It has to do with private investment, private improvements to the land, private wealth creation. IOW, pre-big-government history.
Henry Miller (an assumed name), a German immigrant, went west during the gold rush with only a few dollars in his pocket. He worked first as a butcher in San Francisco, then invested his earnings in land and began raising cattle. His ranching and meat-packing business thrived as California's population grew. Eventually, he and a partner owned more farmland in the West than any other individual or corporation. He was the first to run an integrated cattle ranching, irrigation and meatpacking enterprise. He built canals and reservoirs without government help--and before there was such a thing as a bulldozer--to water his herds of cattle in the dry areas of the San Joaquin Valley, Oregon and Nevada.
And the whole operation was headquartered at Los Banos, of all places.
Thanks for this history lesson. California has had a colorful history, a great history. Water rights for the Central and Southern part of the state continue to be part of this history. Frankly, as the Democrats continue their destruction of capitalism in the state, water may be the least of its problems.
I’ve been there. Don’t they have a lot of cattle pens?