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FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | SEPTEMBER 2020 7 1939 and still serves the ever-thirsty Angelinos 80 years later. But the over 800-foot deep Potrero Ranch shaft proved to be a major challenge. In July 1934, diggers unexpectedly hit a large underground stream. A gush exceeding 10,000 gallons per minute flooded the incomplete shaft. The workers barely escaped with their lives! Excavation resumed after several powerful pumps had been put to work around the clock. High-flow pumping had to be continued while the main tunnel was being bored. The outflow created a lake that reached Massacre Canyon, cutting a deep trench along the way. As a consequence, springs in the area dried up. Owners received some compensation, but the land turned arid and became worthless. In 1940, Forrest Stanton bought Potrero Ranch from the Wolfskill heirs. Stanton's successors sold the property to the Lockheed Company in 1960. Later that year, a piloted American U2 plane was shot down over Soviet territory. As a result, the US government accelerated plans to produce an unmanned spy airplane to be launched from a high- altitude plane. Lockheed won the contract to develop the rocket engine for the supersonic drone. Rancho Potrero's isolated location was an ideal test site for motors and solid propellants. In the 1970s, the ranch became a weapons and ballistics testing ground. In YouTube, one can find videos of the heavily-graffitied remains of the Lockheed complex. The concrete structures are located near the Potrero shaft by the old farmhouse, close to the intersection of Highland Springs Road and Wolfskill Truck Trail. Those abandoned buildings and the nearby debris from the aqueduct tunnel construction boost speculation about a secret underground military compound. Nowadays, most of Potrero Ranch has been turned over to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. It is a federally designated shelter for an endangered species of kangaroo rats. Occasionally, there is talk of opening the site to visitors. But, the presence of active pollution-monitoring wells suggests that soil contamination remains a concern. That is to say nothing about possible unexploded ordnance in the apparently unmarked firing ranges. Until then, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife will keep us safe and I look forward to the day I can see these historical relics firsthand. Note: "History of the Potrero Ranch and its Neighbors" (Garfield M. Quimby, 1975), "History of Riverside County" (Elmer Wallace Holmes, 1912), and "Driving the Difficult San Jacinto Tunnel" (R. E. Melbourne, South California Quarterly) are valuable references. continued from previous page

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