Identifier	ov086
Title	Rangeland. Owens Valley, California
Creator	Black, J. D. (John David), 1893-1960;
Date Created	1930
Description	Valley rangeland presumably unused for ranching or farming after coming under the ownership of the City of Los Angeles. Barbed wire fence marks off land. Telephone pole in right background. Mountains in background unidentified. They are either the Inyo Mountains or the Sierra Nevada. Title supplied by cataloger.
Historical Background	To meet the need for water of its growing population, the City of Los Angeles began buying land and corresponding water rights in the Owens Valley in 1905. In 1913, the great Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed to bring Owens Valley water to the city. Los Angeles began acquiring additional properties in the 1920s, of which this section of rangeland was most likely one. The photograph suggests how the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the agency responsible for the city's management of its Owens Valley properties, failed to maintain lands after acquiring them. The fate of such agricultural properties as this was one of the primary reasons for the anger of Owens Valley residents towards Los Angeles, as they saw the agricultural prosperity of their valley decline because of Los Angeles' ownership of land. A resident of Big Pine and leader of resistance against Los Angeles, J. D. Black (1893-1960) used photographs such as these to document the deterioration of the valley's agriculture under Los Angeles rule.
Type	image;
Physical Description	1 photograph : b&w ; 6 x 11 cm
Institution	Center for the Study of Los Angeles Research Collection, Loyola Marymount University
Collection Identifier	http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3w1022nb
Country of Creation	US
Copyright Status	Public Domain
Copyright Statement	http://library.lmu.edu/dlp/copyright.htm
Language	eng;
Subject (Name)	Los Angeles Department of Water and Power;
Subject (Place)	Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.); Inyo-White Mountains (Calif.); Owens River (Calif.)--Water rights;
Subject (Topic)	Water rights--California--Owens Valley; Water rights--California--Los Angeles; Ranches--California--Owens Valley; Land use, Rural--California--History; Rangelands--California--Owens Valley; Ranches--California--Owens Valley; Barbed wire; Fences
Form/Genre	Photographs;
Metacollection Identifier	http://digitalcollections.lmu.edu/
Item/Call Number	J. D. Black Papers, CSLA-15, Series 3: Photographs, Box 17, Sleeve 29