Digging the springs of Laurel Canyon
February 17th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Streams in and around Laurel Canyon
No, it wasn’t the kool-aid that made the Canyon 60′s cool. It was the springs. It wasn’t the rock-n-roll, but the river rocks.
Last summer Joann Deutch of the Canyon News contacted me about her effort to rally her community to protect land at the top of Laurel Canyon (at Mulholland). She was encouraging people to donate funds for land acquisition, as well as researching the water history of the site and the surrounding areas. Along the way she got ahold of fascinating tales of the canyon’s springs and wells – which supplied the Canyon’s water for many years, only to be shunted to the stormdrains as development took priority in LA. Despite this, as she reports, one old-timer built his rock walls from river rock found on his own property. I didn’t have much history to add, just the map above, of intermittent, ephemeral and perennial streams. And disjointed observations: maybe you have stumbled across the perennial stream on Wonderland, or pondered the trees snaking along what looks like a stream on Carpenter on Laurel Canyon’s north slope. Or maybe you’re a fan of the native California Bay Laurel trees – which grow on our shaded canyon streams, and are Laurel Canyon’s namesake. But for more details from her story, click here.
And feel free to add your own remembrances, history, lore in the comments section.
