Water and Land Rights
In the 1900s, Phelan bought land and water acreage in various places around the San Francisco Bay Area, and he obtained the rights to the water flow of the Tuolumne River in Hetch Hetchy Valley. Ethan A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior under President Theodore Roosevelt, tried to stop Phelan, but Roosevelt decided that the wild area could be used for "the permanent material development of the region." Phelan's plans for the region included publicly-funded water and electricity for a geographical entity he called "Greater San Francisco." With his Bohemian Club fellows, Phelan sought to annex land at the perimeter of San Francisco Bay.
Read more about this topic: James D. Phelan
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