Eaton Land & Cattle Co. Permission Grants to Fish.

(Bishop, CA): Eaton Land and Cattle Co., 1920s. One printed permission slipped, with blanks to be filled in manuscript, and a Eaton Land and Cattle Company envelope with 2 cent postage preprinted. Excellent condition.In many ways Frederick Eaton was the man responsible for the growth of Los Angeles into a mega-city. In the early part of the 20th century, Eaton and William Mulholland hit on a scheme to buy all the water rights on the Owens River in the Eastern Sierra thereby ensuring Los Angeles with the water necessary for expansion. Thet accomplished this by buying all the property along the river. In doing so Eaton, a wealthy man who had once been the mayor of Los Angeles, acquired for his own purposes a large piece of land in the Long Valley of Mono County which he called the Eaton Land & Cattle Company. The following from an Eaton family member - "The [Eaton] family issued permits for those wanting to fish on Eaton property in Long Valley-it was also to prevent the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power from interfering with Eaton irrigation projects. For a while we had armed guards."