page_title: Big Creek Hydroelectric Project
section_title: Financing and groundwork
hierarchical_section_title: Big Creek Hydroelectric Project / Construction / Financing and groundwork
caption_attribution_description: Photo taken around 1918 at Huntington Lake area, Fresno County, California, of the San Joaquin &amp; Eastern Railraod; Photo by A.C. Mudge, Published by the San Joaquin Valley Library System. Source URL: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt396nc5m6/
context_page_description: The Big Creek Hydroelectric Project is an extensive hydroelectric power scheme on the upper San Joaquin River system, in the Sierra Nevada of central California. The project is owned and operated by Southern California Edison. The use and reuse of the waters of the San Joaquin River, its South Fork, and the namesake of the project, Big Creek – over a vertical drop of 6,200 ft – have over the years inspired a nickname, "The Hardest Working Water in the World".
  The primary purpose of the project was to provide electric power for the fast-growing city of Los Angeles. California engineer John S. Eastwood was the principal designer of the system, which was initially funded and built by Henry E. Huntington's Pacific Light and Power Company. Construction of the system's facilities started in 1911, and the first power was transmitted to Los Angeles in 1913. After SCE acquired PL&P in 1917, the system was gradually expanded to its present size, with the last powerhouse coming on line in 1987. Today, these facilities include 27 dams, miles of tunnels, and 24 generating units in nine powerhouses with a total installed capacity of more than 1,000 megawatts.
context_section_description: PL&P began construction on the Big Creek Project in February 1910. Huntington placed George Ward in charge of the project and hired the Boston engineering firm Stone & Webster to oversee construction. PL&P issued an initial $10 million bond measure to finance the project. However, by October 1911 only $2.5 million of bonds had been sold. The company was forced to compromise and sold the remaining bonds at 85 percent value to a syndicate formed by investment bankers William Salomon & Co.
  Huntington had to convince farmers in the San Joaquin Valley – including the Miller & Lux Corporation, run by land barons Henry Miller and Charles Lux, who owned nearly a 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) in the valley – that the dams would increase rather than decrease the amount of water available for their use. In August 1906, PL&P brokered an agreement with Miller & Lux, which allowed them to build storage reservoirs in the San Joaquin River system "in return for a guaranteed, regular streamflow through Miller & Lux's lands".
  Transportation of workers and materials to the construction site posed the first major challenge. The only available method of transport was by mule team, but this would prove slow and expensive, so the decision was made to build a railway instead. The rail line, known as the San Joaquin and Eastern Railroad, would split off from the Southern Pacific main line at El Prado (about 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Fresno) and carve its way 56 miles (90 km) deep into the Sierra Nevada, to the company town of Big Creek.
  Construction of the railroad began on February 5, 1912. Winding its way up the San Joaquin River Canyon, the railroad – featuring 1,078 curves, 43 bridges and 255 grades of up to 5.2 percent – was nicknamed the "Slow, Jerky and Expensive". The final mile (1.6 km) was known as the "Miracle Mile" because it reportedly cost over $1 million to construct. The railroad was completed by July 1912, in a record 157 days. Due to its steep grades and sharp curves (up to 60 degrees) it was serviced by geared Shay locomotives, built by the Ohio Lima Locomotive Works.
caption: The San Joaquin & Eastern Railroad at Huntington Lake, c. 1918
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