The document summarizes the history of how Los Angeles and Panama obtained reliable water sources. For Los Angeles, William Mulholland realized they needed a new water supply and proposed transporting water from the Owens Valley over 200 miles away via an aqueduct completed in 1913. For Panama, Ferdinand de Lesseps initially led a French effort to build a canal in the 1880s that failed due to disease and lack of technology, before the US took over the project in the early 1900s and opened the Panama Canal in 1914 after overcoming similar challenges. Both projects transformed the regions by bringing new water sources and development.

1. Panama & Los Angeles: The Waterworks That Made the American West Esthela Caito History 141 Professor M. Arguello