Imperial (211 page)

New California grade of cotton—Ibid., p. 2.

California, “. . . where the pattern of cotton culture approximated industrial rather than family farm production”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Carton 4. Typescript: “In the fields, by Paul S. Taylor & Anne Loftis,” n.d. (another slightly different version in the same folder reads: “Revised Sept. 15, 1981”), p. 15.

Cotton in Imperial and San Joaquin, 1920-32—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Op. cit., p. 1. Taylor gives the following Imperial-and-Mexicali Valley yields: 6,000 bales in 1910, 45,000 bales in 1914, 83,000 in 1918.

Footnote: “America’s Champion Cotton Grower”—
California Cultivator
, vol. LIV, no. 2, January 10, 1920, p. 1 (profile by M. E. Bemis).

Words of H. H. Clark, 1919—
Los Angeles Times
, April 6, 1929, p. A1 (“COTTON ASSOCIATION MEETS”).

In 1930, Imperial County produced 205 carloads of cotton, and 135 of cotton byproducts, valued respectively at $958,375 and $144,373—Imperial Valley Directory (1930), p. 13.

Imperial Valley cotton production, 1932 (1,286 out of 129,371 500-lb. bales)—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Op. cit., Unnumbered sheet (“Table 1: Regional production of cotton in California, 1919-1933 [500 lb. bales]).

National crop limitation of 1933—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Op. cit., p. 7.

Imperial County cotton acreage, 1953, 1957—Griffin and Young, p. 176 (exact figures: 112,895 acres in 1953 and 43,955 in 1957).

“Many fell into it”:
California Cultivator
, vol. LXIV, no. 14, April 4, 1925, p. 435 (“Can We Have a Balanced Farm Program?” cont’d). That same year, “San Diego shipped 11,000 bales of Imperial Valley cotton to Mexican mills, November 13.”—
California Cultivator
, vol. LXV, no. 21, November 21, 1925, p. 516 (“Agricultural News Notes of the Pacific Coast”: “Southern California”).

Imperial Valley average yield, 1917: a bale per acre (b/a)—Packard, p. 24.

Average yield, 1953, 1954 (1.54 b/a and 1.89 b/a)—Imperial County Agricultural Commission papers. B. A. Harrigan, Agricultural Commissioner, annual reports for relevant years.

Lettuce grower’s remarks, 1958—California State Archives. Department of Food and Agriculture. Bureau of Marketing. Marketing-order files, Box 3. State of California, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Markets hearing on proposed marketing order for winter lettuce. Wednesday, December 17, 1958, beginning ten o’clock, a.m., El Centro, California. P. 365 (testimony of Richard Campbell).

The Minnesota farmboy’s take—Paul Foster reports (2007) (“Imperial Color Commentary”).

California second only to Texas for cotton, 1965—California Department of Agriculture (1965), p. 18.

Profitability of Imperial County cotton, 1965—ICAC papers, p. 6.

“Some of the land between the Colorado River and the Salton Sea is irrigated . . .”
—Bol’shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopedia
, vol. 17, p. 77 (entry on the Imperial Valley).

Footnote: Imperial, Riverside and Los Angeles cotton figures, 1974—Census Bureau, 1974, pp. 11, 31, 32 (cotton, 1974). Exact Imperial numbers: 241 farms, 73,164 acres, 185,189 bales harvested, from which I calculate a yield of 2.53 b/a.

Mexicali Valley cotton figures, 2000—Munguía, p. 84 (Saillé et al.). Exact numbers: 71,320 acres of cotton in irrigation modules five and six.

Richard Brogan—Interviewed in Calexico, April 2004.

Footnote: World cotton figures, 2004—
New York Times
, Tuesday, June 29, 2004, “World Business” sec., p. WI (Todd Benson, “Brazil’s Big Stake in Cotton Likely to Become Bigger,” sidebar: “Cotton Kings”). Same article, p. W7: U.S. cotton production is projected to decline by 29% if the World Court ruling against American cotton subsidies ($19 billion a year) is upheld.

Cotton performance in Imperial County, 2005—ICAC papers, p. 10.

118 . San Luis Río Colorado (
ca.
1968)

Epigraph: “And when the carpenters had hurried on . . .”—Bradbury, p. 78.

The hairdresser—Evalía Pérez de Navarro, interviewed in her establishment in San Luis while she was cutting my hair, October 2003, Terrie Petree interpreting.

119 . Certified Seed (1959)

Epigraph: “Nor can I sing in lyric strains . . .”:—
I.W.W. Songs
, p. 39 (Joachim Raucher, “Renunciation”).

New categories of agricultural commodities—Imperial County Agricultural Commission papers. Agricultural Commissioner Claude M. Finnell, annual report, 1959, pp. 4 and 5.

Complaint of lettuce grower: chain stores are controlling the buying more; lettuce shippers lose control of processing. —California State Archives. Department of Food and Agriculture. Bureau of Marketing. Marketing order files, Box 3. State of California, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Markets hearing on proposed marketing order for winter lettuce. Wednesday, December 17, 1958, beginning ten o’clock, a.m., El Centro, California. P. 212 (S. M. Beard).

120 . Subdelineations: Ocean Parkscapes (1966 -1993)

Epigraph: “. . . the tension of ‘something about to happen’ . . .”—Diebenkorn, p. 41 (Jane Livingston).

Diebenkorn moves into Ocean Park (1966)—Ibid., p. 57 (Jane Livingston).

“Rarely has an artist been more finely attuned to nuances. . .”—Ibid., p. 75 (Jane Livingston).

He describes the flattening out of his paintings in L.A.—Ibid., p. 58.

“Ocean Park No. 107”—Ibid., p. 76 (Figure 39).

“Each one creates its own, self-contained chromatic universe” and primacy of Diebenkorn over Rothko—Ibid., p. 65 (Jane Livingston).

“Well off the mark”—Ibid., p. 68.

“Finally, when all hands were seated . . .”—Bell, p. 3.

“The hesitant-yet-defining diagonal cutaway” and “the half-erased boundary”—Ibid., p. 73 (Jane Livingston).

Diebenkorn on his enjoyment in altering—Ibid., p. 72.

“A visibly imperfect surface that shows signs of its repair”—Ibid., p. 109 (John Elderfield).

“Ocean Park No. 32”—Diebenkorn, p. 68 (Figure 33).

“Ocean Park No. 14½

“Ocean Park No. 14½ ” and “Ocean Park No. 24”—Ibid., pp. 202-3 (Figures 151-52).

“Ocean Park No. 116”—Ibid., p. 225 (Figure 180).

“An architecture . . . increasingly . . . eroded of complexity”—Ibid., p. 112 (John Elderfield).

“Untitled (Ocean Park)”—Ibid., p. 245 (Figure 201).

“Ocean Park No. 128”—Ibid., p. 252 (Figure 208).

“Ocean Park No. 133”—Ibid., p. 255 (Figure 210).

“Ocean Park No. 27”—Ibid., p. 203 (Figure 153).

“Still, he always seemed to be in the process of leaving . . .”—Ibid., p. 114 (John Elderfield).

Diebenkorn in Salt River Canyon, 1970—Ibid., p. 39 (Jane Livingston).

Descriptions of two Salt River works—Ibid., p. 38 (Figures 12, 13).

121. Los Angeles (1950)

Epigraph: “The Indians sternly beckoned us . . .”—Pattie, p. 201.

Mr. R. J. Smith: “Well, I think that there are a number of people, Harry . . .”—California State Archives. Department of Food and Agriculture. Bureau of Marketing. Marketing-order files, 1941-1971. Box 3. State of California, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Markets. Hearing upon a proposed marketing order for chilled orange juice. Held in Mirror Building, Los Angeles, California, Tuesday and Wednesday, August 2 and 3, 1960. Alice Book, certified shorthand reporter. Pp. 51-52.

“Imperial County since the war . . .”—Tout,
The First Thirty Years
, p. 236.

“A great, screaming frenzy of cars”—Kerouac,
On the Road
, p. 99. By the way, in
On the Road
, Indio and Blythe are lumped in with “the Arizona desert” (loc. cit).

“In about 1950 they first started complaining about parking downtown. . .”—Marjorie Sa’adah, interviewed September 2004.

“The city’s transportation system resulted not from conspiracy . . .”—Sitton and Deverell, p. 68 (Matthew W. Roth, “Mulholland Highway and the Engineering Culture of Los Angeles in the 1920s”).

“A regular hell is L.A.”—Kerouac,
The Dharma Bums
, p. 89.

Appurtenances of the Los Angeles River in 1955—California State Archives. Margaret C. Felts papers. Box 1. Folder: “1898-1965, ‘A History of the L.A. District,’ U. S. Army Corps of Engineers,” p. 181.

“New residents come to California, and come and come . . .”—Lilliard, pp. 4-5.

My parents’ memories—Thomas and Tanis Vollmann recollections (2003), all 3 pages.

“From Swim Suit to Ski Lift . . .”—Orange County Directory (1951), unnumbered preliminary pages.

Opinions of Jake on the above—Jake Dickinson, interviewed by phone, May 2007.

Kerouac on South Main Street and “little gone girls”—
On the Road
, p. 99.

Length and capacity of the Colorado River Aqueduct—Colorado River Association (1952), p. 15.

Lockheed: Water “in abundant supply at fair costs”—California State Archives. Margaret C. Felts papers. Box 1,
Master Plan for USAF Plant 14
(cited in detail in notes to “Los Angeles 1925”), p. 19. Date: 1966.

122 . San Diego (1920 -1960)

Epigraph: “So, you see, we have to add to Barbara’s list of the uses of water . . .”—Richards, p. 105.

Population, water capacity and usage statistics for San Diego in 1950—San Diego City Directory (1950), p. 12. Pryde notes (p. 111) that between 1920 and 1930 more people entered the city of San Diego than made up the entire population in 1910.

San Diego’s record crop returns for 1950—
California Farmer
, vol. 192, no. 8 (April 22, 1950), p. 358 (“Agricultural News Notes of the Pacific Coast”: “Southern California”).

“Luckily the rainy years before the war . . .” and doubling of water consumption during 1941-43 and dates of formation of SDCWA, of SDCWA’s joining MWD, of first water flow to San Diego through the All-American Canal—San Diego County Water Authority, pp. 38-39.

Per capita use in San Diego (County, I think, not city, but this is not specified and the figure is probably about the same)—San Diego County Water Authority, p. 2.

And so capacity is doubled—The third pipeline from the second aqueduct was finished in 1960 (Pryde, p. 112).

123 . Tijuana (1966 -2065)

Epigraph: “Tijuana multiplies film’s capacity for spectacle . . .”—MOCA San Diego, unnumbered 1st page of essay “Tijuana: Between Reality and Fiction.”

Philip K. Dick’s Tijuana—Op. cit., pp. 172-73, 199-200, 202.

Census data on Mexicali and Tijuana, 1960-2000—Munguía, p. 158 (José Luis Castro Ruiz).

Description of Tijuana in 1932—Griffing Bancroft, pp. 9, 11, 13.

My parents’ memories—Thomas and Tanis Vollmann recollections (2003), unnumbered pp. 2-3.

124 . Tecate (1950)

The old man on the park bench in Tecate—Unnamed, but in 8” x 10” neg MX-TC-LOC-03-01, interviewed and photographed in 2003.

“Nobody cares about Tecate! . . .”—Augustín Pérez Aguilar, reporter for
La Frontera
(Tijuana). Interviewed in English in a restaurant in Tijuana Centro, July 2004. Terrie Petree was present.

During the second half of the century, Tecate will grow by a larger factor than either of her two sisters, but if we follow these cities over the entire century, we find that Mexicali has multiplied more than half a million (that being her population in 2000), Tijuana, by less than 5,000; Tecate, by 613.

Census data on Mexican cities, 1900-2000—Munguía, p. 158 (José Luis Castro Ruiz). I have done the “multiple of” calculations.

125 . Holtville (1905-1964)

Epigraph: “The ‘Carrot Capital of the World’ . . .”—Imperial Valley Directory (1952), p. 320.

Holtville news from 1905—
California Cultivator
, vol. XXIV, no. 26 (June 30, 1905), p. 611 (“News of Country Life in the Golden West”).

Holtville advice from 1964—Imperial County Pioneers Museum, item cat. #A2002.154.2, Ball Advertising, pamphlet: “Visitors’ Recreation Guide Book to Imperial County California: 36 Pages of Information” (
ca.
1964), p. 8.

The undated photograph—ICHSPM photograph, cat. #P2204.102.18.

126 . What a Cold Starry Night Used to Be Like (1949 -1989)

Epigraph: “And giants lived in this Sun.”—Joseph and Henderson, p. 59 (Anonymous, “The Origin of the Aztecs”).

Alice Woodside’s memories—Interview of February 2004, Sacramento.

PART TEN

DISSOLUTIONS

128 . Probably the Weather (2002 -2003)

Epigraph: “There is no ill which lasts a hundred years . . .”—Hart, p. 133, slightly “retranslated.”

The following data analysis is indicative. From Paul Foster reports (2007) (“Imperial Color Commentary”):