How a 19th-century drought gave us the L.A. we know today
1795 had been a drought year, as were the years between 1807 and 1809. Drought returned in 1822-1823, followed by floods in 1825, and three years of little rain from 1827 to 1829 and again in 1844-1846. Travel writer Emma Adams described the “annual panic” in Los Angeles when winter rains were overdue and “all classes of businessmen are at a white heat of anxiety.”