Pacific Rolling Mill Co. v. Bear Valley Irrigation Co.

The defendant, Bear Valley Irrigation Company, was incorporated under the laws of this state for the purpose of engaging in very many kinds of business. Among other of its undertakings was that of constructing a canal or aqueduct, *95 called “Santa Ana canal,” from a point on the Santa Ana river, known as the company’s head works, through what is called Blair’s Pass, to the Alessandro & Perris Irrigation districts, in Biverside county. The entire proposed line of canal comprised what are termed in the transcript divisions 1, 2, 3, and 4. The work of construction began about December, 1892; divisions 1 and 2 were completed September 16, 1893, when construction work ceased; division 3 was partly graded; division 4 was only surveyed. The route of the canal was down the Santa Ana river for about three miles, where it left that stream and crossed the dividing water shed to Mill creek, where at the head of what is called the Alessandro pipe line of the company, previously constructed and in operation, divisions 1 and 2 ended. Division 3 vras to follow substantially the route already taken by the Alessandro pipe line to Blair’s Pass. Below this point the line was called division 4.…