You’re looking at a town that’s about to disappear. It’s a victim not of natural disaster, but of California’s unquenchable thirst. In 1953, California governor Earl Warren said, quote, every month, 30,000 people are coming to California, and not one of them brings a gallon of water. And so a dam was approved that would flood the town of Monticello in Northern California. By the end of the decade. Photographer Dorothea Lange sold life magazine on the idea of documenting the final year of the town’s existence. In 1956 and 57, she enlisted the help of fellow Bay Area photographer Purkle Jones for this massive undertaking. What I find fascinating about this story is that it’s an exceedingly rare circumstance to know that a town is about to disappear. This gave Lang and Jones the opportunity to document each and every aspect of his systematic dismantling. Some homes were moved, others were stripped of their useful components and the remains burned. Immense oak trees hundreds of years old were cut down and cleared, cemeteries unearthed and occupants moved to higher ground. All traces of life were required to be removed or burned as a dam was built that would turn the valley into Lake Berryessa with over 520 billion gallons of water to be used for mass agriculture and industry further south. This would be the final major documentary project for Lange, who had worked for the Farm Security Administration documenting the Great Depression and then for the War Relocation Authority. Photographing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Here Jones discusses his experience working with Lange I was so pleased to be able to have the opportunity of working with Dorothea Lange, and it was a very rich experience, although Dorothea was very ill at the time, and I remember sometimes she would. We would go up and it would be in the heat of the summer and Dorothea would have a temperature of 102. But she had the tenacity of working even under those conditions. For reasons that weren’t made clear, life magazine turned down the finished story. But in the fall of 1960, the story took up a full issue of the quarterly photography magazine aperture, of which Lang was a co founder. Here’s a passage from the magazine. Albert A. Mackenzie storekeeper. He had spent his life in the store, as his father had before him. He was postmaster. He ran the community telephone switchboard. He gave free farm advice, legal and income tax advice. He served as a notary public and crop insurance salesman. He operated the two gas pumps and sold hunting licenses. He also cashed the valley’s checks all day long. Over the counter he heard orders such as give me a can of brake fluid and a package of weed seeds. The town exists now only in these images, a few remnants of foundations and a bridge that can be seen during severe droughts. Today, Lake Berryessa is the largest lake in Napa County and provides water and hydroelectric power to the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s also known for its glory hole, which keeps the dam from overflowing, and when water levels are low, it’s a popular spot for skaters to shred the 28.8 foot full pipe. I’ll close with lines from the editorial in that issue of Aperture Quote bulldozers are only slightly slower than atomic bombs. The nature of destruction is not altered by calling it the price of progress.