The Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, carrying water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. The project enabled metropolitan growth while draining rural and Indigenous landscapes. It became a defining example of modern water engineering, urban ambition, and environmental conflict in the American West.

The aqueduct shaped western writing by turning water into a symbol of power, theft, desire, and engineered destiny. Later poets and environmental writers used dry lakes, canals, and thirsty cities to question the dream of unlimited growth in desert places.