This research was a part of my final project for Researching Water in the West (COLWRIT 50AC) taught by Professor Pat Steenland in Spring 2018. I analyzed maps from the UC Berkeley Bancroft archives, U.S Geological Survey Collection at the Earth Sciences & Map Collection Library, the FoundSF Digital Archive, and the online Yosemite Historic Map Archive in order to answer my research question: What are the differences and similarities in the presence and lack of water in maps used by both sides of the Hetch Hetchy argument?

Maps are informative visual sources of spatial, geographic, temporal, meteorological, and architectural details in the world around us. Loaded with information, maps often carry an importance and credibility that sometimes bypasses their audience’s critical eye for detecting bias in other types of informative documents like letters, articles, or cartoons. Maps are a unique medium for strategic persuasion, as showcased by maps used to build an advocacy for the construction of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, dam, and aqueduct system. Specifically, the presence and lack of water in maps created and used by the city of San Francisco and affiliated engineers is an inlet to the broader argument for the construction of the Hetch Hetchy project. In contrast, maps from the environmentalist and conservationist advocates of the Hetch Hetchy Valley use depictions of water to build toward a different argument. The role and portrayal of bodies of water in these maps is telling of the centrality of water to the environmental and political scene of the time. However, the importance of maps as a persuasive medium conducive to building an argument varies between the two sides of the Hetch-Hetchy controversy. While environmentalists and conservationists seemed to rely more heavily on other media like photography and written texts, the city’s engineers used maps as a staple mode of communicating progress and projected developments.

The primary sources included in this report are organized in three categories based on where they are from and on their authorship: the U.S. Geological Survey, the Environmentalists and Conservationists, and the San Francisco Team. The U.S. Geological Survey maps of the Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy Valley area provide valuable insight into the evolution of the region from 1897 to 1951. Next, the section on Environmentalists and Conservationists consists of maps used and created by the John Muir, Joseph LeConte, the Sierra Club, and affiliated activists. Lastly, the San Francisco Team section consists of maps used and created by key figures in the San Franciscan pro-dam movement, including John Freeman, Marsden Manson, Hermann Schussler, Michael O’Shaughnessy, and more civil engineers.  As a whole, this array of maps paints the underlying narrative of advocacies for and against the use of Hetch Hetchy Valley as a reservoir for San Francisco, through the depiction of the most valuable resource in question: water.

‍I.     U.S. Geological Survey

This section consists of maps from one source: the U.S. Geological Survey, with contributions from the U.S. National Park Service. The analyzed maps are of the Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy Valley Regions spanning from 1897 to 1951. 

1. USGS Topographic Maps (1897 - 1951)

With the help of GIS & Map Librarian Susan Powell, I located several maps in this category and collection of topographic maps, from the years 1897, 1900, 1903, and 1909. Additionally, there are several reprinted editions of the 1909 map in later years. Using physical maps from from the UC Berkeley Earth Sciences Library and their online versions in US Geological Survey Map Database, I traced the development of the body of water in the Hetch Hetchy Valley in over the span of 13 to 54 years. The portrayal of water in the Hetch Hetchy Valley region in these maps varies dramatically, even across reprinted editions, especially between reprints of the 1909 map in 1923 and 1929. The progression of developments is summarized below.

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While the certain editions of this map may be dated 1909, the year in which they were reprinted influences their depiction of water and effects of dam construction in the Hetch Hetchy Valley region.

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II.     The Environmentalists and Conservationists

This section consists of maps used and created by Joseph LeConte, John Muir, the Sierra Club, and affiliated activists. The purpose and effect of these maps is distinctly different from the goal and impact of the engineering proposals, construction updates, and land divisions representing the other side of the argument.

2. John Muir: Map of the Yosemite Region, Reservation, Watershed (1890)

According to the September 1980 article in The Century Magazine (from Dan Anderson’s Yosemite Online Archive), this map “represents the limits of the park as proposed by Mr. Muir and as advocated before the Committee on Public Lands of the House of Representatives.” The map clearly focuses on outlining the watershed lines, upon which Muir’s park boundaries are based. Muir’s understanding of the flow of water in this region is reflected in the watershed lines, denoted with bold black dots across the map. The division of land is directly informed by the separation of bodies of water by the watershed lines. While there is no visual contrast between the bodies of water and land present in the map, the detailed illustration of the rivers, creeks, and their splitting tributaries coupled with the importantly placed watershed demarcations make water the central element of focus in this map.

This map was used persuasively to present Muir’s proposition to the Committee on Public Lands of the House of Representatives. According to the September 1980 article in The Century Magazine, the proposition was received favorably and accepted by the Committee.  

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3. Sierra Club / LeConte : Sierra Nevada / Yosemite Valley Map (1893)

Joseph LeConte was a Sierra Club activist and representative of the conservationist movement, who documented the Hetch Hetchy Valley through photographs, writing, and also maps. His photography was very influential in the Sierra Club’s conservationist support of the Hetch Hetchy Valley before the dam construction began, so it is valuable to recognize the importance of this map for Sierra Club-affiliated conservationists. The strong presence of water in this map is an important feature of the map. For example, the map presents in great detail the tributaries and outlets of all of the major rivers in the area of the Sierra Nevada near Yosemite, Hetch-Hetchy Valley, and Mono Lake. Labels in the map are almost exclusively used for bodies of water, and there are few, if any demarcations of urban roads.

My analysis of this map is limited because of the quality of the online map available through CaliSphere, since I was unable to access this map at the Bancroft Library during the period of my research. However, the level of intricate detail of rivers and creeks visible in the map is indicative of the depth of exploration that must have enabled its creation.

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4. Sierra Club / LeConte : Sierra Nevada / Yosemite Valley Map (1896)

Available at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library, this map is from the Sierra Club, a central hub for conservationist materials. According to the front cover of this map, this map is a new edition of the maps originally published by the Sierra Club in 1893 for Mr. J.N. Le Conte, based on explorations by several members of the Sierra Club including himself. This map was created shortly after the formation of the Sierra Club in 1892. Interestingly, this map was available to be purchased in three different formats for prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.25. This indicates that this map was developed and formatted with intention to make it widely available to the public.

The large map covers a vertical stretch from Mono Lake to Owens Lake and horizontally from Owens Lake to the Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Mariposa, and Merced county division. In the top right corner of this map there are two smaller close-up maps of the Hetch Hetchy Valley and of Yosemite Valley.

The map does not use color to differentiate between landmarks, but throughout the map, most of the labeled landmarks are rivers, creeks, lakes, waterfalls, and meadows or vista points. Additionally, there are demarcations of mountain ranges and the Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Mariposa, and Merced counties. Although not explicitly mentioned in the title or description of the map, the the map seems to focus on bodies of water in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, as evidenced by the majority of its labels. However, the map is not consistent in presenting the existence of water in a unified way. Particularly, the map doesn’t distinguish between lakes and land with color (both are the faded pale of the map’s background), but a thick black line is used to mark rivers, in a way that stands out from the river’s surroundings. For example, a thick black line marks the Tuolumne River that flows through the Hetch Hetchy Lake region, branching out into the Tiltil Creek, Rancheria Creek, and Little Hetch Hetchy Creek. The Hetch Hetchy Lake is a flat patch on the map situated in the middle of hilly, mountainous regions. Even though the river flows through a region titled “Hetch Hetchy Lake”, the map gives the effect that the river is flowing through bare land in the middle of a hilly, mountainous region because of the inconsistency in color of depicting lakes and rivers, bodies of water that manifest themselves differently in the landscape.

The map also seems to treat rivers and urban street/road divisions as equally integrated into the landscape, as seen in the Fresno area of this map to the right.

Even though the presence of water is not striking due to the lack of color contrast of lakes and land, the importance of bodies of water is central to the effect of this map. For example, the Owens Lake and Mono Lake frame the boundaries of the large map, and the Tuolumne River and connected creeks through the Hetch Hetchy Lake are the focal point of the small Hetch Hetchy Valley map. Furthermore, the context of the close-up Hetch Hetchy map is given by an arrow pointing right labeled “Trail to the Rancheria” and an arrow pointing left labeled “To Lake Eleanor”.

The presence of water in this map is crucial to the informational capacity of this map, but highlighting its presence is not the main focus or goal of the map. The goal of the map is seemingly to plot as much information about the landscape as accurately and with as much detail as possible.

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III.     The San Francisco Team

This section consists of maps used and created by key figures in the San Franciscan pro-dam movement, including John Freeman, Marsden Manson, Hermann Schussler, Michael O’Shaughnessy, and more civil engineers.

‍5. Hermann Schussler: Spring Valley Water Co. post-Earthquake (1906)

Hermann Schussler was the esteemed Chief Engineer of the Spring Valley Water Company. According to Robert Righter in The Battle of Hetch Hetchy: America’s Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism, Schussler was a skilled engineer who was responsible for the construction of a 150-foot-high dam and creating Crystal Springs Reservoir, which was structurally sound even after the 1906 earthquake. In Chapter Four of The Battle of Hetch Hetchy (Two Views of One Valley), Righter states that Schussler “fell on the side of the dam” and “influenced others toward rebellion.” 

Created by Schussler after the 1906 earthquake, this map highlights in bold print the main water lines that were broken in the South of Market and the Northeast Mission regions of San Francisco. According to a New Mission News Historical essay citing this map (Building Boom on Known Quake Hazards, January 2001, archived in the FoundSF Digital Archive), the heavily damaged areas of the main water pipes are concentrated in “low-lying areas along the old Mission Creek (18th Street) and Hayes Valley Creek where it drained into Mission Bay south of Market and just east of the old City Hall.” According to the SF Museum, “In 1854, the legislature declared Mission Creek, from its mouth as far as the tide flows, a navigable stream, but in 1874, all of that portion of the creek between Ninth and Eighteenth Streets was vacated as a navigable stream.” This means that the damaged pipes are adjacent to the tracks of the Mission Creek and Hayes Valley Creek, which used to once flow through what we now know as San Francisco.

As a respected voice on the intersection of topics like dams and building structurally sound water systems to bring water to the city of San Francisco, Schussler carries an air of credibility that makes the impact of his map and perspective significant. His advocacy for the dam is indirectly evident from this map that highlights the broken, bolded failures of the current water piping system in San Francisco, making the need for water apparent and urgent.

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6. Manson / Freeman / Kelsey: San Francisco Relief Map (1912)

Available at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library, this is a map made by F.F.S Kelsey under the direction of City Engineer and leader of the pro-dam advocacy, Marsden Manson in December 1909. It was also used in John R. Freeman’s Report dated July 26, 1912.

The map uses mostly beige-tone colors, with darker shades on land indicating elevation and mountainous regions. There are three different colors used to represent bodies of water on this map. The San Francisco Bay water is a greyish beige shade, similar to the color of land at some elevations. Lakes like the Calaveras, Crystal Springs, San Andres, and Merced are a darker orange shade of beige. Interestingly, the rivers and creeks like Alameda Creek, Niles Canyon, Arroyo Hondo, Arroyo de Valle, Arroyo Mocho, etc. are bright white in color.

The map’s title indicates two layers of information about the aqueduct tunnel construction displayed in the map (present and projected), but it is unclear immediately through the map which visual components of the system are present and which are projected. The legend of the map indicates thin black lines as the symbol for existing Spring Valley Water Company pipes, small black circles for their pumping stations, and small white squares for their service tanks. Throughout the east portion of the map, black dotted lines are used to demarcate the watershed line boundaries. These components are likely the components of the present water supply storage and reservoirs.

Notably, the focal point of the map is a thick black line labeled “Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct Tesla Tunnel” running across the map horizontally, with a central section labeled “Aqueduct Pipe” as a thick white line outlined in black. The aqueduct pipe tunnel extends from the east Watershed Line Boundary, across Palo Alto and Redwood City, through Crystal Springs and the west watershed boundary, up to the San Francisco Peninsula where it terminates in the San Miguel Reservoir. The seamless transitions and minimal contrast between constructed and projected elements of the aqueduct make it difficult to discern the completed portion of the aqueduct from the planned portions.

The bold aqueduct piping overlaid across the map does not seem out of place in this landscape. In fact, its colors help it blend into the landscape as an essential part of it. The dull colors used for the other bodies of water in this map create a lack of contrast and a sense that the grand aqueduct is the main source of water.

In spite of the central focus on transporting water to San Francisco through the aqueduct, there is a striking exclusion of important information in this map. The map is framed around the San Francisco Bay and shows a direct path of the aqueduct tunnel and its endpoint in the San Miguel Reservoir. However, this map excludes the source of the aqueduct tunnel and where the water is coming from. Importantly, this is indicative of the broader strategy used by the San Francisco Team (engineers and city officials) to build their side of the Hetch Hetchy argument. The success of their argument lies in their ability to visually create a very certain path and direction for the water while completely cropping out the source of the water. This map is a key graphical demonstration of this important persuasive strategy.

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7. O’Shaughnessy / Baldwin / Howell: Hetch Hetchy Water Project (1920)

At the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library, Curator Theresa Salazar pulled this map from a special collection of O’Shaughnessy’s photographs and documents for my College Writing 50AC class visitation. Bancroft Cataloger Terry Boom specifically helped me locate this map when I returned to the Bancroft weeks after my class visit with Bancroft Curator Theresa Salazar.

The difficulty in locating this map at the Bancroft Library owes itself perhaps to the fact that this document is not specifically tagged as a map. Maps are an interesting medium for persuasion and not just objective reporting as we sometimes tend to see them. This map flaunts this persuasive capability, drawing upon the fluidity of what constitutes a map.

One of its most notable features that sets it apart from conventional maps is its elevated perspective at an angle from the landscape. Overlooking the landscape, the audience of this map can sense foreground, middleground, and background extending into the horizon and solid black sky. The superimposition of the engineering project on the landscape at this angle makes for an interesting presentation of the proposed idea in a way that almost likens the visual to a painting and does not immediately classify itself as a map. However, the descriptive labeling and relative layout of features of the landscape are clear indicators that this visual document is an effective map.

The viewing angle of the map is not its only unconventional feature; the coloring of the map is also unique and strategic. The landscape is entirely grey, shaded with thin black lines to indicate mountainous details. In a stark contrast to the black and gray tones of the sky and rolling hills, the water is shaded in as crystal blue. The presence of water in this map, highlighted by the use of blue and white, creates a magical, shimmering effect where water is present, and helps draw the viewer’s attention to it. This feature of the map drew my attention to the water, as a pristine and precious resource.

Yet another unique aspect of this map is that it focuses on the aqueduct system near the source of the dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley as opposed to the destination of the water in San Francisco, unlike many other engineering maps. The horizontal dimension and framing of the map helps the viewer draw a progression of the water from right to left: from the river pouring into the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, through the Cyclopean Concrete Dam, through the Future Aqueduct, via Power House No. 3 through the Water & Power Aqueduct, and into the inlet leading to Power House 65000 H.P. where the Tunnel is embellished with the title “To San Francisco”. Similarly, water from the Eleanor Reservoir is channeled through the Eleanor Creek and another constructed Power Aqueduct that converges with the Water and Power Aqueduct at Power House No. 1. The magnificent effect of this map is representative of the the success of San Francisco’s advocacy to bring water to San Francisco. This map uses visual depiction of movement as a persuasive strategy to present the effect of the series of aqueducts channeling water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir to San Francisco.

By superimposing components of the dam, aqueduct, and reservoir system in various stages of construction, this map presents what the system can accomplish in an assertive way. Using the medium of a map from an angled, elevated perspective builds an omniscient sense for the audience. For viewers, there is a sense that maps present information in an objective manner by translating an observation of our surroundings to a two-dimensional visualization. Baldwin & Howell break both of these conventional expectations by treating the map as a persuasive medium, angling it in a way that gives a three-dimensional view into an argument for the success of the dam.

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8. City of San Francisco: Hetch Hetchy Project Report (1921)

This document is a report from 1921 by the City and County of San Francisco on the completed and in-progress construction work at Hetch-Hetchy, including the railroad project and water supply dam and reservoir project. The text of the report describes the status of the reservoir and dam construction, involving the dimensions, materials, costs, and completion timeline of several components like the Eleanor Dam, Wagon Road, hydro-electric machinery (power plant, transmission line), sawmill, watershed, and aqueduct tunnel.

On the back side of the written report is a visual titled “Hetch Hetchy Water Project Mountain Division”. The visual is an angled overview of the landscape, with a river pouring into the Hetch Hetchy reservoir on the right hand side. This visual is a special map because it shows the incomplete infrastructure of the reservoir and dam system, which is still under construction. For instance, a component labeled “Future Aqueduct” connects the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir to a powerhouse in the path of the Tuolumne River. A component labeled “Power Aqueduct (constructed)” flows by the Cherry River to another adjacent powerhouse. Along the width of the map, there is “Water & Power Aqueduct” labeled as “under construction”. Interestingly, this aqueduct seems to cut through the mountains in the foreground, which are shown to be expansively extending into the horizon - a view enabled by the unique angle of this visual.

The layout and frame of this map is similar to that of the previous map (7), and it may be an adaptation of that map a year later to be included in this report by the city of San Francisco. This version of the map is more accessible and was likely more widespread than the previous version of this angled map.

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9. O’Shaughnessy: Department of Public Works Map Profile (1925)

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This map is available at the UC Berkeley Earth Science/Map Collection Library and at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library, and I was able to access it online as well. This black and white map is by the San Francisco Department of Public Works, approved by O’Shaughnessy in January 1925. It maps features of the aqueduct like tunnels, pipelines, and transmission lines onto the landscape and also juxtaposes this with a graph of the elevation as it relates to the amount of miles away from San Francisco / San Mateo County Line.

The orientation of the map and the linear layout of the elevation graph (top) parallel to the top-view of aqueduct tunnels (bottom) illustrates the water gravitating toward San Francisco in more than one way. The elevation graph (top) has a horizontal axis denoting miles from San Francisco and presents a visual that is almost like a vertical slice of the landscape. This is in contrast to the top-view map (bottom) that uses the conventional perspective of a map.

Similar to other maps used by the city of San Francisco, this one collapses projected construction and completed construction onto the same image. The legend in the top right corner clearly distinguishes between the different symbols used for what has been built and what has yet to be built, but visually, the seamless connections between built and projected constructions creates an effect of engineering success before it can truly be celebrated as complete. In other words, this map does not convey the hours of labor, planning, and critical decision-making that went into erecting the complete, constructed aqueduct tunnels as they are presented with the same visual effect as the projected construction.

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Reflection

The culmination of my College Writing 50AC experience in this Final Research Project is a highlight of my foray into academic research as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. Out of the innumerable lessons I have learned from primary source research, one important and striking realization stands out: research is invisible.

Throughout the course of this project and more broadly this class, I learned that research is not to be conflated with its results. A result is what the audience sees in the end, but research is the process behind it that audience does not see. Doing primary source research is a practice focused on the research methods, to be able to trace a clear path from my place in time to a historical moment, event, or period, collecting evidence along the way. Research is the hours put into poring over a square inch of a map, trying to distill meaning from the loaded visual information it presents. Research is reaching out to librarians, curators, and catalogers for help in shaping the search for meaningful primary resources. Research is collaborating with peers to find and analyze resources, which helps kick off the process of one source leading to the next.

Doing research at the Bancroft Library was a splendid experience for me. I clearly recall the first time I walked through the big wooden-glass doors of the hall leading to the reading room last month and marveled at the organization of the research environment that it provides. Entering the reading room, I was amazed to see more than ten other individuals eagerly flipping through archives of old documents, taking pictures of journal pages, and typing up analyses on the side. The research environment of this room was magical for me. As a woman folded up a large map on table 6B, I was told to be seated at table 6A before one of the librarians came out with a large manila file containing my own first large map to analyze (Map 6: Manson / Freeman / Kelsey: San Francisco Relief Map (1912)). My interaction of this map spanned across almost two hours and included cross-referencing with USGS maps available online, asking one of the librarians for help decoding information in the legend of the map, and making my first finding related to the lack of distinction between completed and projected engineering feats in the area.

All of my small epiphanic moments and excitement over discoveries were stepping stones in the process of completing the annotated bibliography of this research project. The clarity of intention afforded by doing primary source research propelled each of my observations. Instead of reading about the history of the period of my interest as compiled by someone else, I had the chance to explore it with my own agency. I was able to deconstruct the maps of the Hetch Hetchy Valley and San Francisco Bay area in the late 19th and early 20th century to piece together two persuasive narratives of the time. Making meaningful observations gave rise to valuable analysis that followed directly.

One of the most important strategies that I learned was to write down all the questions that occurred to me throughout the process, regardless of how insignificant or tangential they may seem. Almost always, these questions were inlets to further research and questioning, which helped me arrive at conclusions. In the past, I assumed that arriving at conclusions would be the last step and most gratifying part of doing research. However, as I collected more observations and made more findings, I realized that reaching conclusions was far from the last step of doing research. In fact, the next step of doing research — synthesizing — is equally as important and time-consuming.

For me, the synthesis step was the most rewarding in terms of personal and academic growth. Each decision, down to the organization, formatting, and placement of evidence and analysis required critical thought. This step helped me make a full circle back to my original research statement and made me question how well my evidence, analysis, and findings aligned with my intent. The process of synthesizing my findings led me to narrow down my accumulated analysis to my focus on the presence and lack of water in Hetch Hetchy Valley / San Francisco Bay maps. This meant discarding some carefully constructed analysis from my annotated bibliography; personally, this was a moment of great growth for me, because the opportunity to detach myself from my analysis for the purpose of this project was very useful.

The richness of information available at the Bancroft and through the larger UC Berkeley Library system still amazes me. Even more surprising to me is that before taking this class, I had no idea about the troves of information to which I have access, just by virtue of being a student at UC Berkeley. To me, easy access to historical information is one of the most empowering features of being a student at this university, and I am so grateful to have had this exposure to the resources, support, and commitment to accessibility by the UC Berkeley Library system.

Looking back, I see many areas to expand my research. There are more primary sources, likely full of rich information that will provoke more questions and follow-up research. For instance, I would love to see the map of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir site by Drenzy A. Jones prepared under the direction of Marsden Manson, showing the lands owned and to be acquired by the City of San Francisco (Bancroft G4362.H53 1908.J7: Sierra Club). Unfortunately, this map was unavailable for viewing at the Bancroft during the course of my research for this class. My motivation for seeking this map is that it is likely a part of the Manson plan materials, about which I read in Righter’s description of the city’s advocacy and the sources that it drew from when SF was required to “show cause.” It would be particularly useful because it maps land that San Francisco would hypothetically acquire according to the city’s advocacy. It would be interesting to observe whether the water in the land to be acquired is left in an undisturbed state on the map or if it shows the potential effects of being engineered.

Starting out by researching a narrower domain of visual information like maps is helpful because it limits the expansive trove of information to a subset of primary sources. This allowed me to create a fuller impression and deeply trace evidence without compromising thoroughness. Now that I have had a chance to explore the dimension of information presented in maps related to my topic, I think it would be very interesting to extend this research to include photography from the environmentalist and conservationist side of the argument (such as the photographs by LeConte). The motivation behind this is that many of the journals and documents that had embedded maps were also accompanied by photographs to help make their claim. I could contrast the presence of water in these photographs with the visual effects of water in Sierra Club maps.

I am grateful to all of the individuals who helped me through my first time doing primary source research as an undergraduate. I’m thankful to GIS & Map Librarian Susan Powell at the Earth Sciences & Map Collection Library for helping me locate all of the physical and online USGS maps used in my research and patiently providing advice and pro-tips on how to find relevant maps for my research project. Curator Theresa Salazar was the first person who inspired my research question during my class visit at the Bancroft library, where she laid out an impressive spread of primary sources, including the unique 1920 Hetch Hetchy Water Project map by Baldwin & Howell for O’Shaughnessy (Map 7). I also really appreciate Bancroft Cataloger Terry Boom and other Bancroft librarians for digging into several Bancroft boxes and obscure collections in search of this 1920 Hetch Hetchy Water Project map (Map 7) during one of my Bancroft visits. Lastly, I am most grateful to my professor Dr. Pat Steenland for always providing insightful and thought-provoking comments on my work and inspiring me to think more deeply on critical topics related to my research and writing.

The process of research may seem invisible, but it is fulfilling and rewarding. The access and research support enabled by the UC Berkeley Library system fills me with enthusiasm to continue striving to unearth histories, one document at a time.