America may be considered a land of plenty, but not necessarily when it comes to rain. Droughts often devastated large swaths of the country during the nineteenth century, from Kansas all the way to California. As a result, the need for rain inevitably gave rise to a “part snake-oil salesman, part pseudoscientist” called the rainmaker, who claimed to have the ability to control the weather and make it rain. Considering the impact the lack of precipitation had on crops, it should be no surprise that there were plenty of desperate farmers willing to hire them.
In 1902, a young man named Charles Hatfield came up with his own concoction of chemicals designed to make it rain, and it wasn’t long before he was conjuring clouds on his father’s olive ranch in Southern California. While most rainmakers had given up the craft by then, Hatfield embarked on a career that found remarkable success – or, depending on one’s point of view, he was phenomenal lucky at being at the right place, at the right time. In January 1916, however, Hatfield was decidedly at “the wrong place at the wrong time,” as his efforts to help rain-starved San Diego coincided with a torrential downpour that flooded the region and laid waste to the city.
In his 2005 biography of Charles Hatfield – The Wizard of Sun City – British journalist Garry Jenkins not only recites the story of Hatfield’s career as a rainmaker but gives a day-to-day breakdown of events in San Diego during the month of January 1916. The Southern California city was continuously in need of fresh water, one of the few negatives of living in the land of sunshine. San Diego operated a number of dams to help alleviate the problem but a current drought had caused the available water supply to dramatically dwindle. By December 2015, the city council was desperate and turned to Hatfield.
In 1904, Charles Hatfield had used his rainmaking skills to end a drought in nearby Los Angeles. The feat resulted in a great deal of publicity, and he was soon finding work throughout the Midwest. The newly formed United States Weather Bureau went on the offensive, labeling Hatfield a fraud and arguing that there were meteorological reasons for the rain that seemed to fall everywhere Hatfield visited. As a result of their negative campaign, Hatfield was soon experiencing a drought of opportunities and was looking to reinvigorate his career in San Diego.
Charles Hatfield pitched three offers to San Diego’s city council, including the one ultimately accepted – “To fill Morena Reservoir to overflowing between now and December 20, 1916, for the sum of $10,000.” The acceptance was verbal, however, and no written contract between the city and Hatfield was ever signed. The rainmaker believed it was a “good faith” agreement nonetheless, and on January 1, 1916, set up camp on the northern slopes of Lake Morena, including the observation tower that Hatfield used to unleash his secret rainmaking formula.
Herbert Nimmo, the Weather Bureau representative in San Diego, had earlier outlined both the positives and negatives of living in the region. The average temperature was 61 degrees, and there were only nine days a year without sunshine. Rainfall, meanwhile, amounted to a mere 10.91 inches per year, with ninety percent of that occurring between November 1 and May 1. “Excessive rainfall, defined as more than 2.5 inches in 24 hours, has occurred but three times,” he noted.
Aware that a storm was brewing for January 10, 1916, Nimmo released a short, three-word forecast – “Monday probably rain.” Seven-tenths of an inch of rain fell that day, followed by two days of sunshine. It again rained on Thursday, only this time it did not let up. The following day, San Diego residents began openly wondering if Charles Hatfield was responsible. By Sunday, over 153 million gallons of water – from rain and river runoffs – had been added to the city’s water supply, with 119 million of those gallons in Morena Reservoir. Herbert Nimmo’s forecast for the next day was now five words long, “Unsettled weather, with occasional rain.”
On Monday, January 17 – the fifth straight day of rain – the rivers in Mission Valley overflowed. The Santa Fe railroad line was underwater and homes were seen floating away due to the flooding. Canoes were even used downtown to ferry those stranded by the water to safety.
“Hatfield’s name was on almost every tongue in San Diego yesterday,” the San Diego Union reported. “Many were inclined to jest when his operations were mentioned, but all agreed that things were coming his way. And there were many others, cooped up in their homes, or wading about the streets with umbrellas who have begun to take the Morena dam’s ‘rainmaker’s’ pact with the city seriously.”
San Diego’s water supply kept increasing, reaching record levels. Even Herbert Nimmo of the Weather Bureau was baffled by the deluge, with his forecast on Wednesday simply stating, “It may rain some more and then it may not.” By Monday, January 24, 1916, the Morena Reservoir was filled, containing 10 billion gallons for the first time in its brief history. Charles Hatfield had succeeded in achieving the impossible in an unbelievably short period of time. Unfortunately, the rain wasn’t ready to stop, and the Lower Otay Dam burst three days later.
“Sixteen years earlier, in 1900, the tidal wave that accompanied the great hurricane in Galveston was believed to have generated 1,000 tons of force,” Garry Jenkins noted in The Wizard of Sun City. “It was powerful enough to destroy artillery emplacements that were designed to withstand Spanish bombardments. The wave that was now released into the narrow Otay Valley carried a compatible force. Its twelve-mile journey to San Diego Bay would take only forty-eight minutes. During that time, it was not going to encounter anything remotely as resilient as gunnery emplacements.”
Only one of the 24 houses in Otay Valley survived the onslaught. There were numerous deaths, and $3.7 million dollars’ worth of damage. Charles Hatfield was oblivious to all the destruction until he finally made his was down from the northern slopes of Lake Morena to collect his $10,000 paycheck. Instead of being hailed as a conquering hero, he was treated as a villain and had to hide his identity during his journey to downtown San Diego. City council, meanwhile, refused to honor their verbal agreement.
Rain, floods, and unpredictable weather patterns are legally considered “acts of God,” and the city of San Diego therefore could not be held accountable for the death and destruction that occurred in January 1916. If the city council actually paid Charles Hatfield for his services as a rainmaker, however, blame – as well as legal liability – could potentially fall on them, something council members were dead set against. A written contract was offered to Hatfield after the fact in which Hatfield would assume all legal liabilities in exchange for his $10,000 payment. He obviously declined to sign the document.
Despite the setback, Charles Hatfield continued to make a living as a rainmaker, finding success despite the U.S. Weather Bureau’s continuing efforts to discredit him. The Great Depression and building of the Boulder Dam – which diverted the Colorado River and supplied water to Southern California – inevitably ended his career. He remained adamant throughout his life, however, that the city of San Diego still owed him $10,000, often declaring, “The rain of 1916 was an act of Hatfield, not an act of God.”
Anthony Letizia