31064 “WATER FOR DRY LAND” SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IRRIGATION & WATER SYSTEM MOJAVE DESERT

This short film, likely from the late 1940s or early 1950s, gives viewers a look at the arid landscape of the American Southwest and the critical roles the Colorado River and the Hoover Dam play in the flourishing economy and high quality of life in southern California. The film opens with a shot of a desert in the southwestern U.S. and a railroad line running through it. An engineer sounds the train’s horn as the train moves through the desert on its way to California. A truck pulls up to a sign on a desert road, presumably in the Mojave Desert (01:04); the driver gets out and pours water from a canvas water bag into the truck’s radiator. At Baker, an oasis in California, a man waters his small arid yard and a young boy drinks from a hose. A truck drives through the town (01:50). The film shows some desert landscape, including dry riverbeds and sand dunes. Heavy pieces of wood form a make-shift road that cannot be easily erased by blowing sands (03:10). A small settlement of wooden buildings sits abandoned. Poisonous salts line the desert floor in Death Valley (03:45); snow-capped Mt. Whitney (04:14) looms above the desert off in the distance. Melted snow creates brooks, streams, and rushing rivers (05:06); a man fly fishes on the Colorado River. The film then takes viewers to Hoover Dam (05:28). Visitors look over the side of the dam at the Colorado River coming out below. Generators in the dam produce electricity (06:15). Power lines run across California (07:03), bringing electricity from Hoover Dam to places like Los Angeles. The film shows a shot of the Los Angeles valley, downtown L.A., and the city’s suburbs. An automobile manufacturing plant produces cars (07:57) using electricity generated at Hoover Dam. Airplanes are produced in a production facility in California. Men and women sew clothes at a textile plant. Oil derricks pump up oil in one of California’s oil fields (09:10). Ships move through the port in L.A. The film shows water starting to flow as it is released from Hoover Dam (10:10), then it shows the All American Canal and one of its control stations (11:00). A man uses water to irrigate his small farm in Imperial Valley (11:19). A man drives a tractor, plowing part of a field (12:07), as people pick crops by hand. Men pick tomatoes and put them in boxes for shipping. At a large citrus orchard in the San Bernardino Valley, a man picks oranges from a tree (13:40). Another man turns on a pump to move water from a well to flood the citrus groves. At a citrus packing plant, women pack oranges into shipping crates (15:00). The film then shows the centrality of water in the greater L.A. community: a fountain sprays water (15:50); children play at a park and drink from a drinking fountain there; a young man sprays water on cucumbers being sold at a market (16:33); and a woman rinses a washcloth in her kitchen sink. The film concludes with a family sitting down for dinner and a shot of a residential area in L.A.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com

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