The springs were “known to the Indians from ancient times,” and the Mexican land grant of 1837 that encompassed the land that is today Inglewood was named after the springs, the “sentinel of waters,” thus
Rancho Aguaje de la Centinela. (
Aguaje here means “water hole.”) According to a latter-day Inglewood water engineer, “The largest Centinela spring was located near the present site of the swimming pool” at
Centinela Park. The springs were described in an 1888 California state report on the “irrigation question”: :“South and west of the main crest of the Centinela hills, at the head of an
arroyo which, cutting into their western slope, leads around three or four miles into
Ballona Creek, opposite the irrigation district just described, is an uprising of waters known as the Centinela Springs. This is probably an output of the same general
artesian source lying east of the ridge, caused by the overlapping of some of the permeable gravel strata through a low sag in the primary formation. Indeed, borings, which have been made, quite well establish this idea. :“
Water-supply and use—The springs naturally flowed twenty to thirty
miner’s inches, and have recently been developed to yield something over fifty inches, as explained elsewhere. The waters were, for a number of years, used in a comparatively rude fashion in the irrigation of a mixed orchard, containing about one hundred and forty acres [], near a mile [] away, and to which they were led in a little earthen ditch. Now they are piped into a reservoir and in part pumped to a higher reservoir for the service, under pressure, of the town of Inglewood.” Also in 1888 an Inglewood booster wrote the
Los Angeles Herald of a “tunnel near Centinela Springs…being dug to tap additional springs, which have been located by the engineers.” An 1890 report to the
U.S. Congress said the springs had been developed by “excavation and artesian wells.” Daily capacity at that time was 900,000 [no units listed;
U.S. gallons?]. A book about California produced for the
1893 World's Fair reported, “[The town of Inglewood] is well-supplied with water from the celebrated Centinela springs, which is distributed by gravity, all over the townsite through an elaborate system of pipes.” More wells were dug in 1895: “Mr.
D. Freeman has just completed two wells north of his ranch house, and is now developing more artesian water at Centinela springs. One hundred inches of water is now flowing, and as there is an abundance of water at a depth of 100 feet, several hundred more inches will he secured for irrigation in
Olive Branch colony, south of town.” :WATER SUPPLY—Source, Inglewood springs and artesian wells; system pumping to reservoir, capacity 500,000 gals.; pump, dy. capacity 1,250,000 gals.; 3 hydrants; pipe 18 miles; 105 taps. Waterworks owned by company; ann. ex. $750. The city of Inglewood was incorporated in 1908 and as of the
1910 census had a population of 1,536. When the land from which the springs flowed was still owned by an independent water company (prior to acquisition by the City of Inglewood), likely in the early 1910s, “Once at an exposition at the
Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles the water company’s exhibit consisted of samples of Inglewood water, and it proved so popular with the thousands who sampled it, that [J. Warren] Lane conceived the idea of selling
bottled water from Centinela Springs, and the idea had advanced to the stage where it was proposed to put white tile and glass housing around the spring where the public could come and see under what clean and healthful condition the water was bottled.” By the early 1930s, water extraction had “overdrawn” the bank of groundwater in the area: “The entire coastal area of West Basin from Ballona Escarpment to
Palos Verdes Hills was intruded by salt water [flowing inland underground from the Pacific Ocean].” By the time of the
1940 census, the population of Inglewood had increased to 30,114, and demand on municipal water was growing apace. In 1949, the city of Inglewood petitioned to join the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and joined the West Basin Water Association at the same time, effectively ending its era of groundwater extraction. ==Monuments==