Great God Pan

As early as the turn of the century land developers in California realized that people did not mind the heat as much as they minded the bugs, humidity and long winters that side of the Mississippi. Westward migrants were perfectly happy in the 115 degree heat as long as they had some shade and, most importantly, lots of water.

In 1901 speculators George Chaffey and Charles Rockwood diverted part of the mighty Colorado River into the uninhabited below-sea-level mud flat called the Salton Sink, and with some clever marketing, an agricultural Eden was created. They called it the Imperial Valley. Things went well until 1905 when Rockwood's canal silted up. Desperate to avoid lawsuits from his farming clients, he cut a new intake. In those days, before Hoover, Parker, and Glen Canyon dams, the Colorado was still a wild and unpredictable beast, with floods of well over 100,000 cubic feet per second not at all uncommon. That spring the Colorado's course shifted slightly westward and gravity led it to the unsuspecting and quite inadequate manmade canals. Shortly Rockwood's makeshift dams were swept away and, along with the bulk of the muddy Colorado, went rushing to the depths of the Salton Sink, some 250 feet below the level of the sea. Daunted by the sight of his empire succumbing to a new ocean that was rising seven inches a day, Rockwell quit.

For two years engineers on orders from President Theodore Roosevelt labored day and night with locomotive, dredge, barge, steam shovel, mule team, plows, dump trucks, and Indian laborers to turn the river back to the delta and away from the Imperial Valley. By the time they succeeded the Salton Sea was forty-two miles long and sixteen miles wide and seventy-nine feet deep.

By the 1920's the sea had leveled off to a depth of twenty-five feet deep, and with Los Angeles's burgeoning populace hungry for recreation, the speculators returned. But instead of farmland, they were now peddling leisure. In Salton City and North Salton Beach lakeside resorts sprung up, complete with motels, boat marinas, cocktail bars and hot dog stands. In the forties and fifties Salton Sea was a hub for motorized recreators what with its tranquil waters to be skied, duck and geese to be hunted, fish to be fished, nearby dunes to be buggied, and ample motor home courts to be parked in. But in 1950 the sea began to rise again and many of the new facilities were flooded in the salty bog. And with the subsequent creation of freshwater playpens such Lakes Mead, Havasu, and Powell, the Salton Sea lost its glimmer.

Today Salton Sea offers the visitor hardly a hint of its former glory; North Salton Beach feels like the last outpost of humankind after nuclear holocaust. There is a foul wharfy smell blowing in a hot wind and, shoreside, the oily water laps lazily across the decaying corpses of thousands and thousands of fish. Carp, most likely. The terrain near the lake is crusted with salt from previous floods and water marks rise two feet on some of the modular abodes. All commercial concerns are boarded up and abandoned. A cursory exam of a filling station finds stacks of receipts, unused belts and hoses, a collectible old Ford truck with its window smashed and tires flattened. Through the broken window of the motel next door one can see a drinking glass still wrapped in its sanitary plastic, a dusty pair of water skis, a portrait of Satan in red spray paint on the wall. Gulls nest inside the cocktail lounge, unable to find shelter in the stunted, deformed palm trees outside.

But there is still life. The marina is crowded with Airstream trailers and Winnebegos. On the wide streets, though many homes are locked or boarded, some have evidence of inhabitants: open windows, green lawns, cars and dune buggies offered for sale in the lawn. An old man is in the driveway washing a car with a garden hose; on the neighbors front door are emblazoned the words: Eat Pussy.