The Rindge Behind the Dam
May K. Rindge with her children Samuel, family dog, Frederick Jr. and Rhoda Agatha on a local beach circa 1896. (Photo courtesy of local historian and author Suzanne Guldimann.)
May Knight Rindge was God fearing and that was all she feared. Widowed in 1905 at 41 years old with three young children, Rindge continued to manage what she and her belated husband Frederick owned, which was all of Malibu. In 1892, the couple had bought Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit, a one-time Spanish land grant, and most of the homesteads around it. With a gun holster on her hip, she became known as the Queen of Malibu, allowing no one to encroach on her property, extending 25 miles along the coast north from Las Flores Canyon and 2.5 miles inland.
She hired vaqueros to burn out rustlers and squatters. She hired lawyers to drive out Southern Pacific Railroad (SPR) and the Division of Highways (DOH). She strategically built railroads and dams. Her 15-mile private railroad took advantage of a law stating only one rail system could go through a property. It prevented SPR from building a rail line from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara along the coast. By the early 1920s, when a reliable water supply became essential to sustain her 13K+ acre cattle and agricultural ranch, she built her own private dam.
May Rindge (on the right) with an unidentified companion, crosses her Hueneme, Malibu, Port Los Angles Railway trestle bridge over Malibu Creek shortly after she built the stretch of railroad c. 1905. This same stretch of railroad track was later repurposed to help build Rindge dam. Photo courtesy of local historian and author Suzanne Guldimann.
Rindge hired Wayne Loel, a distinguished geologist and engineer of the time. He oversaw the planning and construction of a dam that could store over 500 acre-feet of water on Malibu Creek. The dam broke ground in March 1924 without a State permit, although the State Engineer periodically sent personnel to check on construction.
Ranch hands blazed a two-mile road up the narrow canyon, hauling in 30,000 sacks of imported, slow-drying cement. They also hauled up rails from her dismantled railroad for repurposing in the dam’s construction. Mixing the sacks of cement with water from the creek and aggregate materials obtained on site, they carefully poured the wet cement into the forms from buckets suspended by two cables spanning Malibu Canyon. There are no construction joints in the dam, requiring a continuous-pour method of new concrete over the previous pour within 24 hours.
Early photos of Rindge Dam: Left, a postcard image of the dam (photo courtesy of the Wienberg (Eric) Collection of Malibu Matchbooks, Postcards, and Ephemera of the Pepperdine Libraries Special Collections and Archives). Center, Rindge Dam before completion of the spillway, 1925. Right, the dam caretaker’s house, 1930 (photos courtesy of the California State Water Board).
At 102 feet tall, Rindge Dam was completed in December 1924 with a storage capacity of 574 acre-feet. Because of Rindge’s cost of the highway lawsuits and conflicts with the original dam engineers, the spillway was delayed in completing (she lost the 18-year highway litigation case; a Supreme Court ruling allowed for the public coastal highway through her property). The spillway with four radial gates and a maximum capacity of 5,000 cubic feet per second was completed in September 1926. The total cost of Rindge Dam with spillway was $152,927 ($2,714,454.25 in today’s dollar.)
The cost of the dam, legal fees as well as owed back taxes created mounting debt for Rindge. By 1926, cash poor but land rich, she was forced to start leasing then eventually subdividing and selling parcels of her ranch. One of her first developments was Malibu Colony on the sands of Malibu, building and renting cottages—and later selling them—to early Hollywood stars such as Bing Crosby, Gloria Swanson, and Mary Pickford.
Within five years, the dam was also having issues. An inspection noted that severe flooding had damaged the soft rock backing the spillway. Accumulating sediment from seasonal flooding was rapidly reducing storage capacity. Heavy flooding was also obstructing the outlets. Even with the outlets cleared, the diminishing storage capacity limited the amount of deliverable water through the irrigation system. By June 1945, the reservoir's storage capacity was less than 80 acre-feet, about 15% of the original capacity.
Upstream view of Rindge Dam and spillway in the 1940s after several wildfires and subsequent erosion of the surrounding hillsides. The dam became heavily silted in. Photo, property of Malibu Adamson House Foundation.
During the Southern California oil boom, Rindge hoped to rebound from her accumulating expenses by finding oil on her property. She only discovered an unusual clay instead, which established the famed Malibu Tile Pottery Company. (The artistic tile is on display at the historic Adamson House adjacent to Malibu Lagoon.) However, her debt continued to grow. When Rindge died in 1941, she had $750 to her name.
The historic Adamson House, originally owned by May Rindge’s daughter, Rhoda Agatha Rindge Adamson, features Malibu tiles (pictured here around doorway and windows, and roof line) from the Malibu Pottery Company and is now part of Malibu Lagoon State Park, open for public tours. Visit https://www.adamsonhouse.org to learn more. (photo courtesy of California State Parks)
After May’s death, the family-owned Malibu Water Company continued to provide irrigation water from the dam to residents engaged in commercial agriculture at the mouth of Malibu Canyon where May once had her fields of fruits and vegetables. By the 1950s, more residential development led to a demand for domestic water that came from wells also owned and operated by the Rindge family.
By 1963, continuing floods had nearly filled Rindge Dam with silt, rock, gravel, and debris, rendering the 8-inch distribution pipe inoperable. Upon request by the Malibu Water Company to Public Utilities Commission in January 1967, the dam was officially decommissioned.
In 1984, Rindge Dam was incorporated into Malibu Creek State Park. As part of the MCERP, the dam’s history as well as the Rindge family legacy is being included in the planned roadside interpretive site at historic Sheriff’s Overlook above the dam. Visitors will be able to view the dam removal, learn about the Malibu Creek watershed and local cultural history, all while taking in the area’s majestic beauty.
Rindge Dam today.
References:
National Register of Historic Places Evaluation of Rindge Dam, Malibu Creek State Park, Los Angeles County, California by Scott Thompson, Simon Herbert, and Matthew A . Sterner
The King and Queen of Malibu by David K. Randall, 2016