleges from which the
borrower had to choose. Being a Claremont Graduate University (CGU) student, it
was interesting to learn that CGU used to be named as the Claremont Graduate
School (as mentioned in the card).

Coming
back to the digitization project, this week I worked on materials by Willis S.
Jones that focused solely on building of pipelines and pumping plants. Going
through the materials, I was able to understand that the process consisted of
preparing examination reports of the regions, drawing sketch maps of the plants
and pipelines, checking reports from the Los Angeles County Flood Control
District and preparing reports of rainfall and discharge measurements along with
the required mathematical calculations.

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Today we take advantage of the fact that we can create multi-colored graphs with a few clicks of a mouse. Prior to computers though, graphs had to be hand drawn and colored. It can be clearly seen that colored pencils were used to fill in the various parts of the graph below. Note the small spaces where the creator accidentally colored outside the lines! Ooops! One thing that is especially impressive about this graph is how vibrant the colors still are even after over 70 years!

According to the rainfall charts (rather than the spreadsheets, Sandman must have been on vacation), water either came in excess in two separate occasions in a year or nothing at all during the long seasonal drought. Makes one wonder what kind of lifeform could have survived for so long in such a crappy environment (definitely not those pompous palm trees). No wonder people fought over the precious liquid resource (before the non-polar oil brush off the moody water), whether they wanted to be involved or not (sorry Jake); just hope that the weather was more stable back then.

Halloween is a great time for candy and chocolate.
For the first time, I even bought a witch hat to show my full support for all the
ongoing spooky stories and Halloween parties happening soon. Having experienced a few
paranormal activities this week, which escalated as I completed uploading the number
#200 of Frankish Letters Book 1, I became curious as to the significance of
this number. Maybe the ghosts were trying to tell me something. According to
the “Angel Number” website, number 200 is comprised of three numbers: “number 2
symbolizes duality and power” and 0 which appears twice is a symbol of “eternity.”
According to Stetson University, “200 is
the smallest number which cannot be made prime by changing one of its digits.” But the Bible Numerology
suggests that number 200 “deals with something that has failed.” Well, I actually do recall seeing the “failed to upload”
sign on the computer screen. Maybe the ghost was literally trying to tell me
something!

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This week I spent time reading an interview with James C.
McCoy. About twenty pages into the transcription of the interview, McCoy begins
discussing how urbanization had negatively affected the Native American
population in this area. He said “In my opinion, no one else in the United
States has suffered more than our Indian citizens.” Currently, I am enrolled in
a course entitled “(Re)Learning the Love of the Land” with Professor Joe Parker
at Pitzer College. In many of our classes we spend time learning from and
listening to indigenous activists/cultural liaisons/people/educators from the Tongva
indigenous group. Reading the transcription of McCoy’s interview made me
realize that he was talking about the violence inflicted upon indigenous people
here in the Inland Empire, something I have spent a lot of time thinking about
this semester. As I am enrolled in the course at Pitzer and continue my work
with the Upland Public Library San Antonio Water Company documents, I am
noticing the overlap. The course focuses on resistance to the continued
colonialism in this region and the interviews I have been processing help me
trace the history of how the area was colonized. This week, in a reading for my
class, the author discussed how water has been colonized throughout the United
States via dams, aqueducts, and irrigation. I have realized how many of these
interviews recount that process. These interviews have helped me think more
deeply about my studies, and I hope they help others understand what has happened
in the Inland Empire.

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