Cuyamaca Water Company Records
About this collection
- Extent
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353 digital objects.
- Description
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Records of the Cuyamaca Water Company, including typescript reports, contracts, water rights documents, technical drawings, and maps used for San Diego County land and water development from the late 1800s to the mid-1930s. The strength of this collection consists of maps and technical drawings with nearly 300 images documenting the early development of San Diego County water resources, from the eastern regions to Mission Valley, including the neighborhoods of La Mesa and El Cajon. It includes plans for dams, reservoirs, pipelines, flumes, and the early infrastructure of water storage and delivery within the county.
Typescript reports relate to the operation and development of the Cuyamaca Water Company. A significant number of reports are related to the City of San Diego's attempt to have the Cuyamaca Water Company condemned, particularly the folders titled: "Act of Congress Granting El Capitan Land to the City of San Diego," "Data on El Capitan" and "El Capitan Dam Sites - Core Drill Records and Profiles," as well as the folders relating to valuation, depreciation, rate hearings, and the Rail Road Commission. Also of interest are the reports entitled "Original cost of the San Diego Flume Company water system" and "Description of the Cuyamaca Water System" which relate the chronological history of the water system from 1886 to 1926 and the improvements.
Other materials document the extant riparian and water rights purchased by the San Diego Flume Company and later transferred to the Cuyamaca Water Company. The folders titled "Water rights contracts and deeds" document the water rights of the San Diego Flume Company and the Cuyamaca Water Company with their customers. The contracts and deeds are arranged in the original order in which they were filed, with deed numbers often out of numerical order.
Finally, the MAPS AND TECHNICAL DRAWINGS series is the most extensive series of the collection, and meticulously documents the watershed of the Cuyamaca Water Company and its improvements, whether actualized or anticipated. Included is documentation on the following dams and reservoirs: El Capitan, Eucalyptus, Grossmont, La Mesa, Old Mission, and San Vicente. The El Capitan and San Vicente dams and reservoirs are the most notable projects that were developed but not completed until the company was sold. Projects that are included in the records, but never actualized, are the Boulder Creek Dam and Conduit and the Mission Gorge Dam and Reservoir.
The finding aid for the collection is a linked list of these objects and their titles, grouped by type, which provides a secondary way to search through the collection in a more structured presentation. - Creation Date
- 1867-1938
- Creator
- Contributors
- Location Of Originals
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From the Cuyamaca Water Company Records. MSS 503. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
- Note
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Image featured on this page is from the Report on the Water Supply Studies, San Diego River, 1920. Cuyamaca Water Company Records. MSS 503. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
- Geographic
- Corporate Names
- Personal Names
- Topics
Formats
View formats within this collection
- Language
- English
- Related Resource
Online finding aid
