[SunkenCiv]

[snip] Here is a short documentary I did in '04 about Charlie Hatfield, the most famous "rainmaker".

"In 1915 the San Diego city council, pressured by the San Diego Wide Awake Improvement Club, approached Hatfield to produce rain to fill the Morena Dam reservoir. Hatfield offered to produce rain for free, then charge $1,000 per inch ($393.7 per centimetre) for between forty to fifty inches (1.02 to 1.27 m) and free again over fifty inches (1.27 m). The council voted four to one for a $10,000 fee, payable when the reservoir was filled. Hatfield, with his brother, built a 20-foot (6 m) tower beside Lake Morena and was ready early in the New Year.

On January 5, 1916 heavy rain began - and grew gradually heavier day by day. Dry riverbeds filled to the point of flooding. Worsening floods destroyed bridges, marooned trains and cut phone cables - not to mention flooding homes and farms. Two dams, Sweetwater Dam and one at Lower Otay Lake, overflowed. Rain stopped January 20 but resumed two days later. On January 27 Lower Otay Dam broke, increasing the devastation and reportedly causing about 20 deaths (accounts vary on the exact number)." [/snip]

Charlie Hatfield "The Rainmaker" | 9:07
txmgarygygax | 209 subscribers | 56,418 views | August 30, 2010

[SaveFerris]

Well, it rained, so.....

[Sequoyah101]

Where is Charlie when we need him? Like now.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I just watched your documentary about Hatfield. Very nice job! Quite professional work.

And a fascinating story, to boot! I like the ending where Hatfield and his lawyers were smart enough to drop their claim for the $10,000 because they knew he would be on the hook for millions in damages caused by the floods and dam failure.

I had no idea that the dam failure in San Diego was the fifth deadliest in US history.

[gloryblaze]

I think every old west TV series had a program about a rain maker and/or a water witcher, and always, somehow, viewers were left with the same question mark.

[Hot Tabasco]

That’s what got the McCoy’s so pissed off.....

[TChad]

Interesting post. He deserved to be paid.

[takebackaustin]

Sounds like Acts 1 ,2,3 of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Did the unpublished last act give us California as it is today? Hey, maybe they summoned a flood of illegals.