Water has become
a valuable California resource, and conservation is the buzz word today when it
comes to water usage, but many would be surprised to learn that our area once
had too much fresh water. There has been much talk lately of the devastating
1861-1862 winter flood that saturated the western states. In February 1862 the
Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and Santa Ana Rivers merged and a solid expanse of
water covered the area from Signal Hill to Huntington Beach, a distance of
approximately 18 miles. This was followed by a drought which lasted from 1862-1865.
Grasslands dried up, cattle died and landowners were forced to sell their
property. The Rancho days, which began in 1784, were over. The land was sold
and those such as the Bixbys and Flints purchased properties, raising sheep,
who needed less grass than cattle. However, history may have been much
different if drought-stricken Rancho owners had known about the vast artesian fresh
water wells that lay beneath the earth.
Before 1868 water
was drawn almost entirely from rivers. Periods of drought meant dry riverbeds
and calamity. But though the drought erased surface streams, it had little
effect upon the underground reservoirs. These subsurface basins were finally
tapped in August 1868, when workers employed by former Governor John Downey
drilled a hole into the ground some two and a half miles west of the village of
Compton, and water came gushing out in a fountain four feet high. They had
bored Los Angeles’ first free-flowing artesian well. The results were astounding, as former Civil
War General Edward Bouton soon found out.
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| Bouton well. Source: Long Beach Public Library |
In November 1887,
Bouton made what the
Los Angeles Times described as “one of the largest
and most important real estate transactions ever made in Southern California,”
when he purchased 7136 acres of Rancho Los Cerritos from the Flint/Bixby
consortium (comprised of Jotham and Llewellyn Bixby and Thomas Flint) for
$713,600 ($21 million in 2021). The huge transaction included all but the area
around the Bixby home. Bouton, with Eastern backers, dreamed of making it one
of the largest developed sections of the county. The General (as he liked to be
called) planned on making improvements to the arid acres of bean fields on the land
before placing it on the market. He made sure the deal was not completed until
arrangements were made with the Los Angeles and Ocean Railway, a company he
headed, to run a rail line through the development so people living along the
line could do business in Los Angeles and go home to the country every night.
He planned to sell land in parcels of 10 to 40 acres to also encourage farming.
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| General Edward Bouton - Source Wikipedia |
In July 1888,
Bouton plotted a townsite to be known as Bouton for the area north of what is
now Carson and east of Cherry. Though there were already six artesian wells on
the purchased property (Los Angeles Times 12/5/1887), the General
decided he needed to assure buyers of an even more plentiful source of water.
He hired Dr. Crandall a “waterwitch” with a divining rod, to locate this
valuable resource. Bouton’s first well (with the aid of Dr. Crandall) was
discovered in 1891, a second in in 1893, 300 feet from the first. (LA Herald
4/4/1897) Bouton was a fast thinker. He soon abandoned plans for a town,
forming the Bouton Water Company instead, incorporated and financed by the sale
of bonds.
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| "Big Bouton" Source: Long Beach Public Library |
In July 1898, he
drilled again and hit the water well known as “Big Bouton” just north of Carson
east of the now Union Pacific Railroad. Folks from miles around flocked to see
the well perform. The well “ran wild” and formed what was to be known as Bouton
Lake. When the unruly giant was capped, it still spouted a geyser 80 feet into
the air from a two-inch pipe. When the sun’s rays hit it right, the geyser-like
column could be seen as far east as Whittier. The railroad ran tourist trains
from Los Angeles to view the huge water spout which many claimed was probably
the greatest artesian well ever drilled anywhere in the world. Long before the
well could be capped it had formed a lake, which extended more than a half mile
in a northeasterly-southwesterly direction and was 500 feet wide.
Only one-fourth
of the flow was utilized and the remainder ran into Lake Bouton, then into a
slough which finally emptied into the ocean through Alamitos Bay. A strange
freak of the underground river turned Alamitos Bay into an excellent oyster
bed. Fishermen also claimed there were places in the ocean a mile or so off
Long Beach where the water was perfectly fresh. Many thought this was above
where the underground river tapped by the Bouton wells came to the surface.
In July 1898, Bouton entered into an agreement with the City of Long Beach to provide water
to the town. On August 20, 1899, the water from the Bouton well was turned into
the Long Beach supply pipe sufficient to serve 20,000 people.
However, Long Beach folk received
an added bonus. Bouton’s water had
wonderful medical qualities, according to the Los Angeles Herald of June
30, 1901. The water did not reach the air before entering the pipes and was
described as being in the “purest possible condition, soft as rain water with
an extremely pleasant taste.” This was not all. On Terminal Island the water
allegedly cured two people of rheumatism and other diseases. A sample sent to the
State University College of Agriculture (now UC Berkeley) for analysis reported
the water to be “remarkably pure for all purposes.”
Carson Street and
the westerly extension of Harvey Way pass across what once was Bouton Lake. The
lake also attracted ducks and hunters who organized the Cerritos Gun Club. Besides
the slough which emptied into Alamitos Bay, a creek flowed out of the lake
across the site of the former Douglas plant and the Municipal Airport to reach
Los Cerritos Channel.
NEXT: What happened to Bouton Lake
