Water to the Angels

From the author of Last Train to Paradise, the story of William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct, the largest public water project ever created—a tale of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man whose vision shaped the future.

“A timely book. . . . It’s a powerful—and beautifully told—story of hubris, ingenuity, and, ultimately, deepest tragedy.” —Erik Larson

In 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland conceived and built one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 223 miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Los Angeles—allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-then-life engineer and the breathtaking scope of his six-year, $23 million project that would transform a region, a state, and a nation at the dawn of its greatest century.

At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before—considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first century—Water to the Angels brings into focus the vigor of a fabled era, the might of a larger-than-life individual, and the scale of a priceless construction project, shedding critical light on a past that offers insights for our future.

Includes eight pages of photographs.

“Hubris and gilded dreams are good subjects for Standiford, who has previously written about Henry Frick and Andrew Carnegie, among others; he artfully captures small moments while maintaining the historian’s broader view. . . . Like Mulholland’s aqueduct, the book covers a lot of ground while moving along in episodic but dramatic fashion.” —New York TimesBook Review

“Fascinating. . . . Standiford, a Miami-based historian, is a masterful storyteller, and he expertly captures both the present and past in a state not his own.” —Christian Science Monitor