Rivers in the Desert
William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los Angeles
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Rivers in the Desert
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Narrated by:
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Paul Boehmer
About this listen
Rivers in the Desert follows the remarkable career of William Mulholland, the visionary who engineered the rise of Los Angeles as the greatest American city west of the Mississippi. He sought to transform the sparse and barren desert into an inhabitable environment by designing the longest aqueduct in the Western Hemisphere, bringing water from the mountains to support a large city.
This "fascinating history" chronicles Mulholland's dramatic ascension to wealth and fame - followed by his tragic downfall after the sudden collapse of the dam he had constructed to safeguard the water supply (Newsweek). The disaster, which killed at least 500 people, caused his repudiation by allies, friends, and a previously adoring community. Epic in scope, Rivers in the Desert chronicles the history of Los Angeles and examines the tragic fate of the man who rescued it.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 327
Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like, "a roaring surf," one of them said later. Like, "a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence," said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window - "Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour.
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3 out of 5 stars
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INTERESTING STORY - ABOUT 2x TOO LONG
- By The Louligan on 09-07-14
By: Stephen Puleo
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Hoover Dam
- An American Adventure
- By: Joseph E. Stevens
- Narrated by: Kevin Charles Minatrea
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken: the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyed this book
- By Nancy Ann on 02-18-20
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The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30,560
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25,245
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25,234
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
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The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,470
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,171
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,172
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
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4 out of 5 stars
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No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
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Trapped!
- The Story of Floyd Collins
- By: Robert K. Murray, Roger W. Brucker
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 213
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 179
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 177
The sensationalism and hysteria of the rescue attempt in early 1925 of caver Floyd Collins generated America's first true media spectacle and one of the seminal events of the century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A real gem of an audio
- By John on 11-29-09
By: Robert K. Murray, and others
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Fire and Brimstone
- The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
- By: Michael Punke
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 367
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 315
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 317
The worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began a half hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, when fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company's Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked more than 2,000 feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Within an hour more than 400 men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days 164 of them would be dead.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fairly Solid Book With Good History
- By Matthew on 08-18-16
By: Michael Punke
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Conquering Gotham
- The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels
- By: Jill Jonnes
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
The demolition of Penn Station in 1963 destroyed not just a soaring neoclassical edifice, but also a building that commemorated one of the last century's great engineering feats: the construction of railroad tunnels into New York City. Now, in this gripping narrative, Jill Jonnes tells this fascinating story - a high-stakes drama that pitted the money and will of the nation's mightiest railroad against the corruption of Tammany Hall, the unruly forces of nature, and the machinations of labor agitators.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A good tale of the times
- By Edouard on 02-08-08
By: Jill Jonnes
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King and Queen of Malibu
- The True Story of the Battle for Paradise
- By: David K. Randall
- Narrated by: Eric Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
Over a half century, Malibu went from an untamed ranch in the middle of nowhere to a paradise seeded with movie stars. Behind its transformation is the love story of Frederick and May Rindge. He was a Harvard-trained confidant of presidents; she grew up on a hardscrabble Midwestern farm; yet their unlikely bond would shape history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Detailed and interesting
- By SuperLuckyCat on 08-04-24
By: David K. Randall
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The Race Underground
- Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
- By: Doug Most
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 155
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 138
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Story4 out of 5 stars 137
In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew larger, the streets became increasingly clogged with horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a halt, a solution had to be found. Two brothers - Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York City - pursued the dream of his city being the first American metropolis to have a subway and the great race was on.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Informative Cobbled Telling of an Important Story
- By Lynn on 05-21-14
By: Doug Most
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Meet You in Hell
- Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 211
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
Here is history that reads like fiction: the riveting story of two founding fathers of American industry, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, and the bloody steelworkers' strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Author Les Standiford begins at the bitter end, when the dying Carnegie proposes a final meeting after two decades of separation. Frick's reply: "Tell him that I'll meet him in hell."
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3 out of 5 stars
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an extended journalistic tour
- By D. Littman on 06-08-05
By: Les Standiford
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Chief Engineer
- Washington Roebling, the Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: Erica Wagner
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, but after John Roebling's sudden death, Washington Roebling built what has become one of American's most iconic structures - as much a part of New York as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Yet, as recognizable as the bridge is, its builder is too often forgotten - and his life is of interest far beyond his chosen field. It is the story of immigrants, of the frontier, of the greatest crisis in American history, and of the making of the modern world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Monumental
- By charles mueller on 07-09-19
By: Erica Wagner
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The Mirage Factory
- Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 323
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 283
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 283
Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California - bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges - seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer; D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture; and Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great start, weak completion
- By steve on 05-11-21
By: Gary Krist
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The White Cascade
- The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
In February 1910, a monstrous blizzard centered on Washington State hit the Northwest, breaking records. The world stopped - but nowhere was the danger more terrifying than near a tiny town called Wellington, perched high in the Cascade Mountains, where a desperate situation evolved minute by minute: two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found themselves marooned without escape, their railcars gradually being buried in the rising drifts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A detailed, yet very readable account.
- By Rindt on 02-20-18
By: Gary Krist
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New World Coming
- The 1920s and the Making of Modern America
- By: Nathan Miller
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
Jazz. Bootleggers. Flappers. Talkies. Model T Fords. Lindbergh's history-making flight over the Atlantic. The 1920s was also the decade of the hard-won vote for women, racial injustice, censorship, social conflict, and the birth of organized crime.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My High School History Class Never Told
- By Charles Stembridge on 06-29-04
By: Nathan Miller
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The Big Rich
- The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
- By: Bryan Burrough
- Narrated by: James Jenner
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 699
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 531
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 530
Best-selling author Bryan Burrough reveals how four Texas oil tycoons transformed America. Rising from humble beginnings through hard work and shrewd dealings, they shifted the balance of power in American politics. While hobnobbing with movie stars and presidents, the Big Rich also created the legend of the swaggering Texas oilman with island hideaways and sprawling ranches.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Big, Sordid, Fascinating, PoliticallyCorrect
- By Darkcoffee on 11-09-09
By: Bryan Burrough
What listeners say about Rivers in the Desert
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Brian B
- 07-20-22
Water You Thinking?
She likes Mulholland but is fairly balanced. Interesting read and subject, and written such that it is suitable as an Audiobook.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Buretto
- 01-22-22
Water torture
Like a dry, but extraordinarily long, book report about a prominent local citizen, or a County Planning Board hearing considering the issue of commercial re-zoning. Pick your poison. There's so much minutiae about Mulholland's family, his daughter's love life, and quirky habits, it's hard to pick out the bits that hold some legitimate interest on the subject at hand. It's been a while since I read Water to the Angels, but it must have been better than this, and a significantly better title as well.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Nancy Pf
- 05-19-24
Many inaccuracies-do some independent reseach
This book deals primarily with the difficulties of building the infrastructure of transporting the water from the Owns Valley to LA. It pretty well leaves the impression that the San Francis dam failed because of geological factors. It is my understanding that the primary reason the dam failed was because the dam what is designed by a self taught civil engineer – William Mulholland. Although he had used plans for similar dams previously, he made last minute changes to this dam’s dimensions, and failed to realize that changing one part of the plan necessitates adjustment of other parts of the construction of the dam. There is a lot of information ,from reliable sources on this issue. I would encourage you to do some reading on your own on this interesting topic.
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