Los Angeles daily herald., 1874-03-15
THE SAN GABRIEL.
Ell Monte In Danger Of BEING Washed Away

sets in there is no telling what dam
age they are capable of. San Diego
river has been dry for five years till
this winter, but under the influence OF
the heavy rains it became raging
flood, and threatens the destruction of
the harbor. Nearer home, we are hay
ing difficulty with a stream OF more
magnitude. The San Gabriel river
takes its rise in the Sierra Madre
mountains. For distance of thirty
miles it makes its way through mar
row cai1on between perpendicular
walls of rock, raging torrent when
the winter rains have swollen the vol
ume of its waters. For the last fifteen
miles of its course the canon has a
width of probably hundred yards,
the bed of it being mass of
boulders of all sizes, worn smooth by
the action of the water. The torrent
has piled these huge boulders in i'm
mense masses along the sides of the
stream, and where it debouches into
the valley has swept millions Of tons
of them out into the open country,
carrying them for miles out in the
valley in its resistless course. Con-
fined to its narrow bed, while its
course lay through the rock-ribbed
mountains, the stream has not been
satisfied with such q circumscribed
channel on reaching the loose
alluvial soil in the valley. A
short distance from the mouth
of the caf1on the immense masses of
boulders have piled up in the bed of
the stream till they have almost formed
a dam, the result of this has been that
the raging waters checked to some ex-
tent in their passage to the sea, have
been cutting q new channel through
the yielding soil and are threatening
destruction to one of the finest agri-
cultural districts in the State. During
the late heavy rains the waters from
the river covered thousands of acres in
Ell Monte, and did great damage to
that region of country. 1t is now
sweeping over the farm lands, grad
ually cutting new channel, and in
doing SO is eating rapidly into many
valuable farms. Already over a thous-
and acres of the most valuable fruit
and farming lands in the town of Ell
Monte have been swept away, and not
less than ten thousand acres more are
threatened with destruction. These
lands are mainly in cultivation and
on many of them there are valuable
improvements that unless some
thing is speedily done to avert
the danger, must share in the
general destruction. At the late meet
ing of the Board Of Supervisors COM
mittee appointed by the citizens of Eel
Monte was in attendance and placed
before them in clear and unmistakable
terms the exigency of the danger.
The Board, realizing the importance
of prompt action, sent the Road Com
missioner and County Surveyor to ex-
anime the locality, and in the mean
time took counsel among themselves
as to what could be done. The SUBJ
stance of the report of the officers
sent to examine the field has already
been given to the readers of the
HERALD, and it will only be neces-
sary to repeat that they both agree in
the great necessity for prompt action,
and recommend that an embankment
of sufficient hight and strength to turn
the waters back into the old channel
be built at once. The Supervisors
have since come to the conclusion, in
which they are sustained by the Dis
trict Attorney, that they have no power
to make the necessary appropriation.
To enable them to do so the Legisla-
ture has been called upon to give the
necessary authority. TO properly
bring this matter before the Legisla-
ture, the following petition has been
circulated, receiving an imme nse num-
Der of signatures:
To the Senate and Assembly of the
State of California: The undersigned
petitioners respectfully represent that
the San Gabriel river, in Los Angeles
county, has overlooked its banks and
changed it's channel in Ell Monte
Township, in said county, doing great
damage by washing away the cult
waited fields of the citizens of said
township, and threatening the entire
destruction of the public highway and
stage road in said township leading
from the city of Los Angeles to the
town of San BernardinO, and also the
most valuable lands in said township.
The undersigned petitioners, therefore,
pray for the passage of such law as
will enable the Supervisors of said
county to take such measures as the
public interests may require.
Almost all the business men of this
city have signed this document, and
on Monday Hon. Asa Ellis, of Ell
Monte, will 60 with it to Sacramento.
Prompt action is required, and it
is the wish of our people that
the necessary act enabling the
Board to act in this important matter
shall be put through at once No ap-
preparation is asked from the State.
All that we want is power to make the
needed appropriation from the county
funds. The citizens of Ell Monte are
willing to contribute two thousand
dollars toward the work, but there is