The Cascades

Water came down this chute on November 5, 1913, and something like forty thousand people rode out on trains and buggies to watch it arrive. Mulholland gave them five words: "There it is. Take it." The arrival end was always the point. A syndicate that included Harrison Gray Otis, Henry Huntington and Moses Sherman, who sat on the city water board, had quietly assembled 108,000 acres of this valley before the route was public. The San Fernando Valley voted itself into Los Angeles in 1915 to get the water.

What the plaque says

This is the terminus of the Los Angeles-Owens River Aqueduct, which brings water 338 miles from the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the City of Los Angeles. Begun in 1905, the great aqueduct was completed November 5, 1913. The Mono Craters Tunnel project, completed in 1940, extended the system 27 miles to its present northernmost intake near Tioga Pass. California Registered Historical Landmark No.653.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Monica Pier — 22 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.
• Colorado Street Bridge — 23 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 27 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.

More markers nearby

• Beale's Cut Stagecoach Pass — 1.5 mi
• Lyons Station Stagecoach Stop — 2.8 mi
• San Fernando Cemetery — 2.8 mi
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 3.5 mi